Celine Hamilton Quill and Priscilla Hellweg of Enchanted Circle Theater

Immigration offers a means to explore commonalities and differences in "Coming to America" experiences.  Enhance skills of communication and responsive leadership through interactive theater games.

Hampshire Educational Collaborative, 97 Hawley Street, Northampton, MA

Snow date — February 27th

Richard Colton, Historian, Springfield Armory National Historic Site and

Professor Robert Forrant, UMass Lowell

Established in 1777 to store weapons for the Continental Army, for nearly 200 years the Springfield Armory famously supplied many of the arms that won America’s wars. During this on-site seminar, we will explore that story and examine how the Armory drove innovation and industry in the Connecticut River Valley and helped create the Industrial Revolution.

Springfield Armory Historic Site, 38 Federal Street, Springfield, MA

Professor Audrey Altstadt, Professor of History, UMass Amherst

Current events in Central Asia and American involvement in Afghanistan reflect centuries of history and generations of conflict.  We will look at the history of this area and how it impacts what is happening in the region today.

Amherst Regional Middle School and via teleconference at Nessacus Middle School, Dalton, MA

Professor James E. Young, UMass Amherst

This lecture will explore and compare the ways every nation remembers the Holocaust according to its own political, religious, and aesthetic traditions, as well as the ways memorials, museums, and days of remembrance shape Holocaust memory for both the survivors and later generations.

Amherst Regional Middle School and via teleconference at Nessacus Middle School, Dalton, MA

Professor Bridget Marshall, UMass Lowell

Almost forty years before the Salem Witch Trials, a neighbor laid witchcraft charges against the wife of a prosperous Northampton merchant. Rumors of "dealings with the devil" dogged Goody Parsons for decades. Eventually she left the community. We will examine a compact, complete, and highly accessible online bank of primary sources and interactive maps as we explore the Puritan mind and daily life in Colonial Massachusetts. 

Hampshire Educational Collaborative, 97 Hawley Street and Historic Northampton, 46 Bridge Street, Northampton

Professor Jose Angel Hernandez, UMass Amherst

In 1848, hostilities broke out between the U.S. and Mexico over the annexation of Texas. In the end, Mexico ceded half its territory to the U.S., and the war tainted the relationship between the the two nations for 150 years. We will look at the "historical trauma" of the war, particularly in light of the increasing number of Americans of Mexican descent.

Amherst Regional Middle School and via teleconference at Nessacus Middle School, Dalton, MA

Aaron Rubinstein, Digital Project Manager, UMass Amherst W.E.B. DuBois Library Special Collections

W.E.B. Du Bois was one of the most important thinkers and activists of the twentieth century. Born and raised in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, he vaulted to global influence that spanned generations. The UMass Amherst library is home to the world’s leading Du Bois collection. Aaron Rubinstein heads the two-year project to digitize the Du Bois papers, allowing unprecedented on-line access. Rubinstein will introduce Du Bois through the collection and facilitate exploration of ways to use these materials in your classroom.

Special Collections, W.E.B. Du Bois Library, UMass Amherst

Professor Richard Chu, UMass Amherst

Did you know that in 1899 70,000 U.S. troops fought Filipino nationalists in a war that lasted more than a decade, costing hundreds of thousands of Filipino lives lost and thousands of American soldiers dead? The talk focuses on this little known event in U.S. history and relates it to the broader history of U.S. imperialism in the Asia-Pacific region.

Amherst Regional Middle School and via teleconference at Nessacus Middle School, Dalton, MA

with Jay Gitlin – 9am-3:30pm daily
- Participants will explore the history of the 19th century frontier through three different narratives, including fur traders in the Midwest and Cherokees along the Trail of Tears. In each instance, they will consider the different consequences for native-white relations.

with Mary Renda – 9am-3:30pm daily

- Participants will explore disagreements over continental expansion and U.S. policy toward Haiti during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, the development of the nineteenth-century Protestant women’s missionary enterprise, and unexpected outcomes of Woodrow Wilson’s efforts to establish the League of Nations, as illustrations of how race, gender, and empire unfold in U.S. history.