New Online Exhibition: The News Media and the Making of America, 1730-1865

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During the summer of 2015, AAS hosted a two-week National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute for School Teachers, during which twenty-five K-12 teachers from all over the country convened for an intensive institute that featured lectures and discussions with scholars, field trips, and many hands-on workshops with original material from the Society’s collections. That ...

AAS Hands-On Workshop Initiates Region-Wide Public History Program

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This past March the Society held a Hands-On History Workshop on the Declaration of Independence.  It featured Danielle Allen of Harvard University and used AAS collection materials to explore how Americans first learned about and celebrated independence in 1776 and how the Declaration was represented and interpreted in the nineteenth century. Our Hands-On History Workshop ...

A Unique Thank-You from Our NEH Summer Institute

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We recently hosted twenty-five educators who came to the Society from across the country to participate in a two-week Summer Institute funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Titled The News Media and the Making of America, 1730-1865, the program examined—through twenty-one seminar sessions and eighteen library workshops—how news was defined, reported, and disseminated ...

Digital Antiquarian Wrap-Up: The End of the Beginning

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It is hard to believe that after a year of preparations the Digital Antiquarian Conference and Workshop are now behind us. What began as a twinkle in my and Thomas Augst’s eyes when he was an NEH fellow here blossomed into a 10-day extravaganza here at AAS, starting with the largest academic conference the Society ...

The Antiquarian in the Twenty-First Century

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Printed by Senefelder Lithography Company in 1830, the image on the right in the banner above recalls a transatlantic moment when antiquarianism was both a popular fad and an object of ridicule (think Walter Scott’s The Antiquary or Friedrich Nietzsche’s description of the antiquarian as “the mad collector raking over all the dust heaps of ...

K-12 Workshop: Learning about “Writing History” with an Expert

Why not jumpstart your school year by joining us for a workshop? On Monday, August 19, we’ll be hosting “Writing History,” a workshop for K-12 educators led by Bancroft Prize-winning author John Demos. Through a lecture/discussion with Demos and a series of interactive workshops we will be exploring the process of creating and writing historical narratives, ...

Thou Shalt Not Miss “Mining for Minerals: The Pull of the West”

On Saturday, June 22, AAS will hold an interactive workshop for educators entitled Mining for Minerals: The Pull of the West that explores the search for gold and silver in the west and the impact that it had on immigration, economic development, the environment, Native Americans and social interactions. Led by Middlebury College professor Kathyrn ...

New Hands-On History Workshop: Worcester and the American Revolution

To study closely a nineteenth-century lithograph or actually touch the impressions of type in the sheets of an eighteenth-century newspaper can be a magical, even transformative, experience. For years I have seen K-12 educators become engrossed and inspired by such activities. However it was only after we conducted a one-day workshop for K-12 educators on ...

A Day with the National Park Service

For museum and park enthusiasts, the green and gray uniforms of the National Park Service (NPS) symbolize respect, knowledge, and public service. They’re recognizable and serve as a reminder of the continuing preservation of our national heritage and landscape. But all too often people only associate the NPS with the large outdoor wildlife parks such ...