Foner Headlines Anniversary Events on Reconstruction

1865-04 black children charleston(REVISED AND UPDATED) The House Divided Project at Dickinson College celebrated its tenth anniversary in March 2016 by hosting a special conference on the Reconstruction Era, with a series of campus events headlined by Pulitzer-Prize winner Eric Foner, and featuring noted historians Gregory Downs, Matthew Pinsker, Jeffrey Rosen, and Anne Sarah Rubin.  All events were streamed over YouTube and are available now via embedded viewers on this page.

Here is a snapshot of the Reconstruction conference schedule (March 24-26, 2016):

  • Thursday, March 24, 2016, Public Lecture by Eric Foner on The Significance of Reconstruction in American History, ATS auditorium, 7pm to 830pm
  • Friday, March 25, 2016, Conversation with Jeffrey Rosen on America’s Second Founding, Stern Great Room, 12pm to 1pm
  • Saturday, March 26, 2016, K-12 Teacher Workshop on Reconstruction (Stern)
    • Check in, 9am to 930am
    • Welcome and opening session, Matthew Pinsker,  930am to 1030am
    • After Appomattox, Gregory Downs, 1045am to 12pm
    • [Lunch break, 12pm to 130pm]
    • Sherman’s March in American Culture, Anne Rubin, 130pm to 245pm
    • Closing Remarks, 245pm to 3pm

Participants in the K-12 teacher workshop on Saturday received free signed copies of Eric Foner’s book, A Short History of Reconstruction (2015 ed.) as well as other educational materials on Reconstruction provided by the House Divided Project and its co-sponsors.  After the workshop, all participants may continue to request certification for up to 4 hours of professional development credit in the form of a letter from Dickinson College.  Pennsylvania teachers should note, however, that Dickinson is not an Act 48 provider, and thus they will have to take this letter to their home institution for review and formal certification.

  • Listen to Matthew Pinsker and local teacher participants Todd Mealy (Penn Manor High School) and Linda Niesen (Crossroads Middle School) discuss Reconstruction on WITF “Smart Talk” (March 21, 2016):

The House Divided Project at Dickinson College began during academic year 2005-06 as an effort to create free digital and multi-media resources for K-12 and undergraduate classrooms studying the broader Civil War era (1840-1880).  The Project has produced over two dozen websites and web-based exhibits, digitized over 15,000 public domain images, and has partnered with several leading cultural and educational institutions, such as the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History in New York and the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, both of which are co-sponsoring the conference on Reconstruction.  Principal funding for the March 2016 conference comes from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation via a generous grant provided by the Dickinson College Digital Humanities Advisory Committee (DHAC).  During the conference, the House Divided also opened its new studio at 61 N. West Street in Carlisle, PA 17013 (tel: 717.245.1865).  Free tours and class sessions are now available by appointment.

The video above highlights contributions from House Divided interns Christina Braxton (Class of 2018) and Jia “Majer” Ma (Class of 2016).

Speakers (with video recordings)

ericfoner

Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, is one of this country’s most prominent historians. He received his doctoral degree at Columbia under the supervision of Richard Hofstadter. He is one of only two persons to serve as president of the three major professional organizations: the Organization of American Historians, American Historical Association, and Society of American Historians, and one of a handful to have won the Bancroft and Pulitzer Prizes in the same year. Foner is the author of numerous books, including Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (1988).  He has also served as co-curator with Olivia Mahoney, of the online exhibition, America’s Reconstruction: People and Politics After the Civil War (1995) which will be featured during the March 26 teacher workshop at Dickinson.

 

jeffrey_rosenJeffrey Rosen is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Constitution Center, the first and only nonprofit, nonpartisan institution devoted to the most powerful vision of freedom ever expressed: the U.S. Constitution. He is a professor at The George Washington University Law School, where he has taught since 1997.  He is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he explores issues involving the future of technology and the Constitution. Rose is the author of several books including The Supreme Court: The Personalities and Rivalries that Defined America (2007). He has also just helped launch the Second Founding initiative to explore the reconstruction of America’s constitution in the years after the Civil War.  Rosen will discuss this initiative at his Friday, March 25 conversation at Dickinson.

