Gilder Lehrman Summer Seminars: The Colonial Era
Each summer the Gilder Lehrman Institute holds seminars for public, parochial and independent school teachers "designed to strengthen educators' commitment to high quality history teaching." More than 6,000 teachers have participated in the program through the years. In the summer of 2006 600 participants from 49 states and 6 foreign countries took part. HNN asked participants to write up their reflections, which we will be publishing over the coming months.
I have always nurtured a love for the discipline of history. However, as my department colleagues can attest, I have never enjoyed teaching or studying the colonial period of American history. It was my least favorite course in graduate school. My lack of interest in the pre-Revolutionary War record was probably evident in my teaching. I typically rushed through the unit hoping that I could recover my students’ interest before they became permanently disenchanted. To overcome this attitude, I applied to the Gilder Lehrman seminar, “The Colonial Era: Structure and Texture,” conducted at Yale University. I was aware of the excellent reputation of historian John Demos from whom I sought a cure for my intellectual and pedagogical malaise. Happily, my week-long experience produced the desired epiphany.
I attended the seminar along with thirty-one professionals representing all parts of the country and a wide range of experiences in education. Our group of teachers included a member of the National Park Service, an administrator, and a curriculum supervisor. Participants came from cities, suburban schools and rural areas, from Covington, Washington to Topsham, Maine. Their school environments varied. But out of a common professional commitment emerged a vibrant community ethos.
Each day of the seminar focused on various themes in early America society: education, family life, race, gender, and community life. Historian John Demos provided engaging lectures worthy of his eminent reputation. The lectures were followed by small group discussions conducted by Professor Demos, Gilder Lehrman education coordinator John McNamara, and Yale graduate assistant Wendy Warren. Although we were given a substantial readings packet beforehand, we concentrated on the primary sources in Professor Demos’s anthology, Remarkable Providences. In small groups we offered commentary, asked questions and discussed classroom applications. For example, we reviewed the 1640 criminal proceedings before the Massachusetts General Court involving Mrs. Ann Hibbens, whose outspokenness inflamed a community and ultimately resulted in her witchcraft conviction. Our group was fascinated by the text. Professor Demos raised questions that inspired in us a critical reading of colonial conflict resolution and gender constructs. He then assigned roles for a “readers’ theatre” exercise. As our voices recreated the emotional proceedings, this 17th century document came to life, playing out an incendiary drama. Later that evening, some participants continued the exercise in an impromptu performance at a local bar. According to the unpublished reviews, the New Haven patrons were quite entertained!
In addition to the excellent readings and inspiring lectures, our group was treated to field trips, first to Massachusetts’s Historic Deerfield, the site of a 1704 attack by a French and Indian war party and then to well-preserved Hempsted Houses in New London, Connecticut. Both trips included lively tours of the grounds, the buildings and furnishings, some restored, some recreated. Deerfield offered a walking tour of the serene and well-attended grounds with dinner at the elegant nineteenth century Deerfield Inn. Our group was particularly impressed with the Hempsted Houses. Built in 1678 and 1759, the two homes respectively constructed by Joshua Hempsted and his grandson Nathanial, not only survived the British attack on New London, but still contain original Hempsted family possessions. Professor Demos supplemented our tours with discussion of Joshua Hempstead’s diary and a walk through the nearby cemetery to explore the work of this remarkable gravestone carver. The furnishings, life-stories, and chance to walk in paths of our precursors transformed them from lifeless portraits into real personalities.
Throughout our stay at Yale, we had time to visit the campus and appreciate its 18th century architecture, campus museums and surrounding college community. Our “document session” at Yale’s majestic Sterling Memorial Library was an enriching experience that few of us will ever have again. An archivist guided us through a round robin exercise of reading and interpreting letters, diaries, petitions and broadsides. We struggled with the cryptic handwriting and unfamiliar sentence construction, but our general awe was palpable. We also took advantage of the ample free time to visit Yale’s remarkable Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (with its breathtaking medieval manuscripts), the Yale Art Museum and the Shakespeare Museum. Most of us could not pass up a trip to the local bookstores to acquire the texts that Professor Demos recommended for further reading.
Our week-long seminar was highlighted by a farewell dinner at Professor Demos’s spacious l8th century Tyringham home in the scenic Berkshires of western Massachusetts. He and his wife welcomed us warmly and Professor Demos provided a casual tour of the home’s beautifully appointed antique-filled rooms. Since I enjoy seeing where writers actually write, one of my favorite memories is standing in the light, breezy porch where a large round wooden table was littered methodically with books and papers. Here Professor Demos is completing his second work on witchcraft. He chuckled when I asked, “So, this is the nerve center of the house?”
As we departed Tyringham, I stole a moment to thank Professor Demos personally for inspiring in me a new look at colonial history. I would never have had the opportunity that Yale students enjoy to learn from one of the foremost historians of pre-modern American history. I thanked him both for his captivating manner and for giving me a fresh perspective on the historical text and pedagogical strategy. Although I have been teaching for twenty-seven years, my head was brimming with new possibilities for the classroom.
Our final segment was the document project presentations by the participants. Each project reflected the individual teaching situations and, in many cases, the personal proclivities or our diverse group. One of my favorite projects, researched by Ana Cabrera-Espinal of Jeaga Middle School in West Palm Beach, was a robust interplay of charges and countercharges between a righteously indignant wife and her ne’er-do-well husband published in The American Weekly Mercury in l742. Other participants offered examples of speeches, maps, letters, advertisements and a host of primary sources designed to engage students and enrich a teacher’s repertoire. Braving technological challenges and time constraints, John McNamara miraculously provided us with a bound copy of everyone’s contributions.
Our week-long program at Yale was more than a series of lectures and field trips. It was a personal encounter, a “lively package,” as Professor Demos promised. But for me, it was a transformation—the luxury of being a student, guided by one of the profession’s luminaries. I left the Gilder Lehrman seminar armed with some wonderful documents and inspired by a new passion.