No matter where you are in your teaching career, our Master of Arts in American History and Government program offers an extended exploration of the ideas, people, and places in America's story you are passionate about. We invite you to become a part of our community, as a non-degree seeking or degree-seeking student, to help you become the expert your students need.
Led by historians and political scientists from universities around the nation, our seminar-style classes focus on primary documents in a conversational setting, rather than simply listening to lectures. Professors will engage you in thoughtful dialogue about these sources, helping you discover the challenges faced and choices made by those who began and carried forward America’s experiment in self-government. After you begin the conversation with us, you’ll want to draw in your students as well.
Designed to meet the needs of working teachers, our MA in American History and Government is available as a fully on-campus summer program and as a hybrid program blending on-campus summer study with online courses. Take some time this summer to immerse yourself in a weeklong campus experience, while building new relationships with fellow historians.
Located in America's heartland, in Ashland, Ohio, Teaching American History is a project of the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University. Our programs and courses are unique in that they are all rooted in primary documents only, and are created and conducted by university scholars who are experts in their respective fields. Our faculty are full-time instructors at Ashland University and from universities and colleges across the country.
Our goal is to equip teachers with content knowledge and resources through experiences with primary documents so they can more effectively teach their students.
Don't let financial concerns stand in the way of your goals. Financial assistance can help you get started and minimize your student debt—or avoid it altogether, even while working full-time. Through the generous support of our donors, the Ashbrook Center is able to offer various fellowships to help offset the costs. For more information, view our financial aid opportunities and our tuition and fees for the upcoming semesters.
Session 1 – June 21 to June 26
The transition to an industrial economy posed many problems for the United States. This course examines those problems and the responses to them that came to be known as progressivism. The course includes the study of World War I as a manifestation of progressive principles. The course emphasizes the political thought of Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and their political expression of progressive principles.
Instructor
Ashland University
Session 1 – June 21 to June 26
The Federalist is a complex political work comprised of arguments about war, economics, national unity, and liberty (among other things) based on appeals to human nature, history, reason, and prudence. In this course we will examine and discuss The Federalist as fully and as deeply we can, aiming to understand how (or whether) its parts fit together in a coherent whole and its enduring contribution to our understanding of politics.
Instructor
Ashland University
Session 1 – June 21 to June 26
America has lived through three periods of sustained interest in reforming its political and social life, the first in the decades preceding the Civil War, the second in the decades preceding the First World War and the third in the decade or two following World War II. The course examines aspects of these reform movements, particularly their connection to religion and Protestant theology.
Instructors
Skidmore College
Gardner-Webb University
Session 1 – June 21 to June 26
This course is an examination of the political and constitutional development of the office of president from Reconstruction to the present. It focuses on how changing conceptions of the presidency have shaped American political life in the 19th and 20th centuries, especially as America has become a global power.
Instructors
University of Houston
Boston College
Session 1 – June 21 to June 26
This course is an intensive study of the history, politics, and law of the Fourth Amendment. What is an unreasonable search or seizure? When must government get a warrant? Does technology change any of the answers to those questions? To address these issues, we will look at the text and constitutional principles of the Fourth Amendment as well as its historical development, especially through Supreme Court decisions.
Instructor
Ashland University
Session 2 – June 28 to July 3
This course is an intensive study of the constitutional convention, the struggle over ratification of the Constitution, and the creation of the Bill of Rights. It will include a close examination of the Federalist Papers and the antifederalist papers.
Instructor
Ashland University
Session 2 – June 28 to July 3
A study of the sectional conflict beginning with the nullification crisis. The course will not only examine the political, social and economic developments in the period leading to the civil war, but will emphasize the political thought of Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Douglas, and John C. Calhoun.
Instructors
Millikin University
Simpson College
Session 2 – June 28 to July 3
Having adopted a form of government, the Americans had to make it work. This course examines their efforts to do so, as the Republic took shape amidst foreign dangers, political conflict, westward expansion and religious revivals.
Instructor
United States Military Academy
Session 2 – June 28 to July 3
This course explores the history of women in America from the early 19th century to the present, especially the political struggle to gain increased civil and political rights. Using primary source material from leading female intellectuals and activists, this course will consider the myriad ways that women have helped to shape the course of United States history.
Instructors
Ashbrook Center at Ashland University
US Coast Guard Academy
Session 2 – June 28 to July 3
This course examines the development of American political parties, focusing on the meaning of parties and historic moments in the rise and fall of political parties from the Founding era to the present. Topics may include re-aligning elections, changing coalitions within American parties, and the contemporary Democratic and Republican parties.
Instructor
Berry College
Session 3 – July 5 to July 10
With the exception of the Civil War era, it is difficult to find another thirty-year period in U.S. history during which the nation underwent such dramatic change. In 1914 the United States was no more than a regional power, with a primarily rural demography and a relatively unobtrusive federal government. Thanks to the experience of two world wars, a major cultural conflict (the 1920s), and a disastrous economic crisis the country was transformed into the global economic and military power that it remains to this day. This course will examine the cultural, economic, military, and diplomatic events and trends of the period 1914-1945.
