Two one-week workshops for 72 school teachers on the construction and impact of the Grand Coulee Dam.

“Grand Coulee Dam — The Intersection of Modernity and Indigenous Cultures” These workshops, serving teachers in grades K-12, will explore how different social groups experience history – actual historical events and the memory of those events. More specifically, the project will unpack the history of Grand Coulee Dam as a landmark of contested narratives. One narrative celebrated the social, economic and cultural power of modernity. The other focused on the loss of indigenous cultural identities and practices. Participants will explore these historical dynamics in discussion with experts, site visits, and engagement with primary historical material including oral histories, art, song and photographs. The project’s goal is to equip teachers with unique and meaningful analytical frameworks to engage their humanities and social science students in conversations centered on how social groups experience and interpret transformative changes of the landscape.

Two one-week workshops for 72 school teachers on the Battle of Gettysburg and its legacy.

Gettysburg College intends to engage secondary educators in a workshop focused on the relationship between history and memory through the lens of the Civil War. We seek to offer a revised version of this highly successful 2014 workshop in which participants are immersed in the 'hallowed ground' of Gettysburg and the events that transpired in July 1863, and also expose teachers to the emerging scholarship in the field of memory studies. Participants will engage in historic site visits paired with seminar sessions that will inform the creation of teaching projects that will ultimately land on the program website. Having walked the hallowed ground at Gettysburg, we believe participants will return home with a renewed sense of the significance of what happened here, and with a strengthened understanding of how to teach about Gettysburg.

Two one-week workshops for 72 school teachers on the history of military conflicts in Saipan.

The newly proposed Landmarks of American History and Culture program, Saipan’s Land and Sea: Battle Scars & Sites of Resilience, provides 72 teachers an incomparable opportunity to interact with a continuous, intact, and largely undisturbed record of conflict history outside of museum walls on the island of Saipan, a US commonwealth in the western Pacific Ocean. The one-week program will be held twice at Kagman High School by a mostly indigenous project team comprised of educators, historians, archaeologists, authors, and cultural guides. Hosting the institute on Saipan provides a unique opportunity for often under-represented teachers to participate in NEH Landmark programming and for US mainland teachers to interact with a largely undisturbed record of conflict history that is virtually untold in history textbooks and unknown to K-12 students.

Two one-week workshops for 72 school teachers on school desegregation in Virginia.

This project offers two one week long workshops on the topic of school desegregation in Virginia. Participants include 72 Grade 6-12 social studies/history teachers as a total. In these workshops, participants will visit significant historic sites associated with the topic, learn how to use primary sources in the archives and created their own curriculum on the topic. The first workshop will take place from July 12th through July 17th, 2020 and the second from July 26th through July 31st, 2020.

Two one-week workshops for 72 school teachers on the incarceration of Japanese-Americans in Heart Mountain, Wyoming.

"Heart Mountain, Wyoming, and the Japanese American Incarceration" is a six-day workshop that will bring K-12 teachers from around the country to Heart Mountain, one of the 10 concentration camps that held Japanese Americans who were forced to evacuate the West Coast during World War II. Workshop participants will learn about the Japanese American experience in the United States, the conditions that made it possible and the evacuation and incarceration itself. The workshop will examine the incarceration’s long-term effect on the Japanese American community and federal policies ranging from the formal apology approved by Congress in 1988 to immigration.

Two one-week workshops for 72 K-12 teachers using Kansas City as a case study for examining the changes in American society in the 1920s and 1930s.

Wide-Open Town: Kansas City in the Jazz Age and Great Depression is a NEH Landmarks of American History and Culture Workshop for K-12 Teachers that explores historical landmarks and cultural resources in light of recent scholarship in order to better understand these pivotal decades in United States history. The 1920s and 30s were particularly vibrant years in Kansas City, sometimes described as the city's "Golden Age." City boosters claimed a new position of economic dynamism and culture flourished, most notably resulting in Kansas City becoming a key site in the development of American jazz. Yet, all of these events were intertwined in a political, social, and economic landscape fraught with notorious machines politics, vice, and long histories of people fighting for their rights and freedoms. Much of what played out in Kansas City are a reflection of the larger cultural and historic forces that shaped this era in US history.

