Education Mission
The Education Department at the New-York Historical Society offers a wealth of resources and learning opportunities designed to make history come alive!
Education programs are made possible through endowments established by the National Endowment for the Humanities and The Hearst Foundations. Programs are supported, in part, by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council and by a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency. Additional support is provided by The Barker Welfare Foundation, The Hyde and Watson Foundation, the May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation and Verizon.
Support the New-York Historical Society
Help us present groundbreaking exhibitions and develop educational programs about our nation's history for more than 100,000 schoolchildren annually.
The Institute for Constitutional History sponsors or co-sponsors a variety of events during the academic year. Here is a partial list of upcoming and recent events:
Upcoming Events
Union, Race, and Nation: Creating the Federal Republic, 1776-1801
Peter S. Onuf, Annette Gordon-Reed
September 13, 20, 27, October 4, 25, and Nov. 1, 2012. Apply by June 1, 2012
This seminar will explore the origins of American constitutionalism from 1776 through 1801, the years of Revolution to the election of Thomas Jefferson. We will explore the problem of union: empire and federal republic, the ratification debates and the development of political parties, slavery and freedom, state building, geopolitics and foreign affairs, and the Revolution of 1800.
Assessing the US Constitution: Twenty-First-Century Responses to Eighteenth-Century Assumptions
Sanford Levinson
July 8-14, 2012. Apply by May 1, 2012
It is an obvious truth that the drafters of the 1787 Constitution had a number of basic assumptions about the workings of what they called a “Republican Form of Government” and that the institutions established in Philadelphia reflected these assumptions. To be sure, some of them, such as equal voting power in the Senate or the basis of representation in the House (i.e., the 3/5 rule), were the result of compromises, in which the losers (like James Madison with regard to the Senate) viewed the result as a “lesser evil” (to the greater evil of no Constitution at all) rather than a positive good. Still, almost all of the institutions were defended by proponents of the Constitution, the most prominent, of course, being the collective Publius. To a remarkable degree, America in 2012 continues to be governed through the structures established in 1787.