 

Saturday Teachers Workshop

Pinsker High ResMatthew Pinsker is the Pohanka Chair for Civil War History at Dickinson College and the Director of the House Divided Project.  Matt is also a fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington DC.  He has previously held visiting fellowships at Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College and the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. Matt graduated from Harvard College and received a D.Phil. degree in Modern History from the University of Oxford. He is the author of two books:  Abraham Lincoln –a volume in the American Presidents Reference Series from Congressional Quarterly Press (2002) and Lincoln’s Sanctuary: Abraham Lincoln and the Soldiers’ Home (Oxford University Press, 2003).  Matt’s next book is forthcoming from W.W. Norton & Co., tentatively entitled, Boss Lincoln: Understanding Abraham Lincoln’s Partisan Leadership.  On Saturday, Matt will be unveiling plans for the new Reconstruction Digital Classroom which will go online shortly after the anniversary conference.

gregory_downsGregory Downs studies the political and cultural history of the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries at the University of California / Davis.  He is the author or editor of several books. Downs’s latest monograph, After Appomattox: Military Occupation and the Ends of War (2015) examines the immediate period after Confederate surrender as an extension of wartime and through the lens of occupation, as the U.S. Army sought to remake life on the ground through alliances with organized freedpeople and against the ongoing resistance of ex-Confederates.   With the support of the University of Georgia and the American Council of Learned Societies, Downs and Scott Nesbit produced an interactive digital history of occupation during Reconstruction, Mapping Occupation that will be featured on the Saturday, March 26 teacher workshop at Stern.

 

annerubinAnne Sarah Rubin is a Professor of History at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where she teaches courses on the Civil War, American South, and the Nineteenth Century United States.  She is also the Director of the Center for Digital History and Education. She is the author of several historical monographs.  Her latest book, a study of the many legacies of Sherman’s March is Through the Heart of Dixie:  Sherman’s March and American Memory (2014).  Her online exploration of Sherman’s March can be found at www.shermansmarch.org and will be featured at the Saturday, March 26 teacher workshop. Rubin is currently a member of the Executive committee of the Southern Association for Women Historians, and an OAH Distinguished Lecturer.  She was president of the Society of Civil War Historians from 2012-2014.

 

 

 

 

 

New E-Biography Series

(Carlisle, PA) The House Divided Project at Dickinson College is launching a new e-book series that features short biographies of underrated figures from Civil War era history.  Forgotten Abolitionist: John A.J. Creswell of Maryland by John M. Osborne and Christine Bombaro is the first offering in this series, currently available for free download via Smashwords.

Forgotten Abolitionist Cover Upload“The story John Creswell is a good example of what this new e-biography series might be able to accomplish,” claims project director Matthew Pinsker.  “He is an unknown figure today, but could be used in any classroom in America to help illustrate the revolutionary changes wrought by the Civil War.  Creswell was a former Democratic politician from a border slave state, who developed into a leading advocate for abolition while serving in Congress during the conflict and then later became an important Republican cabinet officer during Reconstruction.  He was one of the pivotal figures in January 1865 who helped secure passage of the Thirteen Amendment in the House of Representatives.”

Osborne, an emeritus history professor, and Bombaro, an associate director of the Dickinson library, have been researching and teaching about Creswell (Class of 1848) at Dickinson College for years.  But other scholars have largely ignored him, and he has never before been the subject of a full-length biography.  Creswell did appear, however, in James Oakes’s ground-breaking recent study, Freedom National (W.W. Norton, 2013), and Oakes, who serves on the board of scholarly advisors for the House Divided Project, helped review the manuscript.

Pinsker promises that House Divided will seek out other short biographical projects from qualified, willing authors, covering any worthwhile American figure from the period 1840 to 1880.  “It is challenging –especially for young authors– to find publication outlets for such biographies today,” observes Pinsker.  “Academic journals and presses are usually more interested in other subjects, and trade houses are too focused on the bottom line to see much value in the study of obscure figures.  We predict that historical biography will become a valuable new educational niche for free or low-cost e-books.  More important, we hope to contribute good material toward building that genre with a series of well-written, well-edited volumes.  Forgotten Abolitionist is the type of book that any high school or undergraduate student could read and enjoy, connecting it easily to survey narratives or to popular historical movies, like Spielberg’s  “Lincoln” (2012), which sadly omitted Creswell, by the way.”

