Arts and Culture

September 16, 2021

This summer twenty-five scholars participated in the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning’s fifth National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute Visual Culture of the American Civil War and its Aftermath. Participants met virtually, with pre-recorded video presentations by seventeen noted historians, art historians, and archivists representing the range of current work in the field. Scholars led presentations, discussions, and hands-on workshops that assessed how information and opinion about the war were recorded and disseminated, and considered ways visual media expressed and shaped Americans’ understanding on both sides of the conflict. Several live “Q&A” sessions featured nationally renown cultural institutions: American Antiquarian Society (Worcester, MA), Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY), and New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (New York, NY).

In addition, a team of three institute faculty (Joshua Brown, Sarah Burns, and Gregory Downs) guided the participating scholars in ways to use visual evidence to enhance their research, writing, and teaching about the war and its short- and long-term effects. Topics discussed during the institute included Civil War photography, visualizing slavery and anti-slavery, the illustrated press, maps, Native America, Emancipation, the Black press, and commemorative sculpture and public monuments (the full schedule of activities and speakers is available here).

Thanks to a supplementary NEH grant, many of the institute’s resources and activities will be available online on The Visual Culture of the American Civil War website. The site, which currently includes sessions from past institutes, features video lectures and related picture galleries, primary documents, and print and multimedia bibliographies.

We are pleased to announce that Humanities New York has awarded ASHP/CML a grant of $5,000 for Spaces, Places, and Faces: Exploring Queer Public History. The grant will be used to research and develop a podcast series that looks at how the work of historians, activists, educators, and archivists have preserved and reclaimed the telling of LGBTQ+ history. ASHP/CML will produce two episodes to air in fall 2021 and script four additional episodes in the series.

Spaces, Places, and Faces builds on ASHP/CML’s recent work with the New York City Depatment of Education developing LGBTQ+ curriculum for grades 4-12. The podcasts are designed for a broad public audience of classroom educators, school administrators, parents, humanities scholars, activists, archivists, and public historians. It will also be of interest to LGBTQ+ people looking to understand the public history happening in their communities as well as to those seeking to understand and integrate the work of Queer public historians into their own practice.

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Alice Austen House Museum, Staten Island, New York. Photographer: Blindowlphotography via Wikimedia Commons

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This July, the American Social History Project will once again host an NEH Summer Institute for college and university faculty on the Visual Culture of the American Civil War and Its Aftermath. The institute will be a ten-day remote program taking place between June 28 and July 14, 2021.

Postponed this year due to Covid-19, the fifth iteration of our institute will focus on the Civil War and Reconstruction era’s array of visual media–including prints, photographs, cartoons, illustrated newspapers and magazines, maps, ephemera, monuments, and the fine arts. The institute will examine how information and opinion about the war and its aftermath was recorded and disseminated, and the ways visual media expressed and shaped Americans’ understanding, North and South, free and enslaved. Due to continuing restrictions regarding face-to-face meetings, this will be a remote institute in which participants will view lectures by and interact with noted historians, art historians, and archivists. In addition, they will participate in new “behind the scenes” virtual sessions with curators and staff in major museums and archives. A team of three institute faculty that represents the range of work in the field will introduce participants to the rich body of new scholarship that addresses or incorporates Civil War and postwar visual culture, prompt them via individual remote conferences to do further research, and help them to use visual evidence to enhance their scholarship and teaching. Reading assignments preceding and during the institute will prepare participants for full engagement in discussions and activities.

The institute will meet over ten days between June 28 and July 14, 2021. Faculty and visiting speakers include: Jermaine Archer, Amanda Bellows, Louise Bernard, Joshua Brown, Sarah Burns, Gregory Downs, Matthew Fox-Amato, Amanda Frisken, Lauren Hewes, Dominique Jean-Louis, Barbara Krauthamer, Allison Lange, Turkiya Lowe, Maurie McInnis, Susan Schulten, Scott Manning Stevens, and Dell Upton.

While scholars and teachers specializing in U.S. history, American studies, and art history will find the institute especially attractive, we encourage applicants from any field who are interested in the Civil War and Reconstruction era and its visual culture, regardless of your disciplinary interests. Independent scholars, scholars engaged in museum work or full-time graduate studies are also urged to apply. You need not have extensive prior knowledge of the Civil War, Reconstruction or visual culture or have previously incorporated their study in any of your courses or research. However, your application essay should identify specific ways in which a ten day concentration on the topics will enhance your teaching and/or research. In addition, please describe a research or teaching project you will develop during the institute. The ideal institute participant will bring to the group a fresh understanding of the relevance of the topic to their teaching and research.

