Category: Recent News

The final report for the Dickinson & Slavery initiative is now being distributed to the wider Dickinson College community.  The 35-page report recommends “a deliberative process” for improving the commemoration of the college’s ties to slavery and anti-slavery, including consideration for renaming some buildings on campus that have been honoring former slaveholders.  The President’s Commission on Inclusivity endorsed this report in October 2019.  Today, December 13, 2019, Provost Neil Weissman forwarded this information by email to the entire community and announced that President Margee Ensign has authorized the creation of an Ad Hoc Committee on Renaming that can help finalize proposals for building renaming and also for other possible revisions in campus commemoration regarding slavery and anti-slavery that could be addressed by the Dickinson Board of Trustees in 2020.

BACKGROUND

• The Dickinson & Slavery report, authored by House Divided Project Matthew Pinsker and supported by a team of student researchers, including Sarah Aillon, ’19, Amanda Donoghue, ’19, Sarah Goldberg, ’18, Frank Kline, ’18, Rachel Morgan, ’18, Rebecca Stout, ’19, Naji Thompson, ’19, Sam Weisman, ’18, and Cooper Wingert, ’20 is now available for review at the Dickinson & Slavery website. The online space also includes a platform for public comments.

• The Dickinson & Slavery initiative began out of a class on American Slavery that met in fall semester 2017 (History 311, “American Slavery” with Prof. Pinsker) and accelerated in academic year 2018-19 under the direction of the House Divided Project with the launching of a website, the opening of a permanent exhibit in spring 2019 at the House Divided studio (61 N. West Street) and a series of public events.

• The report identifies at least seven former slaveholders who are currently being honored on campus with forms of commemoration (such as statues or building names) but separates them into two categories:  four slaveholders who eventually emancipated their own slaves and three (John Armstrong, Thomas Cooper, and John Montgomery) who never renounced slaveholding.  These last figures were not always publicly commemorated on campus. Armstrong and Cooper residential halls only received their names in the 1990s.  Montgomery Hall (currently home to the Theatre & Dance Department) received its name during the 1950s.  One of the Key Recommendations of the report (summarized on p. 30) suggests that the college should proceed with a discussion about the renaming of Armstrong, Cooper and Montgomery halls during academic year 2019-20.

• The report also identifies several formerly enslaved people who were influential employees (and sometimes permanent residents) at Dickinson College during the nineteenth century and who deserve consideration for building naming honors.  These figures include Noah Pinkney, a former slave and Union army veteran who served food to the students for decades.  Pinkney was so popular  that he was honored with a plaque on East College gate during the 1950s.  Henry Spradley, another former slave and Union army veteran, was employed for years as a college janitor.  Dickinson cancelled classes to host Spradley’s memorial service in the 1890s.  And finally, there was Robert Young, the longest serving employee of the college (until recently), a former slave who worked for over forty years as a domestic servant, janitor, and campus policeman.  Young is now best known, however, for initially helping to integrate the school in the 1880s by insisting in the face of delays and some objections that his son get admitted as the community’s first African American student.  

FROM PRESIDENT’S COMMISSION ON INCLUSIVITY (OCTOBER 30, 2019): 

To President’s Staff:

The House Divided Project began conversations with members of our community about the college’s historical ties to both slavery and anti-slavery during the 2018-2019 academic year. Many faculty and students worked hard to launch the Dickinson & Slavery website and launch the permanent exhibit, “Dickinson & Slavery.” Shortly thereafter, Student Senate also formally recommended that Dickinson College consider renaming Cooper Hall Dorm. Through these avenues this topic has garnished a substantial foothold within the Dickinson community regarding the importance of looking at the historical significance behind the names of campus buildings.

The 2019 report “Dickinson & Slavery” (attached) provides convincing arguments for renaming Montgomery, Cooper and Armstrong Halls, including that the namesakes had limited contributions to our community and their treatment of enslaved individuals and long-lasting views on slavery. This report includes recommendations for possible namesakes and their historical connections to the Dickinson community.

The President’s Commission on Inclusivity strongly recommends that:

The College rename these buildings and that the new namesakes be chosen from the recommendations put forward in the aforementioned report. The College create a deliberative process for named commemorations by the end of the 2019-2020 academic year. This process would include commemorating facilities and other honorifics, such as scholarships, endowed chairs, and lectureships. The deliberative process include recognizing the contributions to the Dickinson community by those historically marginalized as a way to acknowledge the diversity of our community and to provide a clear indication of our commitment to inclusivity. Because history is dynamic, the process of naming/renaming should be an educative one, placing these naming/renaming actions into historical context.