Sunday, December 6, 2015 marks the 150th anniversary of the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment.  It might be a good day to download a free copy of Forgotten Abolitionist.  This academic year (2015-16) also marks the 10th anniversary of the House Divided Project, which will be celebrated on campus from March 24-26, 2016.

Exploring the Underground Railroad

Exhibits(Carlisle, PA, June 25, 2015) Today, the House Divided Project released an expanded online research guide for the Underground Railroad which includes links to dozens of highly rated sites.  Teachers and students can now explore primary source documents from the most active vigilance committees in cities like Boston, New York and Philadelphia.  They can explore first-rate scholarship, including several full-text essays, and they will be introduced to a wide variety of multi-media tools, including videos, interactive maps, and extensive image galleries.  Those interested in using the guide can access it at Project Director Matthew Pinsker’s online Civil War course.

Pinsker will be teaching a special teacher seminar on the Underground Railroad for the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History this summer in New York City, July 13-17, 2015.  You can find out more about the summer seminar program at the Gilder website.

Here is a snippet of the expanded online guide:

House Divided Project

PRIMARY SOURCES

 

Federal Laws and Codes

To see more, go to the Web Guides section of the Civil War undergraduate online course.

April 25th Open House and Film Premiere

screen-shot-2017-04-15-at-8-30-17-pmOn Tuesday evening, April 25, 2017, the House Divided Project is hosting two major public events at Dickinson College: an open house at its studio on 61 N. West Street from 4-6 p.m. and then a special premiere of the powerful new documentary film on the legacy of lynching in the American South, “An Outrage,” at the Weiss Center for Performing Arts from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

The open house will feature a tour of our newly renovated Civil War era reading room and the presentation of special augmented reality (AR) exhibits on 19th-century Dickinson College history.  Various History students at Dickinson have contributed to the making of these exhibits, including:  Christina Braxton, Fiona Clarke, Trevor Diamond, Liam Donahue, Amanda Donoghue, George Gilbert, Sarah Goldberg, Alden Mohacsi, Alexia Orengo Green, Samantha Reiersen, and Ian Ridgway.

  • Open House, House Divided Studio, 61 N. West Street, Carlisle, 4-6 p.m. (April 25, 2017)
  • Researching Dickinson College History (for background on the participating History students)
  • To find out more about augmented reality (AR) visit our easy “how-to” guide at Civil War Carlisle

“An Outrage,” is a new 30-minute documentary film about the legacy of lynching from Virginia-based filmmakers Hannah Ayers and Lance Warren of Field Studio.  The Southern Poverty Law Center has already promised to help distribute this provocative yet inspiring film to thousands of secondary school classrooms around the country .  The House Divided Project at Dickinson College and the History Department are proud to host the first Northern screening of this powerful film.

screen-shot-2017-04-15-at-9-09-47-pm

Project Marks End of Civil War Anniversary

Project Director Matthew Pinsker at Ford's Theatre

Project Director Matthew Pinsker at Ford’s Theatre

In April 2011, the House Divided Project at Dickinson College launched to the public at the start of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War and now in April 2015 it is helping to commemorate the end of the Civil War anniversary with a series of special events and new resources.

  • Thursday, April 9, 8 p.m.
    Free webinar on Leadership at Appomattox with Dickinson professors Jeffrey McCausland & Matthew Pinsker, register here to participate (hosted by Diamond6 Leadership) with recording archived online for registered participants
  • Monday, April 13, 7 p.m.
    Lecture on Mary Lincoln’s Assassination with noted historian Catherine Clinton, ATS auditorium, Dickinson College,  click here for more details (hosted by The Clarke Forum with video archived online here)
  • Tuesday, April 14 (all day)
    Video Tour of Ford’s Theatre, led by Dickinson professor Matthew Pinsker, available anytime here (hosted by Ford’s Theatre Society).

