Past Workshops

2026: Revolutionary Boston: Teaching Multiple Perspectives through Primary Sources

As we marked the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States in 2026, the Athenaeum hosted K-12 educators to explore a wide variety of stories and primary sources to use in the classroom that reveal a multitude of stories and perspectives from Revolutionary Boston, including those of enslaved and free Black Bostonians, women and Indigenous communities. Sessions included guest instructors Christine M. DeLucia (Williams College) and Lorén Spears (Executive Director of Tomaquag Museum), and a day of study at the Royall House & Slave Quarters (led by Executive Director Kyera Singleton).

2025: Allan Rohan Crite: Capturing Boston

This K-12 educators workshop introduced participants to Crite and his work and provided resources for teaching with his art. Participants spent one day at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the second at the Boston Athenaeum. Topics included Visual Thinking Strategies, and the effect of WWII, urban renewal, and social revolutions on Boston and Crite’s career.

2024: Abolition and Activism: Black Women in 19th Century Boston

Our 2024 workshop focused on collections and locations in Boston that can be used to teach about the fight for racial equality and suffrage by 19th century Black Bostonians, with a focus on the central role of women.

Topics included the fight to desegregate the Boston Public Schools and the Beacon Hill and West End community of Black women activists, which were explored in partnership with the Museum of African American History, the National Park Service and Dr. Kabria Baumgartner from Northeastern University.

2023: Im/migration

The 2023 educator workshop explored the Boston Athenaeum’s collections related to the history of migration and immigration in the United States. Presenters included Dr. Davarian Baldwin and artist Alex Gerasev.

2022: Active Citizenship

Our 2022 workshop opened with a virtual lecture featuring Henry Santana, Director of Civic Organizing for the City of Boston and Rev. Kevin C. Peterson of the New Democracy Coalition. In the following days, participants explored sources ranging from 19th-century ballots to 1960s flyers and welcomed guest lecturers Elizabeth Carroll (Program Director at Facing History and Ourselves) and Lynn Brown, K-12 Education Manager at the Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library.

2021: Abolition and the Underground Railroad

Our 2021 workshop focused on primary sources related to the abolitionist movement and the Underground Railroad, using the Harriet Hayden Albums as a starting point. Visits to the Boston African American Historic Site and the Museum of African American History offered opportunities to consider historic sites as primary sources, and a guest speaker from Historic Newton led a session on project based learning. Dr. Kellie Carter Jackson gave the keynote lecture, “Force and Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence.”

2020: Changing Status and Role of Women in American History, 1776-1920

As part of the Athenaeum’s year-long program series commemorating the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, the 2020 workshop focused on materials related to women’s history from the Revolutionary War through World War I. The workshop featured a keynote lecture, “Images in the Women’s Suffrage Movement,” by Allison K. Lange, PhD.

2019: Teaching the Civil War

The 2019 workshop used the Athenaeum’s exceptional collections of Civil War-related materials to demonstrate and allow participants to develop a range of methods for reading, analyzing, and implementing the use of primary sources.

Sponsors

Primary Sources in the Classroom is sponsored in part by Taylor Mudge through the Mudge Fellowship Program.

Participating educators are designated as Mudge Education Associates at the Boston Athenaeum and receive a one-year Individual Membership to the Athenaeum.

Special thanks to Boston University Center for the Humanities for supporting this initiative through PhD Graduate Internships in the Humanities.