Since substantial discussion within the community has taken place about Montgomery, Cooper and Armstrong Halls, we feel that the college could proceed forward with renaming these buildings prior to the finalization of the deliberative process.

Sam Brandauer & Brenda Bretz, Co-Chairs

On Behalf of the President’s Commission on Inclusivity

FROM PROVOST AND DEAN OF THE COLLEGE NEIL WEISSMAN (DECEMBER 13, 2019):  

To the Campus Community,

The House Divided Project has recently released a report entitled Dickinson & Slavery which we encourage members of our community to read and reflect upon in the coming days. This report is one of the outcomes of faculty and student research and community conversations which began in 2017 to explore the college’s ties to both slavery and anti-slavery. Other outcomes of this project include the Dickinson & Slavery website and a permanent exhibit housed at the House Divided studio (61 N. West Street).

Included in the report are several recommendations for the college to consider including the renaming of three campus buildings due to the namesakes’ ties to slavery. The report and its recommendations have been endorsed by the President’s Commission on Inclusivity and by President Ensign and her senior leadership team. As a result, President Ensign has asked that a college-wide ad hoc committee now be formed to consider the specific recommendations for final endorsement by the Board of Trustees, potentially at the board’s midwinter meeting, January 30-February 1, 2020. This committee, listed below, will be chaired by Matt Pinsker and Young Alumni Trustee Toni Ortega ’18. Committee members include a wide representation of the campus community including faculty, staff, students and trustees.

Everyone from the community, however, is invited to comment on the report at the link included above, and we certainly encourage all Dickinsonians to continue holding thoughtful discussions about this important subject. Thank you for your participation. If you have any questions or would like more information about this report, please feel free to be in touch with Matt Pinsker (pinskerm@dickinson.edu).

Neil Weissman, Provost & Dean

Matthew Pinsker, Director, House Divided Project

Ad Hoc Committee on Renaming

Co-Chairs:
Matthew Pinsker, Professor of History and Director, House Divided Project
Tonian Ortega ’18, Young Alumni Trustee

Members:

Kaliph Brown ’20
Say Burgin, assistant professor of history
Brian Falck, associate vice president of college advancement
Karen Neely Faryniak ’86, chief of staff & secretary of the college
Jim Gerencser ’93, college archivist
Angie Harris, associate dean of students
Kendall Isaac, general counsel
Dana Marecheau ’20
Albert Masland ’79, trustee & president of the Alumni Council
Connie McNamara, vice president of marketing and communications
John Staruh, housekeeper, facilities management
Cooper Wingert ’20

(Carlisle, Pa) During the summer of 2018, the National Park Service (NPS) and its Network to Freedom program began a cooperative agreement with the House Divided Project at Dickinson College designed to investigate the concept of “slave stampedes” with a focus on Eastern Missouri and escapes from there into the greater Missouri borderland.  The goal of this research project will be to produce a full-length report accompanied by various online resources, such as interactive maps, videos, and an underlying database of sources.  We expect these freely available resources to help spark further classroom discussion and more expansive scholarly research into this national phenomenon.  But beginning today (November 1, 2018), the project blog is being made available to the public.  Visitors to the site will be able to see details about the project and also get real time updates on our latest research findings.

Origins and Definition. The term “slave stampede” or “stampede of slaves” began appearing in American newspapers in the late 1840s, but spread quickly during the fugitive crisis of the 1850s, and eventually became a staple of sectional debate, especially after John Brown’s raids in 1858 and 1859 and throughout the Civil War era.  Participants and observers seemed to use the concept in diverse ways: sometimes to describe serial escapes by individuals or pairs, sometimes to describe either spontaneous or planned small group escapes of 3 or more people, and yet most often to define a special type of mass escape involving a dozen or more, often armed, bands of enslaved people heading defiantly toward freedom.  The term thus represented for them something deeper than a vague or localized reference to group flight, but rather became weighted down with obvious revolutionary meaning.  It seems clear that modern-day teachers and scholars should consider trying to situate the idea of slave stampedes more consciously within the taxonomy of American slave resistance, probably somewhere between “day-to-day resistance” and “servile insurrection.” For now, however, our research effort will define the term as broadly as possible in order to help see where the sources may lead us and to better appreciate the larger context.