Also, here are some key highlights from the Civil War 150 with the House Divided Project:

Altogether, these online resources from the House Divided Project have generated about four million page views during the four-year Civil War 150th anniversary.  Yet the project will continue to grow and expand in the coming years.  Please follow our progress here and on FacebookTwitter and YouTube.

Praise from across the Blogosphere

From educator Lisa Kapp (2016):

From Winterset (IA) Citizen online (June 3, 2015)

“The House Divided Project at Dickinson College is one of several notable digital initiatives that offer new and free ways for K-12 educators and others to study subjects like the Underground Railroad.” 

 

From NEH EDSITEMENT(2015)

From John Fea at The Way of Improvement Leads Home (March 11, 2014)

“House Divided is a model digital project for a small liberal arts college.  [Matthew] Pinsker is working together with the college IT staff, archivists, instructional media experts, and dozens of Dickinson students to make this project happen.  Outside of Dickinson, the project has partnered with the Motorola Foundation, The Journal of American History, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Civil War Museum, Cumberland County Visitors Bureau, The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, among others. The site includes over 12,000 images, 10,000 primary documents, videos, and a blog.”

 

From Meg in History at Fun With History (February 19, 2011):

“I just keep stumbling upon new great history-geared blogs, and how can I not share them with you. This blog, Blog Divided, is “for anyone teaching or studying the House Divided Era, 1840-1880.” Well, I know lots of students and amateur historians (as well as professional ones) love to study, talk, and argue about the Civil War and the years leading up to and following it. Based on my initial skimming of the blog, this one seems to do the trick. Plus it has some great links as well. It’s based on an interesting project at Dickinson College.”

 

From Dr. Jonathan Rees at “More or Less Bunk” (August 2, 2010):

“So, instead, let me tell what I was doing most of the day. I was watching Matt Pinsker from Dickinson College (who’s here for the week) talk about slavery and he’s got some incredible resources on slavery and the Civil War up over at his place. The visuals at their site on the Dred Scott case, which is actually hosted at Gilder-Lehrman, are particularly good. The picture above is of Dred Scott’s mark (he was illiterate) on his original lawsuit. What a great way to illustrate that point! If the mid-19th century falls within your teaching realm, you should definitely check all this stuff out.”

 

From Mystery Blog (March 31, 2010):
“…an excellent resource for students and educators interested in understanding and teaching the Civil War. Through House Divided, visitors encounter a wide range of historical events, people and resources…Visually, House Divided is an excellent website with lots of images including portraits, interactive maps and virtual field trips that utilize Google Earth , images of nineteenth-century newspapers etc.”

 

From Civil War Interactive, Naming Blog Divided as part of the Best of the Civil War Blogs (February 17, 2010):

“This attractive site is a project of Dickinson College (Pennsylvania), devoted to a somewhat wider span of time than is usual for “Civil War” blogs. They call it the “House Divided Period” and are open to discussion of any events between around 1840 and 1880. The intent of the operators is to generate teaching aids for educators of any level. Comments are open and readers are not required to register or login to post. Comment moderation is apparently invoked only if misbehavior arises. Looks to be a valuable asset for history teachers, who often feel somewhat isolated at their individual schools.”

 

From Dr. James Beeghley at Teaching the Civil War With Technology (December 1, 2009):

Nominated “Blog Divided” for 2009 EduBlog Awards for “Best Resource Sharing Blog”

 

From Ann Tracy Mueller at Lincoln Buff 2 (September 30, 2009):

“You’ll want to be sure to check out the section, “Building the Digital Lincoln,” made possible thanks to a partnership between the Journal of American History and the House Divided Project at Dickinson College. This nifty article tells you everything you ever wanted to know about doing Lincoln research in the digital age. As I told Dr. Pinsker when a friend first shared it with me, “WOW!” It’s truly unbelievable how much Lincoln material is available right from the comfort of you computer. You’ll want to save it as a favorite and go to it often. I know I will. Thanks JAH and Dr. Pinsker. Great stuff!”