Instructor
Chapman University
Session 3 – July 5 to July 10
Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America is the best study of America to be written by a foreigner and perhaps the best and most comprehensive study ever of democracy. Tocqueville examines government, religion, manners, the races, private associations, literature, the family, and much else, all the while contrasting democratic America with old aristocratic Europe. His examination forces us to examine our assumption that democracy is the best way to organize society and to think deeply about the relation between equality and human excellence. This course will examine as much of the book as we can, focusing especially on Tocqueville’s account of the love of equality and its implications for the preservation of liberty and human excellence.
Instructor
Saint Vincent College
Session 3 – July 5 to July 10
An examination of the motives behind and the consequences of the expansion of European power beginning in the 16th Century. The course focuses on the European settlement of North America and the interactions between Europeans and indigenous peoples.
Instructor
Ashbrook Center at Ashland University
Session 3 – July 5 to July 10
This course will examine military aspects of the war, as well as political developments during it, including the political history of the Emancipation Proclamation, the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural. The course also examines the post-war Amendments and the Reconstruction era.
Instructors
Washington & Lee University
Mississippi State University
Session 3 – July 5 to July 10
This course examine events and issues in the foreign policy of the American republic. Topics include the major schools of thought and approaches, the connection between domestic and foreign politics, and the connection between the principles of the American regime and its foreign policy.
Instructor
Ashland University
Session 3 – July 5 to July 10
The 1960s are rightly recognized as a watershed moment in U.S. history, yet the profound and often tumultuous changes of these years had lasting effects. The Civil Rights and women’s movements continued, and they inspired equality campaigns for other Americans (Native Americans, for example). Growing opposition to Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and liberal governing principles in general revitalized conservatism, bringing the Reagan Revolution. American power appeared diminished by the Vietnam War, yet the U.S. remained committed to global leadership. The end of the Cold War, wars in the Middle East, and terrorism tested and changed U.S. foreign and military policies. This course will examine the United States as its people and government responded to domestic and global challenges, crises, and changes occurring during the last quarter of the twentieth century and the start of the twenty-first century.
Instructors
Ashland University
Claremont McKenna College
Session 3 – July 5 to July 10
This course considers writing about immigrants and immigration in America from the antebellum period through the present day. Participants will read excerpts of speeches, essays, fiction, poetry, diaries, and memoirs by and about those who came to the United States from abroad. In seminar discussion, using both historical and literary analysis, participants will probe both particular aspects of the immigrant experience and the response to immigrants by native-born citizens. The course will consider the work of authors such as Flannery O’Connor, Jane Addams, Bernard Malamud, Sarah Orne Jewett, Gish Jen, Jamaica Kincaid, Richard Rodriguez, Maxine Hong Kingston, Willa Cather, Robert Frost, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, and Jhumpa Lahiri.
Instructors
Dartmouth College
Millikin University
Session 4 – July 12 to July 17
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Instructor
Arizona State University
Session 4 – July 12 to July 17
Although Thomas Jefferson is widely recognized as the author of the Declaration of Independence, few have heard of Jefferson’s book, the Notes on the State of Virginia, first printed in 1785. Part scientific treatise, part political manifesto, Jefferson’s Notes has been confounding casual readers and scholars alike since its inception. Although some characterize this work as sloppy or contradictory, it is in fact a carefully planned expression of Jefferson’s philosophies on everything from immigration to archaeology to constitutions. This course will give a broad overview of the Notes, paying special attention to the most controversial, and most misunderstood, passages: Jefferson’s words on race and slavery.
Instructor
Ashland University
Session 4 – July 12 to July 17
This course is an examination of the political and constitutional development of the office of president from the Founding era through the Civil War. It focuses on how the presidency shaped American political life as the country grew and struggled with rising sectional tensions.
Instructor
US Naval War College
Session 4 – July 12 to July 17
This course is an intensive study of the ideas, politics, and history of the U.S. Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on the First Amendment. Focused especially on the religion and speech clauses, the course considers the development of the Court’s opinions in light of the broader theoretical and institutional elements of American constitutionalism.
Instructor
Rochester Institute of Technology
Session 4 – July 12 to July 17
This course will examine the role of political humor and satire in American politics and how political humor, comedy and satire shape public opinion and political outcomes. Students will examine historical and contemporary examples of humor, comedy and satire and analyze the impact of these forms of political communication on politics and society. Students will examine how political humor has changed over time, the different forms it has taken, and the different purposes that it has served. Students will also discuss the possibilities and limits of political humor as a vehicle for social and political change and critically evaluate arguments about political humor and free speech, civility and power in modern society.
Instructor
Xavier University
Session 4 – July 12 to July 17
Harlem became the hub of African-American culture in the 1920’s and 30’s, and the extraordinary writing that developed during this time continues to influence American literature and culture. This seminar will read the literature of the Harlem Renaissance in relation to its history as well as its social and cultural context. We will examine the role of race and mentorship–paying particular attention to the relationships between white mentors and black writers, and to white and black exchanges generally. In the context of these racial exchanges, we will study the values and the aesthetics of the “New Negro” movement that emerged in Harlem and learn how Harlem, as a distinctive, vibrant neighborhood, nurtured the Renaissance. We will also examine the competing theories about race and racial identity that defined the Harlem Renaissance’s intellectual culture.
Instructors
Oakland University
University of Wisconsin
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