Illustration showing 28 fugitives, armed and in flight to freedom in 1857

Future plans. Ultimately, we anticipate a final report that explains the evolution of the slave stampede concept by detailing a number of the most important such stampedes occurring out of eastern Missouri during the late antebellum period. This Missouri borderland represents one of the most compelling places to begin studying such a phenomenon because no other slave state had a longer or more turbulent border with the free states.  Consider, for example, the widely reported “slave stampede” of St. Louis-area runaways in January 1850 that seemed to travel right across former congressman Abraham Lincoln’s neighborhood in Springfield, Illinois.  This story, involving a free black drayman named Jameson Jenkins who was an acquaintance of Lincoln’s, is already being interpreted at the Lincoln National Home site and offers a template for how we hope to develop other such episodes from around the region.

(Carlisle, PA) On Thursday, April 25, 2019, acclaimed author Steve Luxenberg will be speaking at the ATS auditorium (7pm) at Dickinson College on his new and highly anticipated book, Separate: The Story of Plessy v. Ferguson, and America’s Journey from Slavery to Segregation (W.W. Norton, 2019). Book signing will follow.  This event is free and open to the general public and is being sponsored by the following department or programs at Dickinson:  Esther Popel Shaw Center for Race & Ethnicity, History, House Divided Project, and Policy Studies.

Homer Plessy was the plaintiff  in the case, a mixed race resident of New Orleans, Louisiana who was arrested in 1892 for riding in the whites-only section of a local railroad car.  In Separate, Luxenberg details how a civil rights group called the Citizens Committee of New Orleans had identified Plessy as a figure who could help them challenge some of the segregation laws of the post-Reconstruction era South on the basis of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (1868) and the promise of equality inherent in the Thirteenth Amendment (1865), which had abolished slavery.  Plessy and the Citizens Committee lost in state courts (before Judge John Ferguson) and eventually appealed to the US Supreme Court which also ruled against them in 1896.  They lost that appeal in a 7-1 verdict which held that the “equal but separate” accommodations did not somehow violate the constitutional promise of equality from the Fourteenth Amendment –a decision that stood for nearly sixty years until it was finally overturned by Brown v. Board of Education (1954).

In his recent review of the book for the Washington Post, noted historian Eric Foner praises Luxenberg’s story-telling as offering a “vivid account” of the landmark case, while also noting its somber message.  “Separate reminds us that our history is not simply a narrative of greater and greater freedom,” Foner observed, “Rights can be gained, and rights can be taken away.” 

Photo credit: Josh Luxenberg

STEVE LUXENBERG is an associate editor at The Washington Post and an award-winning author. During his forty years as a newspaper editor and reporter, Steve has overseen reporting that has earned many national honors, including two Pulitzer Prizes. His new nonfiction book, Separate: The Story of Plessy v. Ferguson, and America’s Journey from Slavery to Segregation, was published in February to rave reviews. James Goodman, in The New York Times Book Review, wrote: “Absorbing….so many surprises, absurdities and ironies….Segregation is not one story but many. Luxenberg has written his with energy, elegance and a heart aching for a world without it.” As a work in progress, Separate won the 2016 J. Anthony Lukas Award for excellence in nonfiction writing.

On Saturday evening, March 23, 2019, Christy Coleman, CEO of the American Civil War Museum in Richmond, VA, will speak at Dickinson College from 7pm to 8:15pm at the ATS auditorium, from the lectern that was on the speaker’s platform at Gettysburg on November 19, 1863.  Coleman will be delivering a keynote address for the Dickinson & Slavery initiative, entitled “Getting Right with Civil War Memory.”   This event is free and open to the public.  Doors open at 6pm for those who want to view the lectern or select panels from the new Dickinson & Slavery exhibit.

Forbes magazine just recently profiled Christy Coleman as, “The Woman CEO Retelling the Story of Slavery and American History.”  She grew up in Williamsburg, Virginia and earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Hampton University. Coleman currently serves as CEO of the American Civil War Museum, located in Richmond and Appomattox, Virginia. In her role as CEO, she has been instrumental in furthering discussion around the Civil War, its legacies, and its relevance to our lives today not only in the Richmond region but around the nation.   Christy strives to make museum experiences meaningful to diverse communities. A tireless advocate for the power of museums, narrative disruption and inclusivity, she has been an innovator and leader in the history museum field. She’s written numerous articles, is an accomplished screenwriter, public speaker and has appeared on several national programs. Her work has been featured in global and national publications. Time Magazine has named her one of 31 People Changing the South.