 

From Benjamin Stone at United States History at Stanford University (September 30, 2009):

“…the Journal of American History has partnered with the House Divided Project at Dickinson College, under the direction of Professor Matthew Pinsker to create a fascinating web resource titled “Building the Digital Lincoln.”

 

From Matt Karlson at Teaching American History at SW Washington (September 11, 2009):

“Having encountered the Building the Digital Lincoln site, I got curious about what else has been posted by Dickinson College’s House Divided project. I think there is much here of value to teachers!… The Underground Railroad Digital Classroom features many lesson plans, written by university historians and teachers, at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. There are virtual field trips using Google Earth, Sketch-Up, and video. There are links to wonderful documents….The House Divided website, while a work in progress, is a rich resource as is.”

 

From Josh Stecker at A History Teacher’s Blog (June 8,2009)

“The Ultimate Civil War Resource: Dickinson College’s House Divided website endeavors to be the most complete digital archive of the U.S. Civil War. They’ve got it all. Entering the site will automatically give you data for the events of exactly 150 years ago – events, documents, letters, even birthdays of prominent (and not-so-prominent) people, most with informative biographies and great images. The 150th anniversary of the war is coming up, so needless to say this tool will be invaluable in U.S. History classrooms.”

 

 

 

 

New Digital Tools for Lincoln’s Birthday

(February 11, 2014) On the eve of Lincoln’s 205th birthday, the House Divided Project announces a series of new digital multi-media tools to help teachers and students commemorate Abraham Lincoln’s most important autobiographical statement –a short but revealing document that he produced in December 1859 as he prepared for a presidential bid. These new classroom resources include:

  • Lincoln on Lincoln –a documentary short filmed version of Lincoln’s 1859 autobiographical sketch
  • Lincoln on Genius –a new annotated edition of the 1859 sketch on the fast-growing Rap Genius platform
  • Lincoln on Quora –a lively, well-curated discussion on the question, “Was Lincoln Self-Made or Self-Invented?”
  • Lincoln on Multi-Media  –a full-page teaching guide to the 1859 sketch from the new site: Lincoln’s Writings: The Multi-Media Edition

The documentary short film (6 mins.) produced by Dickinson College student Leah Milller (’14) and narrated by Dickinson College Theatre professor Todd Wronski offers a compelling tour of Lincoln’s life through his own words and images.

The annotated version of Lincoln’s 1859 autobiographical sketch now available at PoetryGenius represents the beginning of a brand new partnership between the House Divided Project and the Genius platform spearheaded by Dickinson College student Will Nelligan (’14).  We have created two classroom-inspired tools.  The first is a general annotated guide to the autobiographical sketch.  The second is especially designed as an open Common Core platform for studying the sketch.  Our new dedicated page at RapGenius can be found here.

Using the social Q&A site Quora, recently profiled by the New York Timeswe have created a lively exchange on the question:  Was Abraham Lincoln self-made or self-invented, especially during the years before he became president?  So far, this question has produced over 50 thought-provoking answers, mostly from participants in our “Understanding Lincoln” online course, and has generated nearly five thousand views.

During Fall Semester 2013, we built as part of the “Understanding Lincoln” open online graduate course that we launched in partnership with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.  That site, recently named as one of the “Best of the Humanities Web” by NEH EDSITEMENT, features an expanded guide to the Autobiographical Sketch (December 20, 1859) which it ranks as #5 on a list of the 150 “most teachable” Lincoln documents.  The page includes a host of resources for teachers and students, such as:

  • Annotated transcripts
  • Soundcloud Podcast
  • Videotaped close reading by Lincoln expert Matthew Pinsker
  • Documentary short film
  • Custom Google Map
  • Image Gallery
  • Excerpts from How Historians Interpret
  • Other Primary Sources (including the transcript for the 1860 newspaper article that emerged from the sketch)
  • Further reading

Lincoln’s Writings: The Multi-Media Edition is still in development and will be further expanded in Summer 2014 when we launch the second round of the “Understanding Lincoln” course with our partners at the Gilder Lehrman Institute.  Registration for the 2014 course will open by March 15, 2014.  See more information at the Gilder Lehrman website.