Completed applications must be submitted via our online application system or e-mail no later than March 1, 2021. Applications sent via postal mail will not be accepted.

Full details and application information are available on the ASHP/CML Institute website. For further information, please contact Institute Director Donna Thompson Ray at dthompson@gc.cuny.edu.

Thanks to a supplementary NEH grant, many of the institute’s resources and activities are available online on The Visual Culture of the American Civil War website. The site, which currently includes sessions from our past institutes, features video lectures and related picture galleries, primary documents, and print and multimedia bibliographies.

Image: Currier & Ives. The first colored senator and representatives – in the 41st and 42nd Congress of the United States. United States, 1872. New York: Published by Currier & Ives. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/98501907/.

This July, the American Social History Project will once again host a two-week NEH Summer Institute for college and university faculty on the Visual Culture of the American Civil War and Its Aftermath.

The fifth iteration of our institute will focus on the Civil War and Reconstruction era’s array of visual media–including prints, photographs, cartoons, illustrated newspapers and magazines, maps, ephemera, and the fine arts. The institute will examine how information and opinion about the war and its aftermath was recorded and disseminated, and the ways visual media expressed and shaped Americans’ understanding, North and South, free and enslaved. Guided by a team of three faculty that represents the range of work in the field, institute participants will hear daily lectures and presentations by noted historians, art historians, and archivists, and take part in hands-on sessions in major New York museums and archival collections. These institute activities will introduce participants to the rich body of scholarship that addresses or incorporates Civil War and Reconstruction-era visual culture, encourage them to explore avenues for further research in the field, and assist them in developing their own research and/or teaching projects. Reading assignments preceding and during the institute will prepare participants for full engagement in discussions and activities. And time will be provided to prepare individual projects, undertake research in local archives, and meet with the three principal institute faculty members as well as guest speakers.

The institute will meet from July 6 to July 17, 2020 at the CUNY Graduate Center (34th Street and Fifth Avenue) and other archival and museum sites around the city, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New-York Historical Society, and New York Public Library. Faculty and visiting speakers include: Jermaine Archer, Amanda Bellows, Louise Bernard, Georgia Barnhill, Michele Bogart, Joshua Brown, Sarah Burns, Gregory Downs, Matthew Fox-Amato, Amanda Frisken, Dominique Jean-Louis, Barbara Krauthamer, Turkiya Lowe, Maurie McInnis, Susan Schulten, Scott Manning Stevens, and Dell Upton.

While scholars and teachers specializing in U.S. history, American studies, and art history will find the institute especially attractive, we encourage applicants from any field who are interested in the Civil War and Reconstruction era and its visual culture, regardless of your disciplinary interests. Independent scholars, scholars engaged in museum work or full-time graduate studies are also urged to apply. You need not have extensive prior knowledge of the Civil War, Reconstruction or visual culture or have previously incorporated their study in any of your courses or research. However, your application essay should identify specific ways in which two weeks of concentration on the topics will enhance your teaching and/or research. In addition, please describe a research or teaching project you will develop during the institute. The ideal institute participant will bring to the group a fresh understanding of the relevance of the topic to their teaching and research.

Completed applications must be submitted via our online application system or e-mail or postal mail no later than March 1, 2020 (postal mail must be postmarked by March 1).

Full details and application information are available on the ASHP/CML Institute website. For further information, please contact Institute Director Donna Thompson Ray, 212-817-1963.

During two weeks this past July, the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning held our fourth National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute. “The Visual Culture of the American Civil War and its Aftermath” institute was hosted by the CUNY Graduate Center and three New York City cultural institutions (New York Public Library, New-York Historical Society, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art). Attended by twenty-five NEH Summer Scholars selected from colleges, universities, and museums across the country, the institute featured presentations, discussions, visits to local archives and museums, and hands-on workshops that focused on the era’s visual media to assess how information and opinion about the war were recorded and disseminated, and to consider ways visual media expressed and shaped Americans’ understanding on both sides of the conflict. For this fourth institute, we explored the struggle for equality beyond the years of the war, including the visualization of the extended war in the West, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow.