Two one-week workshops for 72 school teachers on the development of the skyscraper and its impact on the city of Chicago and on urbanization throughout the world.

The Chicago Architecture Center will offer the workshop The American Skyscraper: Transforming Chicago and the Nation to supplement and enhance the humanities lessons of teachers from across the nation. Buildings are primary sources that reflect who we are as a society at a moment in time. As such, architecture stands as one of the strongest tools for sharing the way we live our lives. The skyscraper is perhaps the strongest architectural legacy of America, and Chicago, as the home of one of the first skyscrapers, provides a powerful lens through which we can examine our culture, economy, history, and society. Through the context of skyscraper development in Chicago from the late 19th through mid-20th centuries, teachers participating in this workshop will use Chicago’s landmark buildings to explore the many forces that shaped Chicago into a center of architecture, how these developments impacted society and vice versa, and how this history continues to impact urbanization to this day.

Two one-week Landmarks workshops for 72 K-12 school teachers on the American Revolution in Vermont.

The Vermont Archaeological Society, in partnership with two museums and the Vermont State Historic Sites Program, proposes to offer a new Landmarks of American History and Culture Workshop entitled, “Freedom and Unity: The Struggle for Independence on the Vermont Frontier.” The workshop will feature a program of place-based and participatory learning activities related to the events of the American Revolution at seven historic sites in Vermont’s Champlain Valley, including sessions held on Lake Champlain in a replica of the 1776 USS Philadelphia. The workshop will target educators who teach history and social studies at the 6-12 grade levels, as well as those who co-teach with social studies colleagues or wish to incorporate historic place-based education to engage students in their subject matter in new ways. In sum, the workshop will demonstrate methods of how to teach students about history and how to teach with historic sites to meet learning outcomes across the curriculum.

Two one-week workshops for 72 K-12 educators on the interaction between Native Americans and European settlers in Santa Fe.

The University of New Mexico is seeking a grant award to provide teacher workshops during the summer of 2021. Santa Fe, a city boasting a 400+ year history as the recognized capital will be the site of this workshop. The extensive history of the continuously occupied historic sites offers a rich opportunity for teachers from around the U.S. to study the history and culture of the area by investigating the historic sites of Santa Fe and area Pueblos. The workshops will be structured around the concept of homelands and include the study of historic sites, artifacts and stories in Santa Fe, NM and surrounding communities. The Camino Real de Tierra Adentro and the Palace of the Governors will be interpreted, studied and contrasted with the Pueblo history of the region, including Taos Pueblo, to understand the complexity of historical homelands. Structures, museums, centers and libraries in Santa Fe housing artifact and document collections will be utilized to foster deeper understandings.

Two one-week workshops for 72 school teachers about history, music, food, and racial diversity in the Mississippi Delta.

“The Most Southern Place on Earth” is a seven-day workshop that will bring together K-12 teachers from around the country to learn about the important role that the Mississippi Delta has played in American History. Workshop participants will learn about the interconnectedness of culture, place, and history in the Delta, including the racial and ethnic diversity that influenced, and was influenced by, music, food, and labor. Using scholarship, films, oral history, and museum visits, “Most Southern Place” offers participants a rich and immersive experience that highlights interdisciplinary teaching and learning.

Two one-week workshops for 72 school teachers on the Chinese American experience in California.

The University of California, Davis seeks $189,883 to fund Building Community in California: The Chinese American Experience, a Landmarks of American History and Culture Workshop for School Teachers to be held June 27 to July 2 and July 11 to 16, 2021.This program for K-12 teachers, hosted on the UC Davis campus, will highlight the significance of historic sites in Sacramento, Donner Summit, the town of Locke, and San Francisco, California. These spaces frame educators’ understanding of Chinese immigration and Chinese immigrants’ contributions from the Gold Rush era through the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, which have a lasting impact. These two events in American history bookend our study. The Chinese American experience provides an important frame to understand the significance of immigration policy, and the contributions and experiences of those who came to and built community in Northern California.

Two one-week workshops for 72 school teachers about the history and culture of Asian Pacific American immigrants in the Pacific Northwest.

