Abraham Lincoln will stand at the center of the seminar, though less as a biographical subject than as a prism for exploring key aspects of his age. The themes and topics to be addressed include slavery and the Old South; the abolitionist impulse and the broadening antislavery movement; party political realignment and the sectional crisis of the 1850s; evangelicalism and politics; the election of 1860, the secession of the Lower South, and the coming of war; wartime leadership, political and military; the Civil War 'home front'; emancipation; the elements of Confederate defeat and Union victory; and the meaning of the war for American nationalism.

The Progressive Era marked the modernization of the American state, the expansion of citizenship, the ascendancy of "big business," the transformation of American liberalism, and the development of a social politics. It was also the moment when the United States assumed the role of a world power, culminating in its participation in World War I and its role in negotiating the ambitious but flawed treaty that ended it. Taking exception to interpretations of the era that see "American exceptionalism," this seminar will explore the era and its reforms (and their limits) in the context of the larger global response to industrialization and urbanization under conditions of unregulated capitalism.

The Gilder Lehrman Summer Seminars are designed to strengthen participants' commitment to high quality history teaching. Public, parochial, independent school teachers, and National Park Service rangers are eligible. These week-long seminars provide intellectual stimulation and a collaborative context for developing practical resources and strategies to take back to the classroom.

Thomas Jefferson is best known as the author of the American Declaration of Independence. Beginning with the imperial crisis that led to the separation and union of 13 British colonies in North America, this course will focus on Jefferson's political thought and career in order to gain a broad perspective on the founding of the United States and its early history. Professors Peter Onuf and Frank Cogliano will emphasize the geopolitical context of the revolutionaries' bold efforts to establish republican governments and federal union. Jefferson and his patriot colleagues were acutely aware of the world historical significance of their revolution and therefore profoundly anxious about its ultimate outcome and legacy. By exploring the rich canon of his writings participants will seek to understand better what the Revolution meant for Jefferson and Jefferson meant for the Revolution. Major themes will include federalism, foreign policy, constitutionalism and party politics, and race and slavery.

A century and a quarter after it came to a close, Reconstruction remains a pivotal but much misunderstood era of American history. This one-week seminar will examine the history of Reconstruction, understood both as a specific period of the American past, which began during the Civil War, and as a prolonged and difficult process by which Americans sought to reunite the nation and come to terms with the destruction of slavery. In political terms, Reconstruction ended in 1877, when the federal government abandoned the idea of intervening in the South to protect the rights of black citizens. As a historical process it lasted to the turn of the century, until new systems of labor and race relations and a new political order were entrenched in the South. And in debates about racial equality, the interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment, affirmative action, and the responsibility of the federal government for defining and protecting the rights of citizens, issues central to Reconstruction remain part of our lives today. Reconstruction also offers an opportunity to consider the "politics of history:" how changing interpretations of the past are shaped by the world in which the historian lives and the assumptions he or she brings to the materials of history. During the course of the week, teachers will also annotate one or two documents from the Reconstruction period, for classroom use.

This seminar focuses on the era of the American Civil War and especially on the revolutionary transformation of social and political life in that critical period of U.S. history. Using an array of historical documents as well as lectures, discussions, and (possibly) visits to historical sites, seminar members will analyze the way a war of unprecedented scope drove a process of state building and slave emancipation that reconfigured the nation and remade the terms of political membership in it. Starting with the Supreme Court's decision in the Dred Scott case in 1857 and ending with the constitutional amendments of the postwar period, the seminar will take up the key events and developments in the Union and the Confederacy, including secession, the destruction of slavery (on plantations and in the law), African-American enlistment, and popular politics North and South. By focusing throughout on the racial and gender terms of citizenship, the seminar makes clear what changed—and what did not—in American political life, while conveying a sense of the epic drama by which the United States was remade in the vortex of war.

The Gilder Lehrman Summer Seminars are designed to strengthen participants' commitment to high quality history teaching. Public, parochial, independent school teachers, and National Park Service rangers are eligible. These week-long seminars provide intellectual stimulation and a collaborative context for developing practical resources and strategies to take back to the classroom.

Participants in this course will explore American Indian history in North Carolina from the earliest evidence of human habitation in the state through first contact with Europeans, the Trail of Tears, the Great Depression, the Civil Rights Movement, and into the present day.

Students often hold incorrect ideas about Native Americans and, in particular, know very little about the history and culture of American Indians right here in North Carolina. Archaeological finds, creation stories, the writings of early European explorers, government documents and treaties, stories handed down through oral tradition, indigenous crafts, newspaper articles, and more will enrich exploration of key issues in Native American history in North Carolina.

Moreover, thoughtful articles and lively discussions will allow participants to address modern issues such as the needs of American Indian students in North Carolina classrooms and present-day controversies such as the use of Indian-themed mascots in school athletic programs.

Ten teachers from the United States will join teachers from the United Kingdom and Ghana to study the history and legacies of the Transatlantic Slave Trade under the direction of professors James Walvin and Stephanie Smallwood. The seminar will cover the history of African-European contact, the nature of African societies in the 15th to 18th centuries, the existing slave trading practices in Africa, the impact of the slave trade on regions of Africa, the character of the coastal trade in the forts and castles, the experience of the Middle Passage, and the numbers and experience of African arrivals in the Americas. Participants will be introduced to major scholarship as well as to the new online Transatlantic Slave Trade Database. The Middle Passages seminar will focus on both historical content and classroom pedagogy, and will include visits to historical and cultural sites in Ghana. Participating teachers will be expected to develop collaborative teaching units with their international partners.