Program Overview

These seminars will feature:

• Pre-seminar readings on topic
• Classroom materials provided by the History Channel
• Full day seminars - 9:00 am to 3:00 pm
• Breakfast, Lunch and CPDU credits provided
• Open to all Chicago area teachers at no cost

Enrollment is limited to 26 teachers per seminar
(only 2 teachers per school, per seminar).

2010 - 2011 Schedule to be announced in September 2010.

Seminar Schedule (2009-2010)

Geography
Traveling Through Time with Maps of Discovery, Exploration and Travel 
James Akerman, Director of the Hermon Dunlap Center for the History of Cartography
Robert Karrow, Jr., Curator of Special Collections and Curator of Maps
October 9, 2009

We are accustomed to thinking of maps as simple tools that tell us how to get from one place to another or where some distant country or mountain range is. It is true that on the simplest level maps depict the geography-the general physical description and spatial organization-of our planet. But the content of maps is as much determined by culture, historical circumstances, and the ideas and interests of mapmakers and map users as it is by the geography that maps attempt to depict. With this in mind, participants in this seminar will learn how the study of historical map documents can support greater understanding of the cultural and historical processes at work in human exploration of the world. We will place particular emphasis on the European encounter with America, Euro-American exploration of and expansion in North America, and Native American mapping.

 

History (World)
European and Indigenous Encounters in the Colonial Americas 
Carla Zecher, Director of the Center for Renaissance Studies
Garry Sparks, University of Chicago
November 6, 2009

The "New World" was not new for either the Indigenous peoples who already lived in the Americas or the European merchants and explorers who thought these continents were islands en route to the Orient. Rather, the New World emerged from the respective "Old Worlds" of Europe and the pre-contact Americas. This seminar will look at the early encounters between French and Spanish missionaries and the Native peoples of the Americas in the 16th and 17th centuries. We will compare major accounts of these encounters written by the Europeans and also consider how the Indians responded to these accounts.

 

History (United States)
Portraying Native America: Representations of American Indians at the Newberry Library
Scott Stevens, Director of the D'Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian History
Diane Dillon, Assistant Director for Research and Education at the Newberry Library
November 20, 2009

The Newberry Library's collection contains a wealth of visual materials depicting the indigenous peoples of North America from the early periods of contact and conquest through the nineteenth century, when artists such as Catlin and Burbank produced their famous portraits. Artists, anthropologists, soldiers, and travelers produced these representations in media ranging from singular drawings and paintings to mass-produced prints, photographs, and illustrations for books and periodicals. In our presentation, we will compare these images created by whites with images created by Indians themselves in formats ranging from drawings in ledger books to fine art book-bindings. After surveying these evolving traditions of representation, we will consider the role of these images in shaping the identities and imaginations of various individuals and groups, along with the notion of cultural sovereignty - especially those of indigenous peoples, artists and other image-makers, and broader audiences.

 

History (United States) 
Emancipation and the Meaning of "Freedom"
Daniel Greene, Director of the Dr. William M. Scholl Center for American History and Culture
James R. Grossman, Vice-President for Research and Education at the Newberry Library
December 4, 2009

By abolishing slavery, the Civil War settled one question only to raise a series of new ones. This seminar will explore the most deceptively simple of those questions: what did "freedom" mean to former slaveholders and the newly freed? How would freedom be defined, protected, and contested by both Northerners and Southerners? We will explore these questions through primary documents-letters, laws, and speeches-that demonstrate the multiple interpretations of freedom's meaning.

To complement our exploration of Lincoln's opinions on slavery, our seminar also will include a tour of With Malice Towards None, an exhibition organized for the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth by the Library of Congress and on display at the Newberry Library.