American Social History Project
Established to provide content-rich professional development materials and services for teachers of U.S. history and English, the American Social History Project promotes multicultural and interdisciplinary approaches to the humanities, fosters inquiry- and technology-based pedagogy, and encourages the use of primary documents in curricula by hosting seminars and coordinating partnerships between scholars, teachers, and master educators.
Classroom materials: ASHP produces the Who Built America? textbook, CD-ROM, and documentary video series. Materials cover U.S. history with particular focus on working people and the nation's economy, politics, culture, and society. Also available are Freedom's Unfinished Revolution: An Inquiry Into the Civil War and Reconstruction, which combines a textbook with a collection of primary sources, Labor at the Crossroads Programs and Picturing a Nation. (Grades 9–12; $)
Professional development: The Making Connections program offers workshops, seminars, and in-school mentoring in content and pedagogy for history and humanities teachers in New York City and the tristate area. In the New Media Classroom (NMC) program, humanities educators from middle school through college learn to integrate online resources and Web-based inquiry learning activities by participating in regional summer institutes, workshops, and online discussions during the school year. High school and middle school social studies teachers and Assistant Principals in New York City Region 4 and Region 7 are eligible to take part in the Teaching American History program, which connects educators with scholars of U.S. history. Participants acquire content knowledge, share teaching practices, and create curriculum. Teachers must make a two-year commitment to the program and will receive a stipend for participation. ASHP will provide one- to three-day special seminars for teachers in specific high schools, given interest from at least 8 to 10 teachers. (Grades 7–12; $)
Student/teacher events: Three-day seminars for teachers cover the Harlem Renaissance, mid-19th-century immigration, Progressive Era immigration and labor reform, and World War I–era African American migration in New York City history. (For teachers of grades 9–12; $)
Additional resources: The ASHP website contains online materials and resources, lesson plans, viewers' guides to the Who Built America? videos, and documentaries on subjects including the 19th-century New York neighborhood, Five Points, immigrant women at the turn of the century and the 1909 shirtwaist makers strike, and African American migration during World War I. Additional Internet-based projects created by ASHP include History Matters website, which contains primary documents, annotated website listings and syllabi, suggested projects, guidance from master teachers, discussion pages that advise students and teachers on the use of primary sources, and Talking History, an archive of online discussions for teachers moderated by leading scholars. The Lost Museum website examines P.T. Barnum's American Museum as a lens into the social, cultural, and political history of New York City from 1841 to 1865 and features a three-dimensional interactive museum, a searchable archive of annotated primary documents, a selection of teaching activities, background essays, and other resources. The Virtual New York City website contains online exhibitions chronicling disasters in New York City history such as the 1863 Draft Riots, the Blizzard of 1888, and cholera in the 19th century. It also presents the online exhibit The Struggle for Free Speech at CCNY, 1931–42 and a forum for discussing the historical accuracy of the movie Gangs of New York.
General information: Address: The Graduate Center, CUNY, 365 Fifth Avenue, Room 7389, New York, NY 10016; Phone: 212-817-1966; Web: www.ashp.cuny.edu.
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