Coleman will be speaking at Dickinson from the lectern that was on the speaker’s platform when Abraham Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863.  This rarely seen historical relic was last used for a public address by Pope Francis when he visited Philadelphia in 2015.  The lectern will be on display along with a chair from the platform used by Edward Everett, the dedication ceremony’s main orator.  The two items have never before been on public display together.  This remarkable installation has been made possible by the J. Howard Wert Collection.  Visitors will be able to view the lectern and chair in person, along with panels from the new Dickinson & Slavery exhibit, beginning at 6pm in the Anita Tuvin Schlecter (ATS) auditorium (campus map) on Saturday, March 23d.

J. Howard Wert was a young Adams County resident from a prominent anti-slavery family in 1863

Orator Edward Everett spoke for two hours at Gettysburg

Lectern from Gettysburg cemetery dedication, 1863 (Courtesy of J. Howard Wert collection)

Background on the Collection

The J. Howard Wert Collection is considered one of the finest privately held collections of Civil War era artifacts in the country.  Wert came from a prominent antislavery family in Adams County, Pennsylvania.  The Wert family collected a number of important historical artifacts, dating back to the 18th century. Wert himself was a graduate of Gettysburg College who served as a scout for Union forces during the 1863 battle and was present for the Gettysburg Address later that year.  Wert eventually enlisted in the Union army and became a teacher, author and noted school superintendent in Harrisburg.  He died in 1920.  During his lifetime, however, he was renowned for his collection of  important historical artifacts.   A 1910 newspaper profile claimed that Wert “had gathered a collection of relics at Gettysburg that could not be duplicated in any museum in the country.”  In his own Gettysburg battlefield guide, which had been published in 1886 when he was forty-six years old, Wert wrote about how his collection of relics inspired him to try to recount the conflict for future generations:

As these lines are penned, from the walls around, cartridge-box and cap-box, bayonet and sword, canteen and canister, with a hundred other relics gleaned twenty-three years ago from the fields and woods we are now traversing, look mutely down upon the writer and vividly recall the sorrowful appearance of the bloated and distorted and blackened dead that lay close beside; noble, stalwart men were they, arrayed in garb of gray, who had bravely fought for what they deemed the right. (J. Howard Wert, A complete hand-book of the monuments and indications and guide to the positions on the Gettysburg battlefield, 1886, pp. 109-110)

Lincoln, hatless, on speaker’s platform while Everett is speaking (Library of Congress)

Dedication Day, November 19, 1863

There are no eye-witness accounts or photographs from 1863 that actually depict the lectern or the chairs on the speaker’s platform.  However, the photographs that do exist make very clear that the scene was more than a little chaotic and that most of the standing crowd would have had a limited view beyond the shoulder line of the speakers.  Many of those present at the ceremony were impressed that the main orator Edward Everett seemed to have memorized his two-hour address, and some near the platform also remarked on how Lincoln slowly read his now much-more famous two-minute address, but few took note of other physical details from the platform itself.  Yet, J. Howard Wert, then 22 years old, was definitely present at the ceremony.  So was his friend, Henry Eyster Jacobs, a 19-year-old fellow graduate of Pennsylvania (later Gettysburg) College.  His father, Michael Jacobs, was also there, and was at the time a professor at the college, writing a history of the battle.  In fact, Prof. Jacobs had taken Everett on a tour of the battlefield in the days prior to the dedication ceremonies.  We know this because Edwards himself mentioned the tour in his diary.  Then, according to notes in the Wert Collection prepared decades later by J. Howard Wert, it was Professor Jacobs who provided his teaching lectern for the ceremony, along with at least one side chair, that was used by Everett, the former Massachusetts governor and U.S. senator while he was waiting to speak.  These notes (previously unpublished), and various other relevant primary sources, including recollections by Wert and both Jacobs men, are provided below.

Courtesy of the J. Howard Wert Collection

Courtesy of the J. Howard Wert Collection

Noted Radical anti-slavery leader, Thaddeus Stevens

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED DUE TO CORONAVIRUS CONCERNS BUT THE SAME PROGRAM WILL GO FORWARD NEXT YEAR ON SATURDAY, MARCH 27, 2021.  THANKS TO EVERYONE FOR THEIR PATIENCE.

