"This 2008 summer workshop was created for high school history teachers interested in developing a deeper understanding of the forces that shaped America in the Industrial Age. Using Pittsburgh as a model for the forces that shaped the Industrial Era, participants will hear guest lectures from some of the foremost scholars of the period. Participants will also visit a number of historical sites from Gilded Age mansions to steel mills to the location of the Homestead Strike to get a firsthand look at the region. Teachers will leave with a better sense of the time period and ways to bring the issues alive for students in any part of the country."

This institute, led by Manisha Sinha of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, will focus on the creation of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech and its "influence throughout American history and provide teachers with concrete strategies for preparing their students for the MCAS examinations."

This seminar, led by Bruce Laurie of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, will explore antislavery and abolition movements in the nineteenth century, offering "in-depth exploration of historic personalities, themes, and events and intensive work with primary source materials."

This seminar, led by Dr. Ed O'Donnell of the College of the Holy Cross, will explore immigration in the nineteenth century, offering "in-depth exploration of historic personalities, themes, and events and intensive work with primary source materials."

"A study of the sectional conflict beginning with the nullification crisis. The course will not only examine the political, social and economic developments in the period leading to the Civil War, but will emphasize the political thought of Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Douglas, and John C. Calhoun."

"This course will examine military aspects of the war, as well as political developments during it, including the political history of the Emancipation Proclamation, the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural. The course also examines the post-war Amendments and the Reconstruction era."

"World War II was the most destructive conflict in the history of the world, affecting nearly everyone who was alive at the time, as well as the generations that followed. This seminar will examine the causes, course, and consequences of the war, both in the European and Asian/Pacific theaters, as well as on the American homefront. While it will emphasize the role that the United States played in the conflict, it will not ignore those aspects of the war in which Americans were not directly involved, such as the early war years (1939-41), and the genocidal conflict between Germany and the Soviet Union."

"In the last decades of the 19th Century, the United States took decisive steps away from its rural, agrarian past toward its industrial future, assuming its place among world powers. This course examines that movement, covering such topics as business-labor relations, political corruption, immigration, imperialism, the New South, and segregation and racism."

"Even though the powers of the American Executive are controlled and limited, extraordinary acts of statesmanship are possible. This seminar examines two presidents who demonstrated extraordinary political leadership. We will examine these statesmen and the political circumstances in which their prudence revealed itself."

"This course will examine military aspects of the war, as well as political developments during it, including the political history of the Emancipation Proclamation, the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural. The course also examines the post-war Amendments and the Reconstruction era."