Dear colleagues,

We cordially invite you to join us and thousands of history professionals at the 138^th annual meeting of the American Historical Association in New York City from Friday, January 3 to Monday, January 6, 2025.

Teachers in New York state are eligible to receive Continuing Teacher and Leader Education (CTLE) credit for attending any of around 80 selected sessions and workshops at the AHA’s 2025 annual meeting through an agreement with the New York City Department of Education. Eligible sessions and workshops are listed in the meeting program. Questions can be emailed to annualmeeting@historians.org.

The AHA annual meeting features more than 500 sessions, including an array of panels geared toward K—12 teachers. Participate in hands-on workshops focused on writing assignments in the age of AI, the art of historical podcasting, and teaching with primary sources form the Library of Congress. Pose questions to leading scholars in our State of the Field for Busy Teachers series, with sessions focused on recent developments in graphic history, Native American history, LGBTQ+ history, the American Revolution, and Africa in world history. Or take advantage of the opportunity to sample from hundreds of panels focused on research covering diverse and varied in both US and world history.

Éirinn go Brách

Tyler Anbinder, professor emeritus at George Washington University, has a new book out entirely rooted in wonderful primary source materials. In Plentiful Country: The Great Potato Famine and the Making of Irish New York, the myth of the poverty-stricken Irish immigrant being a drain on American society is dispelled all because of a treasure trove of bank records. The records of the Emigrant Savings Bank, housed at the NY Public Library, show that even day laborers were averaging $150 in their savings accounts -- equivalent to about $6000 today!  

How can primary sources be used to disprove other stereotypes? 

Why is this set of data significant to American history?

What other primary sources can be combined with this bank data to get a clearer picture of the lives of Irish immigrants to America?

How are the reactions to the 19th century mass emigration of Irish to America similar to events happening today? 

Irish Americans Free to Use and Reuse

Herald of the Times, and Rhode Islander, January 18, 1847 -- Famine! 

No Irish Need Apply, 1862 

What Irish Boys Can Do

The Irish Republic Newspaper, 1867-68, Chicago

Irish American Song

Irish Colonists in New York, 1906

Where the blame lies, 1891 (anti-immigration cartoon)

Immigration Challenges for New Americans

Adaptation and Assimilation

Irish-Catholic Immigration to America

Immigrant Laborers in the Early 20th century, audio recording.

Irish Contributions to the American Culture

The Immigrant Experience: Down the Rabbit Hole

US Census Records

Only a small portion of the Emigrant Savings Bank Records have been digitized, but they are fascinating! The bank records span from 1841 through 1923. 

Immigration: The Irish, New York, PBS Media

EPIC: The Irish Immigration Museum

Irish-American Heritage Museum

When America Despised the Irish: The 19th Century Refugee Crisis

  3 - 5    6 - 8    9 - 12    13+    Social Studies/History    museum    Irish  

https://www.loc.gov/item/2018696738/

The Bard College Institute for Writing and Thinking invites teachers and professors to attend the July Weeklong Workshops at Bard's beautiful campus on the Hudson River.  Nine different workshops will be on offer, including two funded by a generous grant from the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources program.  These workshops -- Writing to Learn and Thinking Historically Through Writing -- focus on writing-to-read strategies for analyzing primary documents, secondary texts, and visual artifacts so that participants learn how historians interpret evidence and construct stories based on those interpretations. Many imaginative teaching strategies enrich and enliven students’ appreciation of the past. Writing is the least used and yet perhaps the most versatile of these strategies, since it allows students to discover worlds that differ from our present and to explore varied—and often conflicting—interpretations of our histories.

The July Weeklong Workshops are held July 9-14, 2023 at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.  For more information, please visit: https://iwt.bard.edu/july/

  Mark Johnson  a member of the TPS Network will be at the Museum of Chinese in America https://www.mocanyc.org/event/moca-writes-history-as-mystery/

Nov 7 - 4:00-6:00 History as Mystery

Nov 7 - 6:00-8:00 An Evening of Letters, Stories, & Narratives

Registration is free.  

Mark is an amazing teacher and speaker and has recently published the book, "The Middle Kingdom Under the Big Sky"

  Middle Kingdom    Big Sky    Announcements    Museum of Chinese in America  

...There is no actual harm in making Niagara a background whereon to display one's marvelous insignificance in a good strong light, but it requires a sort of superhuman self-complacency to enable one to do it.

When you have examined the stupendous Horse- shoe Fall till you are satisfied you cannot improve on it, you return to America by the new Suspension Bridge, and follow up the bank to where they ex- hibit the Cave of the Winds....

(Mark Twain on Niagara Falls, From "Sketches New and Old", Copyright 1903, Samuel Clemens. http://xroads.virginia.edu/~drbr/niagara.html)

Since the first human encounter with the mighty falls of the Niagara River, the attempts of humans to insert themselves into the natural landscape has impacted the ecosystem of the region. This lesson demonstrates to students the long term effects of manmade damage to the natural environment. English/Language Arts Science Social Studies/History Technology 3 - 5 6 - 8 9 - 12 13+ New York   bestof