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 The Middle Passages seminar will focus on both historical content and classroom pedagogy, and will include visits to historical and cultural sites in Ghana.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.

This seminar explores the history of the American antislavery movement, from its institutional and ideological origins in the post-Revolutionary era to the eve of the Civil War. A particular focus of the course will be the historical reality and mythology of the Underground Railroad, understood through the lives, strategies, writings, and fate of black abolitionists.

The Cold War dominated the second half of the 20th century, but until recently the world had only an imperfect sense of what it was all about. Historians wrote about it, of necessity, from within the event they were seeking to describe, so that there was no way to know its outcome. And because only a few Western countries had begun to open their archives, these accounts could only reflect one side of the story. Cold War history, hence, was not normal history: it was both asymmetrical and incomplete. The end of the Cold War and the subsequent partial opening of Soviet, Eastern European, and Chinese archives have revolutionized the field. Everything historians thought they knew is suddenly up for reconsideration, whether because of the new documents available to them, or as a consequence of knowing how it all came out. Even as this happens, though, the memories of those who lived through the Cold War are rapidly fading, and a new generation of students has no memory of it at all. This seminar will seek to integrate the latest scholarly research on Cold War history and the ways in which that subject is presented in the classroom. The seminar will use a variety of means: lectures, books, documents, video documentaries, and the resources of the worldwide web. There will also be ample opportunity for participants to learn from one another, and for the presenters to learn from the participants. It will be, in short, a week of total immersion in the lengthy, occasionally dangerous, and (almost) always intriguing history of the Cold War, filled with debate and new information.

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.

From the Newberry Library website:

"[This conference] will support teachers in the development of lessons using images from the National Endowment for the Humanities’ Picturing America program.

Conferences will feature presentations by distinguished scholars and sharing of resources in workshop formats. We will use the Newberry Library’s collections as well as a visit to the Art Institute of Chicago and a walking tour of Chicago’s Loop to model ways for teachers to use local resources in their own communities."

Led by Patty Limerick, this seminar uses focused case studies to explore the larger picture of environmental history, a subject that has grown increasingly complex as historians deepen their understanding of the vast role of "anthropogenic change" (also known as "history") in reconfiguring the places and processes thought of as "natural." Much of the seminar explores the transformation of attitudes, from the assessment of North American landscapes and resources by early settlers to the recognition of the changing "baseline" of global warming, along with a reconsideration—and revision—of the usual polarity-pitting utilitarian approaches in opposition to preservationist approaches to the management of nature. With guest speakers drawn from the University of Colorado's widely respected environmental studies program, the roles of naturalists and scientists in shaping American thinking about nature will receive particular attention, as will changes in the production and consumption of energy, a fundamental matter in environmental history. The concluding field trip to Rocky Mountain National Park gives the themes of the lectures and discussions a down-to-earth grounding in a visit to one of the most popular units in the nation's public lands, while close attention to John McPhee's Encounters with the Archdruid provides a framework for drawing lessons from the past to enhance the quality of contemporary environmental decision-making.

Participants in this workshop will travel throughout the Delta as they visit sites where significant events occurred. They will discuss and learn about issues involving civil rights and political leadership, immigrants' experiences in the Delta, the Blues, the great migration, agriculture, and the Mississippi River, among other things. They will sample Delta foods, visit local museums, and listen to the Blues. Field trips will roam as far as Greenville, Greenwood, and Memphis, with stops in between.

The purpose of this one-week summer seminar is to explore a pivotal period in American history. After the uneven prosperity of the 1920s, the Great Depression of the 1930s was a human catastrophe. But the economic crisis also led to dramatic social and cultural change as Americans reacted to hardship and adversity. Above all, the rise of the New Deal under Franklin Roosevelt reshaped the modern state in ways that remain controversial and at the historical core of political debates today.

This seminar explores the rise of Jim Crow in the United States and tracks it forward to its modern post-civil-rights manifestations. Seminar participants will work with a range of primary sources to interpret the shifting social, economic, political, psychological, and cultural trauma associated with this set of racial practices. Close attention will be paid to the effects of Jim Crow on both sides of the color line.