From the Tsongas Industrial History Center website:

"The Inventing America Workshop combines scholarly presentations with on-site investigations of the canals, mills, worker housing, and exhibits of Lowell National Historical Park and of other sites in Lowell's historic district.

"Sessions draw on scholarly monographs, primary sources (such as 'mill girl' letters), and works of literature and historical fiction. We intersperse hands-on activities with lecture-discussions and field investigations.

"In addition to Lowell's landmark resources, we take full advantage of Old Sturbridge Village exhibits and scholars to explore pre-industrial rural life and draw on the expertise of scholars and presenters at Walden Pond and Minute Man National Historical Park in Concord, Massachusetts, to explore how prominent authors addressed the question of industrialization's effect on American life, values, and the environment.

Hands-on activities deepen participants' understanding by engaging them in simulations where they weave cloth, build water-powered mill systems, and work on assembly lines. Participants even cook a meal over fireplaces at Old Sturbridge Village and discuss farm vs. factory life after a boardinghouse dinner at the Boott Cotton Mills."

From the Tsongas Industrial History Center website:

"The Inventing America Workshop combines scholarly presentations with on-site investigations of the canals, mills, worker housing, and exhibits of Lowell National Historical Park and of other sites in Lowell's historic district.

"Sessions draw on scholarly monographs, primary sources (such as 'mill girl' letters), and works of literature and historical fiction. We intersperse hands-on activities with lecture-discussions and field investigations.

"In addition to Lowell's landmark resources, we take full advantage of Old Sturbridge Village exhibits and scholars to explore pre-industrial rural life and draw on the expertise of scholars and presenters at Walden Pond and Minute Man National Historical Park in Concord, Massachusetts, to explore how prominent authors addressed the question of industrialization's effect on American life, values, and the environment.

Hands-on activities deepen participants' understanding by engaging them in simulations where they weave cloth, build water-powered mill systems, and work on assembly lines. Participants even cook a meal over fireplaces at Old Sturbridge Village and discuss farm vs. factory life after a boardinghouse dinner at the Boott Cotton Mills."

From the Massachusetts Historical Society website:

"In the spring of 1775, the towns of Lexington and Concord became targets, scenes, and symbols of actions which would ignite a war culminating in the birth of a new country. In those towns were people caught at the crossroads of Revolution. This institute is designed to immerse our participants in the evocative eighteenth-century landscapes of those towns, as well as the port city of Boston, to examine the decisions and dilemmas involved in the events of 1775 and the subsequent interpretations and uses of those events. We want to put you, the educator, at the crossroads of the American Revolution.

"Our Massachusetts institution, the nation's oldest historical society (1791), is world-renowned for the strengths of its document-based collections and online resources. We will introduce you to the landscapes, structures, objects and exhibitions that connect those treasured documents to real places where events unfolded that irrevocably affected the course of human history."

From the Massachusetts Historical Society website:

"In the spring of 1775, the towns of Lexington and Concord became targets, scenes, and symbols of actions which would ignite a war culminating in the birth of a new country. In those towns were people caught at the crossroads of Revolution. This institute is designed to immerse our participants in the evocative eighteenth-century landscapes of those towns, as well as the port city of Boston, to examine the decisions and dilemmas involved in the events of 1775 and the subsequent interpretations and uses of those events. We want to put you, the educator, at the crossroads of the American Revolution.

"Our Massachusetts institution, the nation's oldest historical society (1791), is world-renowned for the strengths of its document-based collections and online resources. We will introduce you to the landscapes, structures, objects and exhibitions that connect those treasured documents to real places where events unfolded that irrevocably affected the course of human history."

Movements for women's equality and gender justice have transformed American society over the past few generations. Nancy Cott will focus this seminar on the varied branches of feminism. After reviewing the suffrage campaign and opportunities for women during World War II, the seminar will explore convergences and conflicts among women's groups, both feminist and conservative, emerging after 1960. Topics include the formation of the National Organization for Women, radical feminism, African American and Chicana feminism, reproductive rights advocacy, the women's health movement, Roe v. Wade and its opponents, the women's rights revolution in law, and the campaigns for and against the Equal Rights Amendment.