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4th Annual American History Day Conference
Plans are now being made for this annual conference. American History Day is a full day program of speakers and presentations that celebrates the diversity of American and regional history. The entire day, including lunch, is free to all teachers of American history.
Registration Forms Registration
Form - viewable and downloadable * * * In this address, Dr. Jackson will develop a conceptual rethinking of New York history and its pivotal role in American history. 10:30 - 11:00 a.m. 11:00 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. Session I Participants are invited to join Dr. Jackson as he informally answers your questions about his keynote address.
The racial oppression and segregation that characterized the post-Reconstruction era can be a daunting subject to teach students. This session will explore the significance of the era of Jim Crow segregation from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century. We will discuss strategies for teaching such a troubling era using first-hand accounts, legislation, and images.
Bruce Eelman is a specialist in the nineteenth-century American South and teaches a variety of American history courses at Siena College. He is also advisor to the college’s History Club. Last summer, Dr. Eelman was Partner Historian for our Project’s History Teacher Summer Workshop at Union College.
New York is rich in United States anti-slavery history. This workshop will demonstrate how to uncover your local community's abolitionist history. Each participant will be provided with anti-slavery projects designed by the presenter as well as resources to reconstruct their own community's local anti-slavery history. This workshop is ideal for high school educators looking to connect 19th century history to their community. Douglas Kaufman teaches U.S. history and psychology at Amsterdam High School. A recipient of local and national awards for teaching excellence, he was a participant in the 2003 Master Teacher Summer Institute at Cooperstown.
National History Day is an exciting, hands-on program that allows students in grades 6-12 to explore local, state, national, or world history through a research project that relates to an annual theme. Using primary and secondary sources, they prepare their efforts for regional, state and national competitions. This session will describe ways to integrate the History Day Program into the classroom curriculum, and give students a chance to get “up close and personal” with history. Ms. Kirkpatrick is the New York State History Day Coordinator. In New York, the National History Day Program is sponsored by the New York State Historical Association. * * * 12:15 - 1:15 p.m. Students can be energized by seeing the connections between local history and the broader themes and issues of American history. This presentation offers a model for finding and using local resources for the teaching of state and national history. It examines different possible approaches and primary sources that help students look at changes in economic, social, and political life, focusing on Troy in the years before and during the Civil War. Among the primary documents from the Rensselaer County Historical Society to be examined are Civil War diaries and letters, city directories, newspapers, and maps. Local history will be presented as a source of intrinsic interest for the classroom as well as a means of illuminating national issues and events. Robert J. Naeher is Chair of the History and Social Studies Department and teachers AP US History at Emma Willard School in Troy. He was a participant in the 2005 Master Teacher Summer Institute at Cooperstown. Nancy Iannucci is Archivist and Librarian at Emma Willard School. Stacy Pomeroy Draper is the Curator at Rensselaer County Historical Society in Troy. From the earliest contacts between Europeans and the peoples of North America, these interactions have varied tremendously from initial fear and wonder, to exchange and cooperation, to captivity, deception, and violence. This session will "explore" the complex nature of Indian-White encounters through sources from both cultures. It will emphasize contingency, and not predetermination, as a crucial viewpoint in studying and teaching Early American history. Andrea Foroughi is an assistant professor in the Department of History at Union College. Her teaching and research interests include the women's and gender history, the American Civil War, American Indian and frontier history, and colonial cartography How might teachers conduct a battlefield tour for their students? This presentation will "walk" participants through one part of the fighting on July 1, 1863, the first day of the three-day Battle of Gettysburg, and examine the exciting possibilities inherent in “walking where history happened.” The presenter will combine a large number of personal accounts by participants with descriptions of this part of the battle, along with a "quick and dirty" introduction to weapons, tactics and Civil War generalship. John R. Vallely is Librarian-Cataloger at the J. Spencer & Patricia Standish Library at Siena College. He is also an Adjunct Professor of U.S. Military History at the college and was named 2004-2005 Professor of the Year by the Siena College History Club. American History Day is funded by a Teaching of American History Grant from the U.S. Department of Education |