The Wing Luke Memorial Foundation (dba Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience) seeks funding to present our popular Landmark workshops, "From Immigrants to Citizens: Asian Pacific Americans in the Northwest". Building on the success of our 2014, 2016, and 2019 workshops, we propose 2 week-long sessions in summer 2021 led by our 2019 team of Education staff in partnership with preeminent scholars and veteran K-12 educators. The long history of Asian Pacific Americans (APAs) in the Northwest provides a wealth of landmark sites and historical materials on which to base K-12 professional development training about APA immigrant histories and the many cultures that shaped our nation. The need for training is clear based on the continued lack of published curriculum and persistent under-resourcing of materials and training for K-12 teachers on APA history. In 2021, we will build on our existing program to include newly available sites/materials.

Two one-week workshops for 72 K-12 educators on the history of slavery in the colonial north.

In recent years, public humanities practitioners have focused on re-evaluating how slavery in America is presented at historic sites, incorporating the point of view of enslaved individuals, and recognizing the longevity of slavery’s existence in America. Still, the narrative of slavery is rooted in the antebellum South, omitting its connection to the legal, economic, and political development of colonial America and the New Nation period. For over 20 years, Historic Hudson Valley has told the story of slavery in colonial America, on site at our historic site Philipsburg Manor and, in 2019, with the interactive documentary People Not Property: Stories of Slavery in the Colonial North. In 2017 and 2019, HHV hosted NEH summer Institutes to explore this topic with K-12 teachers. Now HHV seeks a Landmarks grant for summer 2021. The workshop would be grounded at Philipsburg Manor and extended to nearby historic sites to consider how these locations expand our knowledge of American slavery.

Two one-week workshops for 72 educators on the civil rights movement and desegregation in Atlanta. 

At the core of the workshop is the weighty issue of race reform in a contested southern past. Atlanta, destroyed in the Civil War, was rebuilt on the ashes of slavery as a “New South” city where memorials to the Old South became symbols of white supremacy that relegated African Americans to legal and economic second-class status. The struggle of resistance follows from W. E. B. Du Bois to Martin Luther King. Atlanta has an ideal nexus of historic sites where teachers can explore these struggles, from the legacy of slavery, the tragedy of war and defeat, the promise of emancipation, the betrayal of Reconstruction, the terror of redemption and race riot, the erection of the color line and resistance to segregation, the civil rights movement, desegregation, integration and resegregation, to a multicultural and pluralistic society. Participants will see how race relations figured into the landscape as Americans who once venerated the civil war dead now memorialize civil rights martyrs.

Two one-week workshops for 72 educators about migration and agricultural labor history in rural California.

From the exhausted hope of the Joads to the tenacity of Cesar Chavez; from the austere Garveyian self- reliance of Allensworth to the lyricism of the Bakersfield Sound, very few locales have captured the promise, struggles, artistry, and multi-ethnic tapestry of Rural America more than California’s San Joaquin Valley. This place-based workshop features four historical rural landmarks related to multiracial agricultural settlement since the late nineteenth century through the era of the farm worker movement in the 1960s. Participant field trips will include cultural heritage interpreters, visiting scholars, and companion digital archival material related to Allensworth State Park, Sunset Labor Camp, National Chavez Center, and various historical landmarks located in Delano, California. Hosted by CSU Bakersfield, participants will draw linkages to K-12 curriculum with a focus on teaching the rich and diverse history of migration and agricultural labor in the United States.

Two one-week workshops for 72 educators on the incarceration of Japanese Americans in Heart Mountain, Wyoming.

We will conduct two six-day workshops for 5-12 educators for the Landmarks of American History and Culture program to instruct them on the details of the Japanese American incarceration during World War II.

Two one-week workshops for 72 educators on the significance of Selma, Alabama, within the long civil rights movement.

This workshop will invite educators from across the country to an immersive, week-long exploration of one of the most important landscapes of the American civil rights movement. Using the events of the infamous “Bloody Sunday” protests in Selma, Alabama, workshop participants will spend a week exploring the understudied ordinary people and places of this freedom struggle. A range of experts will lead these educators in thinking about how we remember (and forget) civil rights struggles and the places they stemmed from. Through workshops and readings, teachers will be exposed to place based learning techniques and an unparalleled archive of images assembled for the workshop. Participants will leave the workshop better equipped to identify and educate about the intersections between race, place, and freedom struggles in their own classrooms and communities.

