Multi-Day Seminars

Fall 2023 Multi-Day Schedule

Apply now! The application period closes May 19th.

Westward Expansion: Conflict, Conservation & the Environment

Hartford, CT | August 9-11, 2023

The American west was both an alluring vision and a place of intense conflict. America was to be a new order of the ages; the west was where Americans would build it. As Americans streamed west, however, the same age-old conflicts over land, religion and ways of life recurred. Americans fought native Americans and among themselves over how best to live on the land and develop and protect its resources. The seminar will examine early visions of the west, the conflicts that arose there during the nineteenth century, and the rise of the conservation and environmental movements in the twentieth century. Along with primary documents, seminar participants will examine visual images, especially from the nineteenth century Hudson River school of landscape painting, to explore the issues the seminar addresses.

This seminar is sponsored by The Warner Foundation.

Contested Elections: 1800, 1824, 1876, 1960 & 2000

Boston, MA | September 8-10, 2023

This timely seminar will focus on five of the most contentious presidential elections in American history. All of these elections witnessed a deeply divided nation deal with outcomes that were suspect in the eyes of many citizens. These bitter contests highlight the importance of norms and traditions for healthy republican government–norms that can only prevail if embraced by the contending candidates.

Reconstruction

Natchez, MS | September 8-10, 2023

The era of Reconstruction is among the most consequential—but also misunderstood—periods of all American history. This multi-day seminar addresses the ways in which Americans restored formally rebel states into a republican Union; the definition and scope of liberty in the wake of emancipation; and the limitations of the federal state in enforcing civil rights. The seminar asks a foundational question: to what extent did Reconstruction succeed in preserving the Union and amending the Constitution to bolster a self-governing republic?

From Brown v Board and Beyond: Desegregation & the Civil Rights Movement

Little Rock, AR | September 15-17, 2023

The 1954 Brown v Board of Education of Topeka Supreme Court ruling was a landmark decision, but as the 1957 showdown at Little Rock’s Central High School showed, enforcing the decision’s constitutional mandate required the dedication and courage of ordinary heroes. In this seminar, we will use a variety of primary sources to learn about and discuss the legal campaign of the NAACP to put school segregation before the Supreme Court, the constitutional issues of the cases, the effort to enforce Brown in Little Rock, and the long, difficult effort to desegregate schools elsewhere in the United States.

The Great Depression, the New Deal & the Tennessee Valley Authority

Clinton, TN | September 29-30, 2023

The Great Depression was the worst economic crisis that the United States ever faced. The New Deal, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s efforts to end the Depression and prevent future crises, fundamentally altered the relationship between the American people and their government. The Tennessee river valley was particularly transformed through the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority. This seminar will explore the nature of the crisis, the efforts by Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt to address it, and the lasting impact of the Depression and New Deal, with special emphasis on its impact on the Tennessee valley.

The Failure of Reconstruction & the Rise of Jim Crow

Atlanta, GA | October 13-15, 2023

This seminar will examine the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of the era of Jim Crow. In the span of only a decade, from approximately 1875-1885, the monumental effort undertaken by the federal government to make African Americans equal citizens of the United States was abandoned and replaced by a campaign of racial discrimination and white supremacy commonly referred to as Jim Crow. This seminar will explain why this critically important change that shaped the future of the nation occurred.

Abraham Lincoln, Race & the New Birth of Freedom

Springfield, IL | November 10-12, 2023

This seminar will examine Lincoln’s speeches and letters, as well as those of select contemporaries, on emancipation, civil war, and reconstruction. We will focus on Lincoln’s consistencies and inconsistencies on race, his changing war goals, and his vision for a postwar reconstructed nation rededicated to the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence.

The application period closes May 19th. Apply now!

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