Upcoming History Workshops for Teachers

Here are a couple of teacher workshops coming up at historic sites.

The Massachusetts Historical Society is offering “Women in the Era of the American Revolution” on 22-23 February. It says:

Study the revolution through the words and artifacts of the women who lived it. Correspondence demonstrates that women like Abigail Adams, Hannah Winthrop, and Mercy Otis Warren were vital consumers (and boycotters) of imported goods, and functioned as heads of household while their male family members served in the military or traveled on political missions. They recorded important events of the day, and, in the case of Warren, interpreted those events for a public audience. Throughout the workshop we will explore the daily lives of revolutionary women, including those who served as soldiers and secret agents, or followed the army as cooks and laundresses.

The program includes a visit to the Museum of Fine Arts, presumably to view portraits of the women and artifacts from their lives. The registration fee is $40, and teachers can earn 45 P.D.P.’s and two graduate credits for an additional fee. For more information, contact education@masshist.org or call 617-646-0557.

Out in Deerfield this summer, the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association is presenting two sessions of “African Americans in the Making of Early New England.”

The workshop’s introductory description says:

“African Americans in the Making of Early New England” will take place in the Old Deerfield Village Historic Landmark District and will focus on the 23 African American Historic sites in the District and on Royall House and Slave Quarters in Medford, MA, another National Historic Landmark. This workshop will bring together a wide range of primary resources—landscape, architecture, artifacts, documents, oral histories—along with secondary interpretations and lectures by specialists that will provide tools for K-12 educators to engage their students in learning about African Americans’ life experiences in early New England.

Here is a very detailed description of the planned program, which includes remarks by professors Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina (Mr. and Mrs. Prince: How an Extraordinary Eighteenth-Century Family Moved Out of Slavery and into Legend), Jared Hardesty (Unfreedom: Slavery and Dependence in Eighteenth-Century Boston), and Joanne Pope Melish (Disowning Slavery: Gradual Emancipation and “Race” in New England, 1780-1860).

Teachers selected to participate are eligible for a stipend, thanks to support from our National Endowment for the Humanities. The two sessions are on 9-14 July and 23-28 July. The deadline for applications is 1 March, with applicants notified if whether they are accepted by the end of that month.