Two place-based workshops for 36 K-12 educators each on the historical, economical, and cultural impact of the automobile industry on the Midwest and broader United States. 

Car culture shapes media and popular culture in America. In this project, educators learn how the automobile illustrates social history of the working class, including the Great Migration, and the accompanying shadow of racism. The workshops also explore industrial preservation and adaptive reuse to examine why place matters in our communities and how participants can help their students to look at old structures in any community across America. Participants create virtual field trips from the sites they visit for their students and students in other places to use as they conduct inquiry. In an inquiry process, they question, use a disciplinary framework, and evaluate sources, before communicating their conclusions and taking action in their community. As educators have learned in the recent pandemic, access to digital resources is crucial for student learning as they conduct their own investigations.

Two week-long workshops for 72 K-12 educators to learn the histories, geographies, and contemporary knowledges of the Buffalo Nations.

This project will prepare 72 K-12 educators from across the U.S. to implement curriculum focusing on the sovereign signatories of the landmark InterTribal Buffalo Treaty. These Buffalo Nations are leading culturally restorative buffalo conservation efforts – especially with bison being culled from Yellowstone National Park (YNP). Teachers will participate in on-site workshops at YNP – with visits to noted landmark sites, followed by virtual learning. The project is led by educators from Fort Peck Community College, Montana State University, and Ecology Project International. Presenters from the Fort Peck Assiniboine & Sioux as well as Crow, Blackfeet and Eastern Shoshone Nations will join the Project Team in sharing knowledge and facilitating lesson development pertaining to historical, ecological, political/economic, and cultural literacies. The program will be rooted in the principles of Recognition, Relationships, Responsibility, Respect, Relevance and Reciprocity.

Two week-long workshops for 72 K-12 educators in Colonial Williamsburg on African American and Indigenous perspectives during the Founding Era.

Hidden Histories of the Founding Era will introduce teachers to four sites that encompass the full complexity of the founding era: William & Mary’s Brafferton building, the Williamsburg Bray School, the historic First Baptist Church, and James Monroe’s Highland plantation. All are crucial sites for exploring Virginia’s multicultural history, and each is also the subject of ongoing research, reinterpretation, and community engagement. Taken together, these sites underscore the importance of grappling with complex, multivalent histories and demonstrate how scholars, archivists, educators, and community historians and members are collaborating to uncover hidden histories. This Landmarks program will be offered as two five-day residential sessions on the campus of William & Mary in Summer 2023 (First Session: June 26–30; Second Session: July 10–14) for 36 teachers per session.

Two week-long workshops for 72 K-12 educators to learn about the histories of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders in the Pacific Northwest.

The Wing Luke Memorial Foundation (dba Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience) seeks funding to present our popular Landmark workshops, "In our own words: Early Asian Americans and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders in the Pacific Northwest." Building on the success of our 2014, 2016, 2019, and 2021 workshops, we propose two in-person week-long workshops in summer 2023 led by our 2021 team Education staffing partnership with preeminent scholars and veteran K-12 educators. The long history of Asian Americans and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders (AA & NH/PIs) in the Northwest provides a wealth of landmark sites, historical materials, and digital resources on which to base K-12 professional development training about AA & NH/PI immigrant histories and the many cultures that shaped our nation. In 2023 we will build on our existing program to enrich content and deepen teacher learning.

Two one-week workshops for 72 educators on Indigenous history and the incarceration of Japanese Americans in Heart Mountain, Wyoming.

Few sounds of history occur for the first time. Instead, they repeat themselves, echoing through new generations and new communities. That is the theme of the proposed Landmarks of American History and Culture workshops by the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation to occur June 18-23 and July 23-28, 2023. Echoes of History: Mistreatment and Incarceration in the American West is a place-based, pedagogically centered exploration of the Japanese American incarceration of World War II that weaves that event into a larger and more complex narrative. It is backed by participant feedback, expanded inquiry and the new resources now available at the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center.