For more information on this effort and all matters related to the House Divided Project, please contact Director Matthew Pinsker at hdivided@dickinson.edu or pinskerm@dickinson.edu

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Understanding Lincoln” Panels Open to Public

(June 3, 2014)  The 2014 “Understanding Lincoln” online course began by unveiling the line up for a series of three expert panels on the evolving controversies surrounding presidential war-making since Lincoln’s era.  Featured panelists included noted journalists, scholars and senior military figures. The panels will take place on June 18, 25 and July 9 and will be freely available over the course Livestream channel (http://new.livestream.com/gilderlehrman/lincoln).  Attendance at the panels is also open to both course participants and members of the general public, though anyone who would like to attend or cover the event from the press, should make reservations / contact with hdivided@dickinson.edu.  Full details on the panels are provided below.

Panel 1: Wednesday, June 18, 2014   Presidential War Powers:  The Challenges of Managing Wars

Location: New America Foundation, 1899 L Street NW, Washington DC

Time:  10am to 11:30am

Moderator:  Matthew Pinsker, “Understanding Lincoln” instructor, Dickinson College, New America Fellow

 

Panelists:

John D. Altenburg, Jr. (USA, ret.), Major General and former Deputy Judge Advocate General (JAG).  Altenburg is an attorney currently serving Of Counsel at the Greenberg Traurig law firm in Washington DC.  He served for 28 years as a lawyer in the Army and helped organize the Appointing Authority for Military Commissions handling post-9/11 cases generated from Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere.

Sidney Blumenthal, noted journalist, author, and presidential aide.  Former assistant and senior adviser to President Bill Clinton, and senior adviser to Hillary Clinton, Blumenthal has been a staff writer for The New Republic, The Washington Post and The New Yorker.  He is the author of several books on American politics, executive producer of the Academy Award winning documentary “Taxi to the Dark Side,” and A Self-Made Man, the first volume of his trilogy, The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln, will be published by Simon & Schuster in Spring 2015.

 

Louis Fisher, Scholar in Residence, Constitution Project.  Fisher worked for four decades at the Library of Congress as Senior Specialist in Separation of Powers.  He received his PhD from the New School for Social Research. He is the author of numerous books and nearly 500 articles on constitutional and legal history and is the two-time winner of the Louis Brownlow Book Award.

 

Jeffrey McCausland, Strategic Studies Institute (SSI), US Army War College. McCausland (USA, ret.) is a former US army colonel who served in Operation Desert Storm and now holds the Minerva Chair at the Strategic Studies Institute at the US Army War College in Carlisle, PA.  He received his Ph.D from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and previously worked on the National Security Council staff at the White House.  He is the author of numerous essays and articles and serves as a military analyst for CBS News.

 

Panel 2: Wednesday, June 25, 2014   Civil-Military Relations:  Presidents and Their Conflicts with Generals

Location:  Dickinson College, Denny Hall, Room 212, Carlisle, PA

Time:  10am to 11:30am

Screen Shot 2016-05-16 at 10.52.50 AM

Moderator:  Jeffrey McCausland, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College

 

Panelists:

Conrad C. Crane, Chief of Historical Services, US Army Heritage and Education Center.  Crane (USA, ret.) had a 26-year military career, including nearly a decade of service as a history professor at the US Military Academy at West Point.  He holds a PhD from Stanford University.  Crane was the lead author for the groundbreaking Army – USMC counterinsurgency (COIN) manual released in 2006.

 

Paul Eaton, (USA, ret.), Major General  who served more than 30 years in the US Army, including combat and post-combat assignments in Iraq, Bosnia, and Somalia.  From 2003 to 2004, Eaton served as Commanding General of the Coalition Military Assistance Training Team in Iraq.  He previously commanded the Army’s Infantry Center.  Eaton has been a regular contributor to various network and cable TV news programs.  He is currently affiliated with the National Security Network.

