Abby Kelley Foster Public Charter School is delighted to have as our partners, Assumption College, the American Antiquarian Society, and Plimoth Plantation. Each of these institutions offers a unique contribution to our project.

Below you will find a synopsis of our partners and scholars as well as links to each institution.

Assumption College (Worcester, MA) is our higher education partner through their History Department. Leslie Choquette, Ph.D., of the History Department and Amy Gazin-Schwartz, Ph.D., are our Project Co-directors at that institution. Dr. Choquette has written extensively in the field of Native American Studies, especially on the Indians of Quebec (relating to the French and Indian War, for purposes of this program). Dr. Gazin-Schwartz is a member of the Native American Studies Program at the college and has presented workshops such as,  “Learning about Native Americans through archaeology”,  “Five College seminar on the Native American Experience”, and “Five College Seminar for school teachers on the Native American Experience”.  She is a member of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

 Thomas Doughton, Ph.D., from the College of the Holy Cross and Lead Scholar for the proposed Program, has taught and written extensively about the historical relationship between the native people of our region and those who arrived after 1620.  Doughton will act as our lead historical coordinator for the first two Summer Institutes and for the academic year workshops. Nancy Shoemaker, of the History Department of the University of Connecticut at Storrs and nationally renowned for her expertise in the field, will act as co-facilitator for the second Summer Institute and primary coordinator for the third.

While we have Assumption College as our primary partnering institution of higher education, we are pleased to have as institute and workshop leaders highly respected scholars from two additional institutions of higher education with nationally recognized history departments, the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA, and the University of Connecticut at Storrs.

To supplement the expertise provided by our college and university partners, Abby Kelley Foster Charter Public School will partner with the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, MA, one of the great repositories of primary source materials, both print and other artifacts, from the Colonial and early Republic periods. The proximity of this institution to the school and its central location for collaborating districts will allow literally ‘hands-on’ access to rare documents and digital facsimiles on a regular basis.

The American Antiquarian Society (AAS) is a learned society and a major independent research library.  The AAS library houses the largest and most accessible collection of books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, periodicals, sheet music, and graphic arts material printed through 1876 in what is now the United States, as well as manuscripts and a substantial collection of secondary works, bibliographies, and other reference works related to all aspects of American history and culture before the twentieth century.  The library contains two of the three total books known to have been printed in this country from the establishment of the first press in 1640 to 1820.  The Society’s holdings of American printed materials from 1821 through 1876 are among the nation’s best. 

The AAS also has a rich, vast collection of primary and secondary Native American source material on Indians from throughout the continental United States, starting with a 1649 tract by John Eliot (1604-1690). This is the fourth of eleven narratives issued in England between 1643 and 1671 to promote Eliot’s work in converting the New England Indians to Christianity.  The Society also owns a copy of the “Eliot Bible,” printed in the Algonquin language and the first Bible published in this country in 1663.  Among the many publications in the AAS collections written and printed by Indians are extensive runs of two newspapers: the Cherokee Phoenix, which was published in both English and the syllabary of the Cherokee language developed by Sequoyah, and the Cherokee Advocate published in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, after the forced migration of the Cherokees from their ancestral lands in North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia in what has become known as the “trail of tears.”  The AAS also has a manuscript copy of Daniel Gookin’s (1612-1687) “An Historical account of the doings and sufferings of the Christian Indians in New England,” (1677) which the Society published in its own journal, The Transactions and Collections of the American Antiquarian Society in 1836.

Randy Joseph, Director and Linda Coombs, Associate Director of the Wampanoag Indigenous Studies Program (WISP) at Plimoth Plantation, Plymouth Massachusetts, will lend their expertise and the WISP’s wealth of material to the program through access to its collections, workshops, and professional staff’s scholarly support. The Indigenous Studies Program will provide two of the all day workshops during the academic year for all three years as well as shorter presentations during the Summer Institutes. These workshops will specifically focus on historical content relating to: Religion, Government and Laws, Education, Land and Property, and Identity in the context of each of the three periods under study.

UCLA’s School of Management Program, an independent evaluator, will provide oversight and concrete evaluation of the process and progress of the program ascertaining that all internal methods of data measurement meet the required protocols.

The 2007-2008 Annual Evaluation may be viewed by following the link below:

UCLA PROJECT EVALUATION 2007-2008

Worcester State College Graduate School will be offering graduate credit for participants in our Summer Institute 2008 and Academic year workshops for the extraordinarily low cost of $333 per course (no additional fees attached). We are pleased to have an institution with a long and excellent record in educating educators as our partner in this endeavour. Please see our "workshops" page for more information.

BLOG-SITE

This site is open for public viewing but discussion is limited to participating scholars, educators, and Steering Committee members.

http://teachingamericanhistoryakfcs.blogspot.com/