(Carlisle, PA)  Registration for the March 21, 2020 House Divided Project workshop on Teaching Slavery opens today.  Please go to this form in order to sign up now!  The sessions are entirely free but space is limited to the first 40 registered participants –open to educators (or self-educators!) from any level, Dickinson students or home-schooling parents.

Sessions for the teacher workshop will include discussions on slavery & resistance by Matthew Pinsker, Director, House Divided Project at Dickinson College, Deanda Johnson, regional coordinator for the National Park Service Network to Freedom, Michael J. Birkner, Professor of History, Gettysburg College, G. Craig Caba, owner and curator of the J. Howard Wert Collection, and Stephanie Townrow, Director of Education and Public Programs at LancasterHistory.

Participants in the workshop will receive the following:

• Signed copy of a new edited collection, The Worlds of James Buchanan and Thaddeus Stevens (edited by Michael J. Birkner, John W. Quist and Randall Miller)
• The latest Dickinson & Slavery report
• Facsimile documents related to the new Slave Stampedes project
• “Roots” DVD from the History Channel

The full schedule for Saturday, March 21, 2020 looks like this:

• 930am   || Registration opens at Denny 317 (corner of West & High Streets)
• 10am to 11am  ||Deanda Johnson with updates from the Slave Stampedes project
• 11am to 12pm  || Discussion with students on Dickinson & Slavery renaming initiative
• 12pm to 130pm  || Break (lunch provided to registered participants)
• 130pm to 230pm   || Panel on Thaddeus Stevens, James Buchanan and teaching the politics of slavery and anti-slavery (Michael Birkner, G. Craig Caba and Stephanie Townrow)
• 230pm to 3pm    || Closing reflections

All sessions during the day will be held in Denny 317 (corner of West & High Streets) on the Dickinson College campus. [campus map]

Following the workshop, participants will also be welcome to visit the House Divided studio at 61 N. West Street, featuring the recent Dickinson & Slavery exhibit.  

We will provide certification for up to 6 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.

From 7pm to 8:15pm at the ATS auditorium, Saturday evening, March 21, 2020, noted military historian Eric Wittenberg (Class of 1983) will also deliver the annual J. Howard Wert keynote address on the subject of myths from the Battle of Gettysburg.  The event will feature the original lectern from the Gettysburg Address.  For more details, please go to this page.

ROSTER OF WORKSHOP PRESENTERS

Michael J. Birkner is professor of history at Gettysburg College, where he has taught since 1989. From 2001-2016 Birkner served as Benjamin Franklin Chair of Liberal Arts. Birkner’s scholarship focuses on aspects of 19th- and 20th-century America. His many books include The Governors of New Jersey: Biographical Essays (2013), McCormick of Rutgers: Scholar, Teacher, Public Historian (2001), an edition of The Papers of Daniel Webster: Correspondence Series (1986), a social history of his home town of Bergenfield New Jersey (a CHOICE outstanding academic book, 1994), and three edited volumes on President James Buchanan. The latest, co-edited work, is entitled The Worlds of James Buchanan and Thaddeus Stevens (2019)

Craig Caba became a charter member of the Harrisburg Civil War Round Table in 1959. He has studied and examined the J. Howard Wert Gettysburg Collection for over forty years, being acquainted with the original owners since his childhood. He was for a quarter of a century a history teacher at Cumberland Valley school district and is now retired. Caba has given many talks to Civil War Roundtables, colleges, and historical organizations over the past thirty years. He is a noted antiquarian with interest in 18th century Americana. He is a past president of Harrisburg Civil War Round Table. He is an executive board member of the Camp Curtain Historical Society and Civil War Round Table. Caba has authored over two dozen articles in history journals and several books, including Episodes of Gettysburg and the Underground Railroad and Lost Children of the Battlefield.

Deanda Johnson, PhD, is currently the Midwest Regional Coordinator for the National Park Service Network to Freedom Program in Omaha, Nebraska. She joined the program in 2010. In this capacity, she works with local, state, and federal entities, as well as other interested parties to preserve, promote, and educate the public about the history of the Underground Railroad. Previously, Johnson was the Coordinator of the African American Research and Service Institute at Ohio University where she was involved with the “The African American Presence in the Ohio River Valley Oral History Project.” At the university, she also served as a visiting instructor in the Department of African American Studies. She received her BA from University of California, San Diego and her MA and PhD in American Studies from the College of William & Mary.  Johnson will serve as the agreement technical representative (ATR) for the slave stampedes project.

