Interpreting the American Landscape

FAIN: AP-50021-10

Newberry Library (Chicago, IL 60610-3305)
Rachel Rooney (Project Director: October 2009 to August 2011)

One two-day conference for fifty-four high school teachers in the Midwest during summer 2010 to strengthen the use of Picturing America images in core subjects.

The Newberry Library, in collaboration with the Art Institute of Chicago, proposes to host a regional Picturing America School Collaboration Project Conference, which will provide 54 teachers from the Midwest the opportunity to engage with other, with experts in art history, history, literature, and geography, and to access Chicago's rich local resources in American art. Our conference will take "Interpreting the American Landscape" as a capacious and inclusive organizing theme. Our conference session will explore the role of landscape imagery in shaping national identity, tracing the shift from nineteenth-century emphasis on visions of pristine wilderness and rural landscapes to the twentieth century's urban scenery. The conference will be held at the Newberry Library and the Art Institute of Chicago on August 19 - 20, 2010. The 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 Regional Conference (Web Resource)
Title: Newberry Library/Picturing America School Collaboration Regional Conference
Author: Newberry Library
Abstract: In August 2010, the Newberry Library in Chicago hosted a regional Picturing America School Collaboration Projects Conference for high school teachers. This regional conference followed the two national conferences hosted by the Newberry in 2009-10. 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: http://newberrypicturingamerica.pbworks.com/FrontPage
Primary URL Description: Newberry Library staff has made the content of its Picturing America School Collaboration Conferences available to 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 Participant 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 on the museum tour, including the works held in the Terra Foundation for American Art collections), Chicago Architecture Walking Tour (audio slide show), and Lesson Plans (submitted by participants).

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