"Interpreting the American Landscape" -- Picturing America School Collaboration Project Conferences

FAIN: AP-50003-09

Newberry Library (Chicago, IL 60610-3305)
Daniel Greene (Project Director: October 2008 to March 2011)

Two-day conferences in October 2009 and April 2010, for fifty-four educators each, to strengthen the use of Picturing America images in the teaching of core subjects, primarily in high schools. (Ashbrook)

The Newberry Library proposes to host two Picturing America School Collaboration Project Conferences, which will provide one hundred and eight teachers with access to each other; to experts in art history, history, literature, and geography; and to Chicago's rich local resources in American art. Our conferences will take "Interpreting the American Landscape" as a capacious and inclusive organizing theme. Our conference sessions will explore the role of landscape imagery in shaping national identity, tracing the shift from a nineteenth-century emphasis on visions of pristine wilderness and rural landscapes to the twentieth-century's urban and industrial scenery. The conferences will be held at the Newberry Library on October 23-24, 2009, and April 16-17, 2010. The nationwide target audience will be secondary-level history, language arts, and art teachers whose schools already have received the Picturing America portfolio.

Associated Products

Newberry Library/Picturing America School Collaboration Conference (Web Resource)
Title: Newberry Library/Picturing America School Collaboration Conference
Author: Newberry Library
Author: Daniel Greene
Abstract: In 2009-10, the Newberry Library in Chicago hosted two national Picturing America School Collaboration Project Conferences for high school teachers. The conference sessions explored the role of landscape imagery in shaping national identity, tracing the shift from a nineteenth-century emphasis on visions of pristine wilderness and rural landscapes to the twentieth-century’s urban and industrial scenery.
Year: 2010
Primary URL: https://newberrypicturingamerica.pbworks.com/FrontPage
Primary URL Description: Newberry Library staff has made the content of its Picturing America School Collaboration Conferences available to the many teachers who received Picturing America poster sets but who were unable to attend the conferences at the Newberry. At this site, teachers may access Program Information, Participating Scholars and Staff (biographies and links to home pages), Conference Application and Information, Suggested Readings (available to registered conference participants only for reasons of copyright), Presentations of Newberry Library Collections (Audio Slide Shows), Conference Presentations by Scholars (video), Art Institute of Chicago Gallery Tour (website collection with information on each work viewed during the museum tour, including works held in the Terra Foundation for American Art collections), Chicago Architecture Walking Tour (Audio Slide Show), and Lesson Plans.

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