CMHD Professional Development
You are invited to the following FREE professional development programs, courtesy of the History Day School Partners program and grant-funded initiatives. We will host four virtual lectures with historians about Chicago history, two Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources programs (sub stipends available), and History Day Fundamentals courses.
Be sure to check out the Chicago History Museum’s other Educator Programs.
Virtual Frontiers in History Series
CMHD is partnering with Chicago historians to launch a new virtual series to get teachers thinking about Frontiers in History: People, Places, Ideas. Teachers who join the Zoom session will get 1.5 PD hour.
- Frontiers in Chicago’s Asian American History
Anna Guevarra, University of Illinois at Chicago
Thursday, September 22, 6:00–7:30 p.m. (Zoom)
Anna Guevarra is an associate professor and the founding director of the Global Asian Studies Program at the University of Illinois Chicago. This presentation will examine the history of the ethnic studies movement and the push for culturally relevant education as a frontier of ideas, using Asian American history as the lens through which to tell this story. It will also cover the student-led movements that developed organically around the country, including at the University of Illinois Chicago, and end with a discussion of the historical significance of the passage of the Teaching Equitable Asian American Community History (TEAACH) Act in Illinois. - Frontiers in Chicago’s African American History
Kate Masur, Northwestern University
Tuesday, September 27, 6:00–7:30 p.m. (Zoom)
Kate Masur is a professor of history at Northwestern University and author of Until Justice Be Done: America’s First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction. This presentation will draw on the new web exhibit, Black Organizing in Pre-Civil War Illinois: Creating Community, Demanding Justice, to discuss race and politics in Chicago in the 1840s–1860s. Examining Chicago as a frontier of the antislavery movement, it will explore Black and white Chicagoans’ attitudes toward the racist “black laws” of Illinois and the federal Fugitive Slave Act, and it will focus special attention on some of the Black people who settled here, built institutions, and mobilized for justice. - Frontiers in Chicago’s Labor History
Emily E. LB. Twarog, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Thursday, October 13, 6:00–7:30 p.m. (Zoom)
Emily E. LB. Twarog is an associate professor of history and labor studies and Co-Director of the Regina V. Polk Women’s Labor Leadership Conference. The presentation will highlight three labor struggles that take us off the beaten path of Chicago’s labor history and span the course of a century. In the 1890s, Black and white waiters who were part of a new workers organization, the Chicago Culinary Alliance, walked out on strike in downtown Chicago demanding wage increases. This strike will be juxtaposed with the longest strike in US history at the Congress Hotel on Michigan Avenue where members of UNITE HERE Local 1 walked on strike on Father’s Day 2003 demanding higher wages and maintained a picket line for more than 10 years. The presentation will also discuss the 1974 founding of the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW), an organization of women union members who were tired of having their issues ignored by their unions and came to Chicago to found an organization that continues to thrive today. - Frontiers in Chicago’s Latinx History
Elena Gonzales, Chicago History Museum
Tuesday, October 18, 6:00–7:30 p.m. (Zoom)
Elena Gonzales is the curator of a forthcoming exhibition (fall 2025) at the Chicago History Museum that centers the resistance of Latino/a/x high school students in Chicago to the absence of Latino/a/x histories at CHM in more than a century of Latino/a/x resistance white supremacy and colonialism in and around Chicago. In this talk, Dr. Gonzales will explore some of the key moments, places, and ideas in this history that we can think of as frontiers, from the Division St. Uprising of 1966 to the formation of Latino “ethnic consciousness” in Chicago in 1972 and from the frontiers of Chicago’s neighborhoods in this most segregated city to the frontiers of Chicagolandia.
RSVP for 1, 2, 3, or all 4 sessions HERE!
CPDUs available for those who attend the live Zoom sessions. Can’t attend live? Recordings will be sent to those who preregister.
Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Program
Chicago Metro History Day will lead two Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources programs this fall. The grant will provide a $125 stipend for substitute coverage to allow teachers to participate in these weekday programs.
- Finding, Analyzing, and Constructing History: A Seminar for History Day Teachers
October 27-28, 8:30 a.m.–3:00 p.m. (Chicago History Museum)
This two-day Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) seminar will introduce teachers to the new publication Finding, Analyzing, and Constructing History: A Research Guide for Students and Library of Congress digital collections suitable for the upcoming History Day theme, Frontiers in History: People, Places, Ideas. The seminar will use tools from the new publication and the Library’s digital collections to explore how teachers can use the Library’s resources to support History Day researchers. Participants will access and analyze primary sources in different formats using the Library’s “Observe, Question, Reflect” model and National History Day’s Frontiers theme. We will also discuss how the Library’s secondary sources can complement students’ analysis and argumentation. The seminar will end with teachers’ independent inquiries into Library of Congress Frontiers topics and the creation of theme-based student resources.
Stipends for substitute coverage are available to the first twenty teachers who register ($125 x 2 days). Additional stipends are available to participants who opt into dissemination opportunities. Parking and a working lunch will be provided. Participants should bring their own laptop, Chromebook, or tablet. This program is primarily intended for National History Day teachers or librarians in grades 6-12, but all are welcome. - Using the Library of Congress for Student Inquiry: A Seminar for Grade 6-12 Social Science Teachers
November 4, 8:30 a.m.–3:00 p.m. (Chicago History Museum)
This one-day Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) seminar will introduce teachers to the new publication Finding, Analyzing, and Constructing History: A Research Guide for Students and how to use the Library of Congress collections for student inquiry projects. Participants will access and analyze primary sources in different formats using the Library’s “Observe, Question, Reflect” model. The seminar will end with teachers’ independent inquiries into Library of Congress collections and the creation of inquiry-based classroom resources.
Stipends for substitute coverage are available to the first twenty teachers who register ($125 x 1 day). Additional stipends are available to those who opt into dissemination opportunities. Parking and a working lunch will be provided. Participants should bring their own laptop, Chromebook, or tablet. This program is primarily intended for social studies teachers, special education teachers, or librarians in grades 6-12, but all are welcome.
This project is sponsored in part by the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Midwest Region Program, located at Illinois State University. Content created and featured in partnership with the TPS Midwest Region does not indicate an endorsement by the Library of Congress.
History Day Fundamentals
History Day 101 is our short introduction to CMHD, suitable for teachers who are considering History Day participation for the first time or returning after a hiatus in need of a refresher on program changes.
- Virtual History Day 101
October 4, 6:00–7:30 p.m. (Zoom)
History Day Methods is an in-depth training that walks new teachers through all stages of the History Day program—theme and topic selection, research, annotated bibliographies, historical arguments, preparing a project, and preparing for the contest.
- History Day Methods
September 24 AND October 1, 9:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m. (Chicago History Museum) - Virtual History Day Methods
October 22–November 19 (Zoom/Google Classroom)
Coming Soon! NEH Summer Institute
Rethinking the Gilded Age and Progressivisms: Race, Capitalism, and Democracy, 1877-1920
CMHD is delighted to announce that we will be co-directing a National Endowment for the Humanities summer institute July 9–28, 2023, with partners from the University of Illinois at Chicago and Loyola University Chicago. Stay tuned for an official invitation in November. Applications open in December and are due on March 3.