Much has been written about the history of Chicago and the land of the living. This course will provide material about Chicago's Necropoli, the land of the dead. Through lecture and slide presentations, participants will discuss the role of cemeteries in early Chicago history, ethnic cemeteries, and mourning practices. The final session will take place at the home of the instructor for an overview of the paraphernalia of funeral homes and cemeteries.

Constructed around an online "toolbox" of texts and documents collected at the National Humanities Center in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, participants in this seminar will discuss four themes that are central to the Gilded Age: City and Country, focusing on Arcadian mythology, urban realism, and nostalgia; Citizens and Others, especially immigrants, African Americans, and children; Work and Leisure, especially craft, industrialization, and consumerism; and Politics and the State, including party culture, populism, and progressivism. Within each thematic unit, participants will be searching for characteristic sensibilities of the age, as manifest in public life, literature, and/or the arts. Across the discussions, they will try to identify those documents, questions, and exercises that might best enliven their own classrooms.

Attendees at this lecture will join two Chicago-area archivists, a public historian, and an historian of women in a conversation about collecting, preserving, accessing, and using papers of African Americans and women. Following 10–15 minute presentations by the speakers, drawn from their own projects and institution's missions, they will engage in a panel discussion with each other and audience members on what local research institutions and community organizations are doing to collect and make accessible manuscripts and other primary sources that will fuel future historical narratives.

Designed especially for secondary school teachers of U.S. history, law, and civics/government, the institute will deepen participants' knowledge of the federal judiciary and of the role the federal courts have played in key public controversies that have defined constitutional and other legal rights. Participants will work closely throughout the institute with leading historians, federal judges, and curriculum consultants. Confirmed faculty include Michael Klarman, Kirkland & Ellis Professor, Harvard Law School and Jeffrey Rosen, Professor of Law, George Washington University.

To explore the theme of "Seeking Social Change Through the Courts," the institute will focus on these three landmark federal trials: Woman suffrage and the trial of Susan B. Anthony, Chinese Exclusions Acts and Chew Heong v. United States, and the desegregation of New Orleans schools and Bush v. Orleans Parish School Board.

This workshop examines the questions "How was African-American community constructed during this period?," "Under what circumstances was it created?," and 'How did evolving concepts of community affect and reflect notions of African-American identity?"

The Center's online resource workshops give high school teachers of U.S. history and American literature a deeper understanding of their subject matter. They introduce teachers to fresh texts and critical perspectives and help teachers integrate them into their lessons. Led by distinguished scholars and running 60 to 90 minutes, they are conducted through lecture and discussion using conferencing software. A resource workshop identifies central themes within a topic and explores ways to teach them through the close analysis of primary texts, including works of art, and the use of discussion questions. Texts are drawn from anthologies in the Center's Toolbox Library. To participate, all that is needed is a computer with an internet connection, a speaker, and a microphone.

This workshop addresses the questions "In what ways is Jacob Riis's How the Other Half Lives a document of progressive reform?," "What does How the Other Half Lives tell us about urbanization and immigration?," and "How does Riis use photography in How the Other Half Lives?"

The Center's online resource workshops give high school teachers of U.S. history and American literature a deeper understanding of their subject matter. They introduce teachers to fresh texts and critical perspectives and help teachers integrate them into their lessons. Led by distinguished scholars and running 60 to 90 minutes, they are conducted through lecture and discussion using conferencing software. A resource workshop identifies central themes within a topic and explores ways to teach them through the close analysis of primary texts, including works of art, and the use of discussion questions. Texts are drawn from anthologies in the Center's Toolbox Library. To participate, all that is needed is a computer with an internet connection, a speaker, and a microphone.

Designed for middle/high school social studies teachers who teach United States history and government, this intensive week-long workshop will immerse participants in early American history "on location" in Williamsburg, the restored capital city of 18th-century Virginia, and nearby Jamestown and Yorktown. 25 teachers and a returning mentor teacher will be selected for each session. Participants will be involved in an interdisciplinary approach to teaching social studies with colonial American history as the focus. Teachers will have the opportunity to exchange ideas with noted historians, meet character interpreters, and take part in reenactments of 18th-century events. They will review various interactive teaching techniques with a mentor teacher and with each other. Instructional materials in a variety of media will be provided to participants to use in their classrooms. Together with Colonial Williamsburg staff, teachers will prepare new instructional materials for use in their own classrooms.