Matthew Pinsker is a Professor of History and Pohanka Chair for Civil War History at Dickinson College, where he also serves as Director of the House Divided Project. Pinsker graduated from Harvard College and received a D.Phil. degree in Modern History from the University of Oxford.  He has held visiting fellowships with the New America Foundation in Washington, DC, the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, PA, and the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. He is the author of two books and numerous articles on Abraham Lincoln and various topics in the Civil War era and the history of slavery resistance.

Stephanie Townrow is the Director of Education and Public Programs at LancasterHistory.  She is a public historian interested in inclusive museum education, community-building, digital humanities, and American history, as well as a coffee addict who knows way too many obscure facts about President James Buchanan.  Stephanie’s recent publications include a Google Arts & Culture exhibit on “President James Buchanan: Path to the Presidency” and various posts at “History from the House” blog for LancasterHistory.org.

Also participating in the sessions will be Dickinson College students Dana Marecheau (’20) and Cooper Wingert (’20).

1851 Political Cartoon

(Carlisle) On Monday, September 17, 2018, the House Divided Project and the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues will be co-hosting a special panel at Dickinson in honor of Constitution Day that will address the topic:  “The Fugitive Slave Law and the Crisis Over Immigration Policy: Assessing a Forgotten Legacy.”  Panelists include noted scholars Richard Blackett (Vanderbilt), Andrew Delbanco (Columbia) and Judith Giesberg (Villanova) with project director Matthew Pinsker serving as moderator. 

The controversial 1850 Fugitive Slave Law provoked a bitter national debate over open borders, due process, family separation, federal power and northern states’ rights. Our panelists will discuss those earlier controversies and assess how they might offer important insights or perspective for the current and increasingly intense debates over Trump Administration immigration policies.

Teachers and students who want to prepare for this discussion might want to begin by consulting Giesberg’s recent op-ed for the Washington Post entitled, “Jeff Sessions is Wrong.  Sanctuary-city advocates aren’t like secessionists. They’re like abolitionists.”  Another good starting point for understanding this historic parallel comes from law professor Jeffrey Schmitt who has written law review articles on this subject.  But Schmitt also has a helpful blog post that describes why Blackett’s new book on the fugitive crisis (Captive’s Quest) is such an important addition to our understanding of how the resistance to the fugitive law evolved.  Drawing historical lessons for the “resistance” was also a topic that noted historian Eric Foner explored in a recent op-ed for The Nation.  Delbanco’s new and much-anticipated book on the fugitive slave law is not quite available for sale yet (War Before the War, November 2018), but audience members can preview some of his views on President Trump’s historical legacy in this roundtable from the New York Review of Books which came out at the very end of the 2016 election.  Finally, for those seeking more in-depth treatments of these subjects and the historic parallels and connections between the fugitive slave crisis of the 1850s and the immigration crisis of our era, see freely available scholarly articles by  Kraehenbuehl (2011), McKanders (2012), and Schmitt (2013), or shorter but context-filled recent magazine pieces in Time or Slate.

Finally, what makes this topic so especially relevant here in Carlisle is something the panelists will also address.  In particular, they will describe Dickinson College’s complicated and surprisingly deep connections to the fugitive issue.  In 1847, for example, the college and the Carlisle community were nearly ripped apart by a violent fugitive slave episode, involving Professor John McClintock and a network of black antislavery figures in town. It is also true that the most notorious fugitive slave commissioner of the 1850s, a man named Richard McAllister, was a graduate of the college (Class of 1840).   

The combination of historical context and modern-day relevance is sure to make for a fascinating panel.  The entire session is open to the public and will also be available over YouTube via live-streaming at the House Divided YouTube channel.

CONSTITUTION DAY PANEL

“The Fugitive Slave Law and the Crisis Over Immigration Policy: Assessing a Forgotten Legacy.”

Monday, September 17, 2018
Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium, 7 p.m.