 

Matthew Pinsker, “Understanding Lincoln” instructor, Dickinson College, New America Fellow

 

 

Panel 3: Wednesday, July 9, 2014   The Wartime Press:  Civil Liberties During War

Location:  New America Foundation, 1899 L Street NW, Washington DC

Time:  10am to 11:30am

Moderator:  Jeffrey McCausland, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College

 

Panelists:

 

Kimberly Dozier, The Associated Press.  Dozier, author of the best-selling memoir, Breathing the Fire, has served as a military affairs correspondent for both CBS News and the Associated Press.  She is the winner of a Peabody award and two Edward R. Murrow awards.  Dozier has recently been named as the next Omar N. Bradley Chair in Strategic Leadership, jointly held by Dickinson College, Penn State School of Law, and the US Army War College.

 

Linda Mason, former senior vice president at CBS News.  Mason served 47 years with CBS, ending her career in 2013 as senior vice president for standards and specials.  She was the first female producer on “The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite” and broke ground on a number of fronts as a leader female news producer and company executive during her notable career in journalism.

 

Matthew Pinsker, “Understanding Lincoln” instructor, Dickinson College, New America Fellow

 

Thom Shanker, Associated Editor, Washington Bureau, and former Pentagon correspondent, New York Times.  Shanker has been a leading correspondent with the New York Times since 1997 and covered the Pentagon from 2001 to 2014. He formerly served as a foreign editor and correspondent for the Chicago Tribune.  Shanker is co-author, with Eric Schmitt of Counterstrike: The Untold Story of America’s Secret Campaign Against Al-Qaeda.  

 

John Altenburg

John Altenburg

Sidney Blumenthal

Sidney Blumenthal

Conrad Crane

Conrad Crane

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kimberly Dozier

Kimberly Dozier

Paul Eaton

Paul Eaton

Louis Fisher

Louis Fisher

Linda Mason

Linda Mason

Jeffrey McCausland

Jeffrey McCausland

Thom Shanker

Thom Shanker

Project Launches to Public Acclaim

Civil War Carlisle

The House Divided Project made its official launch on the weekend of April 15 – 16, 2011 as part of a series of events designed to commemorate the beginning of the Civil War 150th anniversary. The launch weekend included a documentary film festival, K-12 teacher workshop, augmented reality walking tours of Civil War Carlisle, and a keynote address by noted historian David Blight from Yale University.

 

Click on the link below to watch the video

WGAL (NBC) News

 

 

Press coverage from the House Divided Project launch:

Dickinson College Magazine

“Acclaimed House Divided web site uses new technology and a Dickinson lens to teach Civil War History.” Click here for the full article

Dickinson College News & Events Features

“Held  the week that the nation marked the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, the launch included a film festival, an interactive teachers’ workshop, app-assisted tours of a major Underground Railroad site and a lecture by a nationally noted historian.” Click here for the full article

Harrisburg Patriot-News, April 15, 2011

“Among places with a story are the Old Cumberland County Courthouse in Carlisle, where Dickinson College this weekend will kick off its Civil

War 150th initiative, House Divided, a project five years in the making.”

Click here for the full article

Carlisle Sentinel, April 16, 2011

“The trio of films, created as part of the House Divided Project the college has initiated for the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, told the stories of three very different men with very different backgrounds and their very different experiences during the Civil War.” Click here for the full article

Registration Opens for Understanding Lincoln

(March 15, 2014) The House Divided Project at Dickinson College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History are currently opening registration for  “Understanding Lincoln,” an open,online graduate course that will begin on June 3, 2014 with regular classes running through July 16, 2014.  The course, taught for the second time by noted Lincoln scholar Matthew Pinsker is designed for anybody who wants to learn more about Abraham Lincoln and his legacy but offers special appeal for K-12 educators seeking creative ways to master new Common Core State Standards. The limited enrollment graduate section of this unique online seminar provides a full-semester graduate course credit (3.0 hours certified by transcript from Dickinson College) at the cost of only $600.  Auditors to the course are also welcome at the cost of only a $25 registration fee with a special discount available for educators who are part of Gilder Lehrman affiliate schools.   Registration closes on May 27, 2014.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER NOW