Professional Development
Upcoming Workshops
K-12 Professional Development Workshop
Allan Rohan Crite: Griot of Boston
Saturday, November 15, 2025 and Saturday, January 24, 2026
9 am – 3 pm
Cost: $50
Register
The artist Allan Rohan Crite (1910–2007) was a lifelong, proud Bostonian. For eight decades, he religiously documented and nurtured the many groups of which he was a part. From the Black arts community to the Episcopal Church, from Boston’s South End and Roxbury neighborhoods to the Charlestown Navy Yard, Crite devoted himself to preserving the stories of those around him. With a career spanning most of the twentieth century, encompassing periods of immense change throughout the city and the world, he maintained an intellectually curious and artistically experimental practice. Crite later embodied the role of community elder and remained a generous citizen of Boston, a multifaceted city for which he cared deeply.
Participants will spend one day at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the second at the Boston Athenaeum exploring the two Crite exhibitions opening on October 23. The first day of the workshop will focus broadly on teaching with art, from Visual Thinking Strategies to selecting images to teach with. The second day we’ll get up close with original Crite paintings and prints and learn about the broader forces shaping Boston during Crite’s lifetime, from WWII to urban renewal and social revolutions and how these are reflected in his long career.
Priority will be given to K-12 educators currently working in classroom, library and museum positions.
Participating educators will receive two day memberships to the Boston Athenaeum. Participants can take the course for one graduate credit from Westfield State (for an additional $200) or 22.5 PDPs.
Questions? Email education@bostonathenaeum.org.
This workshop is sponsored in part by the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Eastern Region Program, coordinated by Waynesburg University.
Past Workshops
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.