The institute featured talks by fifteen noted historians, art historians, and archivists representing the range of current work in the field. In addition, a team of three institute faculty (Joshua Brown, Sarah Burns, and Gregory Downs) guided the participating scholars in ways to use visual evidence to enhance their research, writing, and teaching about the war and its short- and long-term effects. Topics discussed during the institute included Civil War photography, visualizing slavery and anti-slavery, the illustrated press, maps, textiles, Emancipation, the war in the West, and commemorative sculpture and public monuments. Visit https://ashp.cuny.edu/2018-schedule-and-syllabus for the full schedule of activities and speakers.

In partnership with The Gotham Center for New York City History and the CUNY Public History Collective, ASHP is hosting a series of public programs titled Difficult Histories/Public Spaces: The Challenge of Monuments in New York City and the Nation. The series brings together historians, art historians, community activists, and artists to discuss the ongoing reevaluation of public monuments and memorials and to engage with audiences about the often controversial histories represented.

ASHP held the first event, Monuments as: History / Art / Power on June 13, 2018. The panel presented a case study of the former J. Marion Sims monument on Fifth Avenue and 104th Street, and examined the historical context of Sims’s medical research and experimentation on enslaved women, the modern East Harlem community response to his current memorialization, and future possibilities for remembering this difficult history.

The second event, Who Decides? The History and Future of Monument Creation in New York City will be held on October 9, 2018 and will discuss the history of monument creation, visions for new projects, and the current pressures on New York City agencies to respond to public opinion. Participants will include Michele Bogart, author of the new Sculpture in Gotham: Art and Urban Renewal In New York City; Mary Anne Trasciatti, President, “Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition;” Jack Tchen, Professor of Public History and the Humanities, Rutgers University; and will be moderated by Todd Fine, History Doctoral Candidate, CUNY Graduate Center, and advocate of the monument for “Little Syria.”

A third and final event, focused on alternative approaches to confronting and constructively addressing how difficult histories are memorialized in New York City and throughout the country, will be held on February 6, 2019. Further information will be posted closer to the date of the program.

All events are held in the Segal Theatre at the CUNY Graduate Center and are free and open to the public. The series is made possible with funding from Humanities New York and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Visit https://ashp.cuny.edu/difficult-histories-public-spaces-series-public-programs to learn more about the upcoming programs.

During two weeks in July, the American Social History Project-Center for Media and Learning hosted a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute on “The Visual Culture of the American Civil War” at the CUNY Graduate Center and cultural institutions in the New York area. The 2014 institute built on the work established in our 2012 NEH Civil War Summer Institute.

Attended by thirty NEH Summer Scholars from colleges and universities across the country, the institute featured presentations, discussions, visits to local archives and museums, and hands-on workshops that focused on the era’s visual media to assess how information and opinion about the war were recorded and disseminated, and to consider ways visual media expressed and shaped Americans’ understanding on both sides of the conflict.

NEH summer scholars and faculty at the CUNY Graduate Center.

The institute featured talks by fourteen noted historians, art historians, and archivists representing the range of current work in the field. The topics included Civil War photography of the home front and war front, interdisciplinary methods for researching and teaching the Civil War, the illustrated press, images of slavery and antislavery, political cartoons, the paintings of Winslow Homer, the vision of total war, and public monuments (the full schedule of activities and speakers is available here). Building on the information and resources discussed and viewed at the institute, the participants also worked independently on their own research and teaching projects utilizing visual evidence to enhance understanding of the history of the war.

ASHP/CML is currently accepting applications for our 2014 National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute for College and University Teachers on the Visual Culture of the American Civil War. The two-week institute, which will take place at the City University of New York Graduate Center and local archives and museums from July 7th to 18th, will study the ways the war was recorded, reported, represented, and remembered via an unprecedented array of visual media that included the fine arts, photography, cartoons, and a range of “ephemeral”pictorial items and publications.

Information about the institute−including an informational video, schedule of activities, roster of leading scholars in the field, and application instructions−is now available in a special section of the ASHP/CML website. We welcome inquiries about participating and invite college and university faculty, independent scholars, scholars engaged in museum work, and full-time graduate students to apply. If you plan to apply, be sure to review NEH’s Application Information and Instructions to determine your eligibility. The deadline for applications is Tuesday, March 4, 2014.

We are very excited to announce the launch of Who Built America Badges for History Education. The site is a free online professional learning community where teachers can work with ASHP/CML history educators to teach and create document-based, Common Core aligned units. While doing so, they earn digital badges that demonstrate their professional learning and help to advance their careers. This project grows out of our decades of work providing professional development to history teachers in New York City and elsewhere and features the engaging social history content ASHP/CML is known for. Please help us to get the word out about WBA Badges to both in-service and pre-service teachers by sharing this announcement with colleagues.