Education

Farmers Museum Offers Circus Workshop For Kids

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The Farmers’ Museum in Cooperstown will provide an entertaining way for kids to spend part of their February break by offering a 3-day, circus-themed workshop entitled &#8220Under the Big Top.&#8221 The workshop is designed for kids ages 10-14 and will take place from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. each day (February 16, 17, and 18) at the Museum. This workshop will help kids discover the fascinating background of circuses and sideshows in New York State and throughout America.

Each day will feature history, art, games, and a chance for children to express their acting talents! Participants will see actual pieces of circus history, learn about clowns and their acrobatic antics, and even take part in a performance.

The cost for the 3-day workshop is $150 for NYSHA members and $200 for non-members. To register or to get more information, contact Karen Wyckoff at 607-547-1410. Circus-themed snacks will be provided but participants are asked to bring a bag lunch each day.

NY State Archives Student Research Awards Program

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The New York State Archives has announced its twentieth annual Student Research Awards program to promote and recognize excellence in student research. The main purpose of the awards program is to encourage students to explore the wealth of historical records in New York State. A secondary purpose is to increase cooperation between schools and organizations that administer historical records useful for education. The New York State Archives encourages the participation of school library media specialists in this project.

The Student Research Awards program is a statewide competition open to all New York State students in grades 4–12. A total of three awards will be given, one each for students in grades 4–5, grades 6–8, and grades 9–12.

Each award consists of a certificate and a cash prize. Certificates of Merit will also be awarded to entries other than the winners that show a heavy reliance on historical records to support research.

Timetable &#8211 Entries must be postmarked no later than July 1, 2010.

Recipients will be selected by September 15, and winners will be announced during Archives Month in October, 2010. Entries submitted for competition must be researched and developed during the July 1, 2009 – June 30, 2010 school year.

More information on the Student Research Awards can be found here.

Study: Americans Ignorant About American Revolution

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The American Revolution Center (ARC), an organization hoping to build the first national museum of the revolution in Philadelphia, released today what it’s calling &#8220the first comprehensive national survey of adult knowledge of the American Revolution.&#8221 The findings, which are based on a random sample of 1,000 telephone interviews, indicate that 83 percent of Americans failed a basic test on knowledge of the American Revolution and the principles on which the country was founded.

Perhaps more interesting is the finding that 90 percent of respondents think that knowledge of the American Revolution and its principles are very important, and that 89 percent expected to pass a test on basic knowledge of the American Revolution, but scored an average of 44 percent.

The survey questions considered issues related to Revolutionary documents, people, and events, and also asked attitudinal questions about the respondents’ perception of the importance of understanding the Revolutionary history and the institutions that were established to preserve our freedoms and liberties. The entire study can be downloaded via pdf here.

Here is are some of the more remarkable findings:

American adults mistakenly believe the Constitution established a government of direct democracy, rather than a democratic republic. While this basic fact is included on the naturalization exam for immigrants to qualify for U.S. citizenship, more than half of the Americans polled do not know it.

More than 50 percent of Americans wrongly attributed the quote, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” to George Washington, Thomas Paine, or President Barack Obama, when it is in fact a quote from Karl Marx.

Many more Americans remember that Michael Jackson sang “Beat It” than know that the Bill of Rights is part of the Constitution.

60 percent of Americans can correctly identify the number of children in reality-TV show couple Jon and Kate Gosselin’s household (eight), but more than one-third do not know the century in which the American Revolution took place. Half of those surveyed believe the Civil War, Emancipation Proclamation, or War of 1812 occurred before the American Revolution.

At a time when thousands of political protesters hold “tea parties” around the nation, more than half of Americans do not know that the outcome of the Boston Tea Party was not a repeal of taxes, but rather that it prompted British to pass the Coercive Acts which ignited American patriotism and sparked the Revolution.

One-third of Americans do not know that the right to a jury trial is covered in the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights, while 4-in-10 mistakenly think that the right to vote is.

SUNY Fredonia May Launch Public History Program

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The History Department at SUNY Fredonia is considering creating a graduate certificate program in Public History that will provide training in historical methods, archival methods, exhibition planning and preparation, and historic resource management.

