P.A.S.S.
Anthony Napoli, Director of Education for the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
and Kathy White, Education Coordinator for Gilder Lehrman
Interview Transcript—Part One
Interview conducted by Dal Edwards, Jolene Ethridge, Fay Gore,
Lisa Llewellyn, Michelle McLaughlin
November 23, 2009
11:00-12:30
(Music) Anthony Napoli is the Director of Education for the Gilder Lerhman Institute of
American History. Founded in 1994, the Gilder Lehrman Institute is a nonprofit
organization supporting the study and love of American history through a wide range of
programs and resources for students, teachers, and scholars throughout the nation. The
Institute creates and works closely with history-focused schools; organizes summer
seminars and development programs for teachers; produces print and digital
publications and traveling exhibitions; hosts lectures by eminent historians; administers a
History Teacher of the Year Award in every state and U.S. territory; and offers national
book prizes and fellowships for scholars. (Music)
Edwards: (1:02) If you could maybe express a little bit about the history of the Gilder
Lehrman Institute and its overall mission or purpose.
Napoli: The institute itself was founded in 1994 by Richard Gilder and Lewis Lehrman, who
are still living. They’re very, very successful businessmen. Lewis owned Rite Aid Drugs for
many years. He’s also a scholar and has a new book out on Lincoln at Peoria—Abraham
Lincoln’s Peoria, Illinois speech—which is a speech that I think should be taught in all high
school classes in regards to United States history…
By that time they had accumulated about 60,000 original American history documents.
They said to each other, “what are we going to do with these documents?” And that’s
how they founded the institute. And the mission is very simple—simply develop the study
and love of American history. That’s all they want.
The materials that they have accumulated are housed at our archives, which is in the
lower level of the New York Historical Society. They’ve done a great deal to revive the
New York Historical Society, which was in jeopardy of being closed down. It’s now one of
the focal points of New York City.
(2:04) And they started with the one summer seminar given by David Brion Davis who is
probably the premier scholar on North American slavery—who was at Yale. This summer
we will have 39 summer seminars. That’s a big attraction for teachers. Everything is paid
for. They get a stipend at the end of the week. Last year we had one for two weeks in
Ghana on civil liberties with teachers from the United States, from London, and also from
Ghana. The year before we had one at Georgetown University given by Sandra Day
O’Connor. We only use scholars or individuals who are usually Nobel Prize winners.
Every seminar people will come back and say it’s outstanding. And by design we limit it
to one week because of the time constraints--we see this from teachers. Many teachers
have to work during the summer, and have other family obligations, etc. So this summer,
there are thirty-nine. And teachers can easily access the application by going online.
And online now, we also have a description of each of the seminars and who’s giving
the seminar.
(3:12) The website is very, very rich for teachers. We have podcasts by noted historians.
So you’ll hear Eric Foner on Reconstruction. We have documents available to teachers.
And if they’re a part of our affiliate program or are network schools, they can get any
document, simply by going through me. And then we have a history magazine entitled
History Now, which is free to every teacher in the United States. The last issue was on the
Supreme Court. You’ll have five historians, or four historians, who write an essay on the
background of the Supreme Court in their point of view, because history is solely
historians arguing over history.
And then we have lesson plans developed by teachers—at the elementary level, middle
school level and high school level—only utilizing primary source documents. And by the
way, we provide the teachers who develop this, an honorarium. And we have the right
though to edit lesson plans.
(4:07) Our big initiative right now is the affiliate program. We have 39 schools that are
network schools. One of them here is North Carolina…is Roanoke Rapids. But throughout
the country we have 39 network schools. We wanted to expand the number of schools
based upon requests that are part of the Gilder Lehrman program. So we developed
this idea of an affiliate school program in which the schools get everything that a
network school will receive. But they don’t get direct monetary support. Because of that
initiative, we’re very, very fortunate and received a major, major grant from the National
Endowment for the Humanities to support this effort. Our goal this year is to have two
hundred affiliate schools. We’re up to about 160 at this particular point.