Panelists:

Richard Blackett, Vanderbilt University
Andrew Delbanco, Columbia University
Judith Giesberg, Villanova University
Matthew Pinsker (moderator), Dickinson College

Richard Blackett

Andrew Delbanco

Judith Giesberg

Matthew Pinsker

Co-hosted by House Divided Project and Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues with co-sponsorship from the Dickinson College American Studies, History and Policy Studies departments

(Carlisle, PA)  Registration for the March 23, 2019 House Divided Project workshop on Teaching Slavery opens today.  Please go to this form in order to sign up now!  The sessions are entirely free but space is limited to the first 50 registered participants –open to educators (or self-educators!) from any level, Dickinson students or home-schooling parents.

Sessions for the teacher workshop will include presentations on slavery, resistance and Civil War memory by Matthew Pinsker, Director, House Divided Project at Dickinson College, Deanda Johnson, regional coordinator for the National Park Service Network to Freedom, and Christy Coleman, CEO of the American Civil War Museum in Richmond.  There will also be special pedagogy sessions on slavery led by master teachers from the region, Todd Mealy (Penn Manor H.S.) and Kevin Wagner (Carlisle H.S.).

Participants in the workshop will receive the following:

• Signed copy of Eric Foner’s Short History of Reconstruction (2015)
• Facsimile packet of slavery and emancipation documents
• Behind-the-scenes tour of the new Dickinson & Slavery exhibit

The full schedule for Saturday, March 23, 2019 looks like this:

• 9am to 10am   || Registration opens at Denny 317 (corner of West & High Streets)
• 10am to 11am  ||Matthew Pinsker on Teaching Slavery 
• 11am to 12pm  || Deanda Johnson on slave stampedes and Network to Freedom
• 12pm to 2pm  || Lunch break
• 2pm to 3pm   || Pedagogy sessions by master teachers Todd Mealy, Kevin Wagner
• 3pm to 4pm   || Christy Coleman on the updated American Civil War Museum

All sessions during the day will be held in Denny 317 (corner of West & High Streets) on the Dickinson College campus. [campus map]

During the day, Saturday, March 23, 219, from 9am to 5pm, the House Divided studio at 61 N. West Street will also be open to the public, featuring the new Dickinson & Slavery exhibit.  Participants at the workshop will be expected to view the exhibit as part of their daytime commitment.

We will provide certification for up to 6 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.

From 7pm to 8:15pm at the ATS auditorium, Saturday evening, March 23, 2019, Christy Coleman, CEO of the American Civil War Museum in Richmond, VA will also deliver a keynote address for the Dickinson & Slavery initiative, entitled “Getting Right with Civil War Memory.”  Coleman’s lecture is free and open to the general public.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Christy Coleman grew up in Williamsburg, Virginia and earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Hampton University. She currently serves as CEO of the American Civil War Museum, located in Richmond and Appomattox, Virginia. In her role as CEO, she has been instrumental in furthering discussion around the Civil War, its legacies, and its relevance to our lives today not only in the Richmond region but around the nation.   Christy strives to make museum experiences meaningful to diverse communities. A tireless advocate for the power of museums, narrative disruption and inclusivity, she has been an innovator and leader in the history museum field. She’s written numerous articles, is an accomplished screenwriter, public speaker and has appeared on several national programs. Her work has been featured in global and national publications. Time Magazine has named her one of 31 People Changing the South.

ROSTER OF PRESENTERS

Deanda Johnson, PhD, is currently the Midwest Regional Coordinator for the National Park Service Network to Freedom Program in Omaha, Nebraska. She joined the program in 2010. In this capacity, she works with local, state, and federal entities, as well as other interested parties to preserve, promote, and educate the public about the history of the Underground Railroad. Previously, Johnson was the Coordinator of the African American Research and Service Institute at Ohio University where she was involved with the “The African American Presence in the Ohio River Valley Oral History Project.” At the university, she also served as a visiting instructor in the Department of African American Studies. She received her BA from University of California, San Diego and her MA and PhD in American Studies from the College of William & Mary.  Johnson will serve as the agreement technical representative (ATR) for the slave stampedes project.

Todd Mealy holds a Ph.D. from Penn State University. He also attained a Master’s degree from the same institution, where he was the 2014 recipient of the John S. Patterson Award for academic and creative achievement. In 2018, he received the university’s Sue Samuelson Award for his doctoral dissertation.  Todd has been a social studies teacher at Penn Manor High School in Millersville, PA since 2007 and serves as an adjunct faculty in History at Dickinson College. He is the author of six books, including a two-volume biography of William Howard Day. You can read more about Todd’s research at his author’s website.

