Siena College’s Center for Revolutionary Era Studies (CRES) has been awarded a grant in the amount of $175,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to support Landmarks of American History and Culture: Workshops for School Teachers. This is the second NEH grant since 2010 that CRES has received.
The workshops will bring K-12 teachers from across the country to Siena in July 2013 to study the history, contributions and legacies of American Shakers. Themed “Heaven on Earth: Shakers, Religious Revival and Social Reform in America, the workshop will take place in the birthplace of American Shakerism, specifically at three landmark historic sites: Watervliet Shaker National Historic District (the original Shaker site in America), Shaker Museum Mount Lebanon (NY) and Hancock Shaker Village (MA). Participating teachers will also engage the collection of Shaker documents housed at the New York State Library and view the comprehensive collection of Shaker artifacts held by the New York State Museum.
Participating teachers will participate in workshops with scholars and public historians as well as visits to each of the landmark historic sites. The program will explore the history of American Shakerism as a model for understanding the utopian impulse in American History and how teachers can utilize the intellectual expertise of museum professionals to refresh their social studies curriculum.
“I am excited about this project as it will allow us to build collaborations with academic historians, public historians, museum professionals and performing artists in an effort to expand humanities programming. It will also raise awareness of the unique contributions of New York to the early history of the United States,” said Jennifer Dorsey, Ph.D., director of CRES.
The grant application was written in the winter of 2012 in collaboration with Sharon Finnerty, director of grants and sponsored programs, Francis Butler ’15, and education professionals from the New York State Museum, New York State Library, Shaker Heritage Society, Hancock Shaker Village and Shaker Museum Mount Lebanon.
For more information about the Landmarks program, please visit the NEH website.