They envision a program that would require 15-18 graduate credit hours (5-6 courses), including course work in Public History and applied skills, historical research methodology, directed readings, and an internship and/or practicum. The courses would be available to both full- and part-time students and all courses included in the program would be applicable to an Interdisciplinary M.A./M.S. at SUNY Fredonia.

So that they can best tailor the program to meet the needs of the Western New York community and their own students, they have created a brief survey about interest and possible enrollment in the program or related courses.

The survey, which should only require a few minutes to complete, will provide valuable feedback as they move forward with planning the program. All responses will remain anonymous and will be used for no other purpose than preparing our program proposal.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=kW5y9yOM8_2feUapbRP49TIA_3d_3d

State Archives Launches New Tool for Educators

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Students, researchers, and lovers of New York State history from around the world will have a better sense of the types of records held by the New York State Archives with the launch of Document Showcase, a quarterly feature on the New York State Archives’ website that will highlight iconic records by investigating specific historical topics.

Quarterly Document Showcase submissions will feature a display of 3-5 hand-picked historical records on a selected topic, background information on those records, a link to educational activities for classroom use, and other related information. All learning activities are being developed by classroom teachers, are based on the New York 7th and 8th grade social studies core curriculum, and relate to New York State learning standards.

October’s edition of Document Showcase examines industrialization and child labor in New York State. The records include: a Factory Investigating Commission brief sent to the state Supreme Court supporting restrictions on the manufacture of goods in tenement houses- letters for and against child labor from Governor Lehman’s subject and
correspondence files- excerpts from chapter 529 of the laws of 1913 restricting child labor- and a union label from the Cigar Makers’ International Union of America expressing opposition to tenement-house manufacturing and other non-union labor. The records of the Factory Investigating Commission, created after the devastating Triangle
Shirtwaist Factory Fire in 1911, uncovered a range of substandard working conditions being experienced by low paid factory workers throughout New York State, many of whom were immigrants and/or women and children.

The Document Showcase is accessed from the State Archives website: www.archives.nysed.gov and select “Document Showcase” under &#8220News and Events.&#8221

SUNY Albany Announces 400th Events

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Throughout the fall semester SUNY Albany will be marking the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson and Samuel de Champlain’s voyages of exploration with a three-part Hudson 400 program that includes an art exhibition, a &#8220talks and concert&#8221 series, and a conference. The formal kick-off occurs tonight (September 15) from 5 to 7 p.m., at the University Art Museum. The museum will hosts the opening reception of &#8220Uncharted&#8221 a new exhibit featuring works from ten artists inspired by themes of travel and discovery. To view the entire Hudson 400 program visit: http://www.albany.edu/outreach/hudson_400/hudson_400_events.html

Henry Hudson, New Netherland, and Atlantic History

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Dr. L.H. Roper, Professor of History at SUNY New Paltz and a scholar of international reputation in the field of Atlantic History has announced a symposium, &#8216-Henry Hudson, New Netherland, and Atlantic History&#8216-, at SUNY New Paltz the weekend of 25-26 September, 2009. This host two-day international symposium on “The Worlds of Henry Hudson” is expected to be the premier intellectual event held in conjunction with the celebration of the quadricentennial of Henry Hudson’s exploration of the Hudson River. Leading historians from the Netherlands, France, and Germany, as well as the United States will present papers on a series of topics related to Hudson and his times.

The program will include panel discussions, teaching workshops, and two luncheon addresses over two days to be held on the campus of SUNY New Paltz., as set forth below. At each session, two-to-three presenters will give talks on topics closely related to the character of the European exploration and colonization of the Hudson Valley, which arose from Hudson’s voyage, and the historical significance of the issues generated by these phenomena.

The emergence of the transatlantic perspective during the last two decades is a major development in the study of the history of Europe, Africa and the Americas during the 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. The scholars invited to this conference are among the major figures in advancing this perspective. The conference program is designed to provide an opportunity for the further integration of their work, and its advancement through publication of the papers it generates and by providing a means for secondary and elementary school teachers to incorporate this scholarship into their own classrooms.