I’m meeting with three of your high schools (in North Carolina) to become affiliate. One
of which is already an affiliate school. We have them all over the country. I just
developed a cohort in South Carolina—Cobb County—I was with them last week. We
did three workshops for their teachers—again, at no cost to them. Materials don’t cost
them anything. Next week I’ll be in Buffalo, New York, where we have sixteen affiliate
schools. Milwaukee—we have 10 now affiliate schools. We’re in LA County…We were
going to first have affiliate schools in New Orleans. And we still do. We have a Saturday
academy there at New Orleans.
(5:25) Saturday academies are also strong possibilities. We have twenty-five of those
throughout the country. That’s for students. And what’s taught at the Saturday
academies has to be in American history, but it’s determined by the local school system.
The cost is an opportunity for students to study an element of American history in depth—
that they don’t have the time to do so in school. They allow also test preparation—the
SAT test preparation course. And that’s given free because many of our students,
especially in our urban areas, cannot afford to take Kaplan, Princeton Review, or
whatever the case may be. We also support in those states where the ACT is the big
deal. We support those review classes. And we also support A.P. U.S. History review
classes. (One) given by a very, very fine teacher out in Milwaukee. And that’s all the
students of Milwaukee, not only the students in our affiliate schools or our network
schools, because we don’t want to exclude any student from participating in our
Saturday program.
(6:26) We have a course out of one of our high schools in Brooklyn, New York entitled
“American History through Fashion”—very popular, very popular. You can study
American history through fashion. The teacher is a dynamo. I can’t keep up with her.
There’s a waiting list to get into her course. There really is. She really, you know, she
teaches the kids that there really was such a person as Amelia Bloomer.
The goal is in all of our programs there is no cost whatsoever to the school district. That’s
the way Mr. Gilder and Mr. Lehrman want it to be…
I’ll never forget Mr. Gilder saying one time that ‘if you want to get the best historians, you
have to pay the best’… And there’s also an appreciation on the part of all of the major
professional organizations of what the Gilder Lehrman Institute has done for the study of
American history…
Often we’ll come across the issue of ‘we can’t teach social studies because of the
demands of No Child Left Behind.’ And it’s a shame, because many of our middle
schools are not teaching social studies or science because the principals are being
evaluated on the basis of their reading and math scores. Well, you can’t teach reading
in a vacuum. So, many times when I work in the urban schools, I work with the teachers
on how to teach reading comprehension utilizing the content of American history.
(7:39) We also advocate an interdisciplinary approach. So, good pieces of literature are
to be used. We also strongly suggest that the librarian/media specialist be part of our
seminars. They can be a key in the building if utilized properly—in helping the students
do research, and building their library, etc…
Every (GL) History Teacher of the Year receives a whole stack of materials, which it’s theirs
to keep although they could put it in their school library—whatever they feel comfortable
doing. Or they can make it part of their classroom library.
Our website continues to grow. We’re doing more and more with historians. We also
have a scholars program for undergraduates. We take fifteen undergraduates
throughout the country. And they spend six weeks in New York doing original research
with a number of known historians. We have a post doctoral program, which we do
fellowships now for people who do research in certain areas. We also give out the
Lincoln Book Award, and the Washington Book Award, and the Frederick Douglass Book
Award. Mr. Gilder and Mr. Lehrman have built a wing onto the Gettysburg museum, the
museum at Mt. Vernon.
(8:45) We are very heavily involved in Teaching American History Grants. As a matter of
fact, we are partnering in more Teaching American History Grants than any other nonprofit group. I think we’re close to one hundred. And one of the things that I’m going to
speak to these three schools (in North Carolina) that I’m going to meet with today is
combining their efforts and writing for Teaching American History Grants. But that’s
another great opportunity for districts throughout the state of North Carolina to do.
Gore: What are the three schools (in North Carolina) that you’re meeting with?
White: Broughton (High School) will be named, Panther Creek (High School) and Jordan
(High School). (Music)