Matthew Pinsker is a Professor of History and Pohanka Chair for Civil War History at Dickinson College, where he also serves as Director of the House Divided Project. Pinsker graduated from Harvard College and received a D.Phil. degree in Modern History from the University of Oxford.  He has held visiting fellowships with the New America Foundation in Washington, DC, the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, PA, and the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. He is the author of two books and numerous articles on Abraham Lincoln and various topics in the Civil War era and the history of slavery resistance.

Kevin Wagner is the Social Studies Program Chair (6-12) for the Carlisle Area School District in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and has been an educator for 22 years. He holds a BA in Social Studies Certification/History from Messiah College and a MA in Educational Leadership from Shippensburg University. He has received numerous awards for education and teaching, including the Thomas W. Holtzman, Jr. Educational Leadership Award for outstanding contributions in educational administration, the National Liberty Museum’s “Teacher as Hero” Award for making a difference in the lives of students, the Gilder-Lehrman PA Teacher of the Year, and the AHA Beveridge Family Teaching Award. His most recent recognition was by the National Council for Social Studies as a recipient of the 2018 Christa McAuliffe “Reach for the Stars” Award, recognizing his innovative initiative to tell the story of World War II soldiers through his “Silent Heroes” website development program. 

On Saturday, March 23, 2109, from 9am to 5pm, the House Divided Project is sponsoring an open house at 61 N. West Street to highlight its new Dickinson & Slavery exhibit.  For that day only, visitors will also be able to view rarely seen relics associated with slavery and emancipation from the renowned J. Howard Wert Collection.

The Dickinson & Slavery exhibit opened on February 1, 2019 and features little-known stories about the college’s deep and complicated ties to slavery and anti-slavery.  Exhibit panels describe the paradox of college founders, like John Dickinson and Benjamin Rush, who initially owned slaves but eventually became converted to abolitionism.  Visitors will also learn about the stories of Dickinsonians during the sectional crisis, including Stephen Duncan (Class of 1805), a Mississippi planter who was one of the country’s largest slaveholders, and Richard McAllister (Class of 1840), who was the nation’s most aggressive fugitive slave commissioner.  But perhaps most revealing, exhibit panels describe the lives of formerly enslaved families that came to call Dickinson and Carlisle their home, during and after the Civil War.  One of these figures, Robert C. Young, a long-serving janitor and policeman on campus, also helped to integrate the school in 1886.  

The exhibit is usually open to the public only on Wednesdays from 9am to noon.

On Saturday, March 23, 2019, visitors will also be able to see relics from the J. Howard Wert Collection, which is considered one of the finest privately held collections of Civil War era artifacts.  Wert came from a prominent antislavery family in Adams County, Pennsylvania. They knew Benjamin Rush.  Wert himself was a graduate of Gettysburg College who served as a scout for Union forces during the 1863 battle and was present for the Gettysburg Address later that year.  Wert eventually enlisted in the Union army and became a teacher, author and noted school superintendent in Harrisburg.  He died in 1920.  During his lifetime, however, he continued the family tradition of collecting important historical artifacts.  On display at the open house, visitors will see:

• Relics from Sam and Bayard Wilkeson, a father and son who were at Gettysburg.  Sam Wilkeson was the lead correspondent for the New York Times covering the battle.  Bayard, his oldest son, was a young lieutenant, killed on the battle’s first day.  
• Relics of slavery and the Underground Railroad, including an s-brand like the one used in the episode that inspired John Greenleaf Whittier’s famous anti-slavery poem, “The Branded Hand”
• Relics from George Washington, passed along to the Wert family by their friend Benjamin Rush

George Washington’s document box (Courtesy of J. Howard Wert Collection)

The HISTORY channel has just launched a new short video series for teachers and students called, “Sound Smart,” that offer concise ways to think about major topics in U.S. history.  House Divided Project director Matthew Pinsker has helped inaugurate the series with several episodes from the antebellum and Civil War era.

Pinsker’s topics include:

• Manifest Destiny (1840s)
• Compromise of 1850
• Fugitive Slave Law (1850)
• Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)
• Bleeding Kansas (1856)
• Dred Scott Case (1857)
• Fort Sumter (1861)
• Women in the Civil War (1861-65)
• Homestead Act (1862)
• 19th Amendment (1920)

Each episode offers a summary of the topic in just about two minutes, designed mostly to help focus classroom discussions and provoke further research at the middle or high school level.