A second goal, equally important, is to further the integration of the African, American Indian, and European contexts (“the transatlantic perspective” or “Atlantic history”) into teaching and learning about exploration and “colonial America” in our schools. The conference structure provides for interaction in each session among leading scholars of early modern Africa and Europe and of American Indian societies and current and future elementary and secondary school teachers.

The cost of registering for this conference will be $20/day and $15 per luncheon session. Teachers who wish to attend, with the exception of those in Ulster, Dutchess, and Orange Counties, should register through the Center for Regional Research, Education, and Outreach at SUNY New Paltz. The costs for attending the symposium will be payable directly to CRREO.

Teachers in Ulster, Dutchess, and Orange Counties who wish to attend one or both days should register via MyLearningPlan. Teachers in other counties should register through the Center for Regional Research, Education, and Outreach at SUNY New Paltz. Professional development hours are available for approval. The first fifty teachers who sign up and who have been participants in the Ulster BOCES Teaching American History Summer Institute for at least one week will have their registration fee paid by the TAH grant. Ulster BOCES will notify those registrants that their fee has been paid.

For further information, please contact Lou Roper of the Department of History at [email protected].

CFP: 1763 and All That, The Decade After The Seven Years War

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1763 and All That: Temptations of Empire in the British World During the Decade After the Seven Years’ War &#8211 a call for papers for a conference to be held on February 25th and 26th, 2010, at the University of Texas at Austin, sponsored by the Department of History’s Institute for Historical Studies.

The focus of the conference is the British Empire during its &#8220decade of crisis&#8221 between the end of the Seven Years’ War in 1763 and the passage of the Tea Act ten years later. Over the course of this decade, Britons drastically transformed the way they viewed themselves and their empire. For the first time, British imperial policy extended to the governance of the French Catholic inhabitants of Canada, the Native people of the trans-Appalachian interior of North America, Africans in the new colony of Senegambia, and the twenty million inhabitants of Bengal subject to the authority of the East India Company.

In Britain itself, the governance of this vastly extended empire engendered an enormous amount of bitter debate and anxious discussion in the halls of power as well as in the popular press. Among historians of each of the different parts of the British World, this decade has long been seen as one of crucial importance.

However, while invaluable work has been done to examine British and indigenous relations and exchanges in specific colonial contexts, as well to examine connections between the metropolis and specific colonial regions, there has been as yet few attempts to interrogate the links across and between the colonial regions and to set developments in particular regions into the context of the transformation of the British Empire as a whole. The organizers aim to address this need by bringing scholars working on various aspects of the British World into dialogue and debate over the causes and character of the imperial transformation of the 1760s and early 1770s.

Submissions are invited for individual papers on these themes. Note that the conference will be organized around the discussion of pre-circulated papers. Accepted papers must be submitted for circulation to participants no later than February 1, 2010. Each proposal should include a brief precis of the paper topic and a clear indication of how the paper will undertake to connect the specific research subject to larger events and processes taking place across the British Empire. The deadline for receiving proposals is September 1, 2009.

Paper proposals (as well a brief C.V.) should be submitted via e-mail to the conference organizers, Robert Olwell and James Vaughn, at: [email protected]. Send all queries to the same address.

La Escuela Electronica / The Electronic Schoolhouse

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The New York State Archives and Archives Partnership Trust have announced La Escuela Electronica/The Electronic Schoolhouse, a bilingual website for teachers focusing on the Latino experience in New York. Using historical records such as photographs, letters, flyers, broadsides and more dating from 1861 to the present, the website combines historical records and technology to promote the development of critical thinking skills, reading and writing skills, understanding historical content and context. Read more →

Thomas Cole National Historic Site Seeks Volunteers

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Cedar Grove, the Thomas Cole National Historic Site is seeking volunteers to conduct on-site school programs during the 2009-2010 school year. The schedule and time commitment are very flexible although a brief training will be held June 5 and 6, 2009. School Programs Docents impart meaningful information about the life, relationships and works of the 19th-century artist Thomas Cole through hands-on activities catered to each grade level and subject area. To get involved contact Education Coordinator Gregory Rosenthal at 518-943-7465 ext. 2, or at [email protected] . Individual informational meetings will be held May 28-31.

@thomascole.org>