Abraham Lincoln wove his words into the fabric of American history. In the 21st century, Lincoln's political language remains more contemporary than all but the most timeless of the political language of the American Founding. This course is a study of selected Lincoln speeches aiming to illuminate Lincoln's understanding of the relation of the principles of the American Founding to the most pressing issues of his day.

This workshop explores the American Revolution and the creation of the U.S. Constitution through the use of the National Constitution Center's innovative museum exhibits, lectures by leading scholars, interactive discussion, and visits to numerous historic landmarks.

This institute will focus on the life of George Washington as seen through several lenses. Focusing on Washington's personal life and connecting it to his public career will be the theme of the first week of the institute. Participants will consider Washington's education, his relationships with women, and his attitudes towards fame, religion, and death. Participants will look at Washington's own words in an attempt to understand the man. Traveling to Longfellow House, participants will meet with Paul Blandford, who has devoted his life to studying Washington's year in Cambridge. Blandford will also explain Washington's place in 19th-century New England culture. In the second week, participants will contrast the heroic Washington with the revisionist appraisal. How did John Marshall and Mason Locke Weems view Washington? Why does Richard Brookhiser still consider Washington’s life "exemplary?" Participants will analyze Michael Pack's documentary Rediscovering George Washington and meet with William Martin, writer of the novel Citizen Washington and the screenplay for a documentary on the life of Washington, George Washington: The Man Who Wouldn't Be King. To offer an alternative to the heroic Washington, participants will meet with the radical revisionist historian Howard Zinn. His visit will provide an opportunity to discuss what role the life of Washington should play in national and state history standards. Looking at current research, participants will attempt to determine whether Washington holds up in a reality-based age, whether his Mount Rushmore image and iconic status remain compelling. In the third week, participants will focus on Washington's public career and legacy. The guest speaker for the third week will be Karal Ann Marling, author of George Washington Slept Here, and numerous other books on American history. Professor Marling has taught Art History and American Studies at the University of Minnesota. She will speak on "George Washington and Memory," or "How the Colonial Revivals of the 19th and 20th centuries reshaped the character of our first President." During the third week, participants will also take a field trip to Bunker Hill and Dorchester Heights.

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 Montpelier website:

"What is the purpose of a Bill of Rights? While we may think of the Bill of Rights as a charter of 'rights,' the first ten amendments to the Constitution are, in fact, a list of restrictions on government power. Do they also function as marks of the People's sovereignty and/or foundations for a democratic polity?

In this Seminar you will examine the idea of delineating the rights of persons as contrasted with defining the powers of government, examining the debates among the founders over the inclusion of a Bill of Rights in the Constitution. How is the project of constitution-making continued in the process of amendment?"

"Participants will receive a collection of primary documents in advance of the seminar, specific to the content of each program, which will be the basis of most discussions. They include writings by James Madison, sections of The Federalist Papers, selections from Antifederalist writers, and other fundamental documents. Each seminar includes an intensive session on ways of reading a document of political or constitutional theory. . . . Each seminar will conclude with the lecture 'American Citizenship as Constitutional Citizenship: The Exemplar of James Madison.'

Teachers will also become acquainted with the curriculum We the People: the Citizen and the Constitution, which is widely used across the nation and is compatible with state and national standards. All participants will receive a complete classroom set of the We the People textbooks, appropriate to the grade level they teach. A classroom set includes 30 student texts and 1 teacher's guide."

From the Montpelier website:

"What does it mean to found a country with a 'constitution?' How is an enterprise like the United States begun or put together in the first place?

What is the relevance of a Founding to a country that has grown, evolved, and changed over more than 200 years? How much of America (its institutions, its politics, its people) was founded through the endeavors in Madison's time to establish, elaborate, maintain, and preserve the Constitution of the United States?

The central focus of this Seminar will be Madison's Notes on the Federal Convention of 1787, which he wrote to provide future generations with an account of the creation of the Constitution, so that it could be properly maintained. He intended its drafting to be seen an honorable and hopeful, and he wanted others to have a guide for making similarly ambitious constitutions of their own."

"Participants will receive a collection of primary documents in advance of the seminar, specific to the content of each program, which will be the basis of most discussions. They include writings by James Madison, sections of The Federalist Papers, selections from Antifederalist writers, and other fundamental documents. Each seminar includes an intensive session on ways of reading a document of political or constitutional theory. . . . Each seminar will conclude with the lecture 'American Citizenship as Constitutional Citizenship: The Exemplar of James Madison.'

Teachers will also become acquainted with the curriculum We the People: the Citizen and the Constitution, which is widely used across the nation and is compatible with state and national standards. All participants will receive a complete classroom set of the We the People textbooks, appropriate to the grade level they teach. A classroom set includes 30 student texts and 1 teacher's guide."

From the Montpelier website:

"Citizenship has been considered classically as the single most basic aspect of any constitutional order. And yet the 18th-century founders left the question unresolved. Does the addition of the 14th Amendment in the 1860s represent a continuation of the Founding or a new constitutional order?

What does it mean to be a citizen of a constitutionally founded nation? Among its other innovations, American constitutionalism has redefined the concept of citizenship and political community. How does the Constitution help us define what it means to be an American? How has our understanding of what is a citizen of the American constitutional order evolved (or devolved)?"

"Participants will receive a collection of primary documents in advance of the seminar, specific to the content of each program, which will be the basis of most discussions. They include writings by James Madison, sections of The Federalist Papers, selections from Antifederalist writers, and other fundamental documents. Each seminar includes an intensive session on ways of reading a document of political or constitutional theory. . . . Each seminar will conclude with the lecture 'American Citizenship as Constitutional Citizenship: The Exemplar of James Madison.'

Teachers will also become acquainted with the curriculum We the People: the Citizen and the Constitution, which is widely used across the nation and is compatible with state and national standards. All participants will receive a complete classroom set of the We the People textbooks, appropriate to the grade level they teach. A classroom set includes 30 student texts and 1 teacher's guide."

From the Montpelier website:

"The very idea of 'constitution' is one of the crucial inventions of our founding. How did Federalists and Antifederalists view the nature of a constitution at the time of the founding of the United States?

We will use the concept of a constitution to develop a deeper understanding of American constitutionalism. What is the relationship between a 'constitution' and a social compact among the People, or a contract between citizens and government?

The associated innovations of a Bill of Rights, amendment, and citizenship will be highlighted from the perspective of the unprecedented process of constitution-making as a means to define the contours of a new political world."

"Participants will receive a collection of primary documents in advance of the seminar, specific to the content of each program, which will be the basis of most discussions. They include writings by James Madison, sections of The Federalist Papers, selections from Antifederalist writers, and other fundamental documents. Each seminar includes an intensive session on ways of reading a document of political or constitutional theory. . . . Each seminar will conclude with the lecture 'American Citizenship as Constitutional Citizenship: The Exemplar of James Madison.'

Teachers will also become acquainted with the curriculum We the People: the Citizen and the Constitution, which is widely used across the nation and is compatible with state and national standards. All participants will receive a complete classroom set of the We the People textbooks, appropriate to the grade level they teach. A classroom set includes 30 student texts and 1 teacher's guide."

No specifics available.

Having adopted a form of government, the Americans had to make it work. This course examines their efforts to do so, as the Republic took shape amidst foreign dangers, political conflict, westward expansion, and religious revivals.