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Drew VandeCreek
Drew VandeCreek

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News Release

Contact: Tom Parisi, NIU Public Affairs
(815) 753-3635

January 31, 2005


 

Honest Abe still has lessons for history teachers

DeKalb, Ill. — University Libraries at Northern Illinois University aims to capitalize on the popularity of Abraham Lincoln, Illinois’ favorite son, to help high school teachers revitalize coursework in 19th century history.

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) awarded University Libraries a grant of $150,000 to provide professional development workshops to high school history teachers this summer. The workshops will be held at Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield and led by some of the nation’s top scholars on Lincoln and the 19th century.

“The idea behind the workshops is to use the life of Abraham Lincoln as a lens through which we can look at 19th century history,” said Drew VandeCreek, director of University Libraries’ Digitization Unit and a principal organizer of the workshops.

VandeCreek’s digitization unit is also creator of Lincoln/Net (http://lincoln.lib.niu.edu/), a Web site that focuses on Lincoln’s life before the presidency, relating his experience to life in antebellum Illinois. The Web site attracts 13,000 visitors daily.

“Lincoln was an extraordinary individual, but teachers can use his life as a jumping off point to teach about ordinary life and culture during the 1800s,” VandeCreek said. “Teachers who attend these workshops will learn how Lincoln’s life taps into large historical themes that can be introduced in the classroom in an interesting and exciting fashion.”

For example, the sectional crisis that led to the Civil War becomes clear through the life of Lincoln. Retired from Congress, Lincoln thought he was done with politics when the crisis erupted in the 1850s. Northerners and Southerners came into conflict over the question of whether slavery would be expanded to the United States’ new territories, such as Kansas and Nebraska.

“Like most people in the North, Lincoln wanted western territories to be free of slavery,” VandeCreek said. “He made this his issue and it pushed him to the presidency. He became the voice of the North.”

The workshops also will help teachers learn to access and introduce primary resources—such as the speeches, letters and campaign materials provided on Lincoln/Net—that provide firsthand evidence of historical events. In this way, students can read for themselves Lincoln’s celebrated speeches about slavery and the new territories.

“It’s one thing to read a summary in a textbook,” VandeCreek says. “It’s another thing entirely to read a speech or excerpts from Lincoln himself. History becomes more dynamic.”

NIU’s grant for teacher training comes from the NEH Landmarks of American History Workshops program. It provides the opportunity for educators to engage in intensive study and discussion of important topics in American history. The workshops give participants direct experiences in the interpretation of significant historical sites and in the use of archival and other primary historical evidence.

Fittingly, the NIU-run workshops will be held at Lincoln Home National Historic Site. The home of our 16th president has been restored to its 1860s appearance, revealing Lincoln as husband, father, politician and president-elect. It stands in the midst of a four-block historic neighborhood which the National Park Service is restoring so that the neighborhood, like the house, will appear much as Lincoln would have remembered it.

Scholars who will be lecturing during the workshops include Douglas Wilson and Rodney Davis, co-directors of the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College; Andrew Cayton of Miami University in Ohio; Julie Roy Jeffrey of Goucher College in Maryland; Roger Bridges, director emeritus of the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center; Robert Bray of Illinois Wesleyan College; and Tim Townsend and Susan Haake of Lincoln Home National Historic Site.

The Springfield workshops will be held from July 11-15 and from July 18-22. Participating teachers will receive a stipend of $500, intended to help cover books, living and travel expenses. Teachers also will earn 30 continuing professional development units.

Registration is open from Feb. 1 to March 15. For more information, contact Drew VandeCreek at drew@niu.edu.

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