NEH Summer Institute 2025
Under One Roof: Teaching Immigration and Black History through the NYC Tenements
Session 1: July 20 – 25, 2025 | Session 2: August 3 – 8, 2025
NEH Summer Institute 2025
About the Workshop
For over 30 years, the Tenement Museum has been associated with the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and turn of the 20th Century European immigration. Now, with the opening of our A Union of Hope: 1869 exhibit in 2023, the Museum features the story of a Black family in the post-Civil War era alongside the stories of immigrants, migrants and refugees that the Museum has long been known for. Traditionally, these time periods and communities have been studied and taught separately. What happens when we bring them together? This new workshop offers a unique opportunity to explore the intersection of immigration and Black history and answer questions that teachers have often asked us: How can these histories be taught together? What can we learn about America’s past by connecting these histories?
Join us to explore these questions and more in Under One Roof: Teaching Immigration and Black History through the NYC Tenements, a national teacher institute hosted next summer at the Tenement Museum.
With a focus on urban living spaces, family life, neighborhood and cultural communities, labor history and foodways, this groundbreaking institute is designed to help educators examine the stories and experiences of immigrant and Black families and communities at two key moments, the Civil War and Reconstruction (1860s-1870s) and the Ellis Island era of immigration (1890s-1920s). We’ll explore how legislation impacted both immigrants and Black Americans, how communities considered each others’ experiences, and how these histories can help your students reflect on our nation’s past and present.
In partnership with the National Park Service at Ellis Island, the historic Apollo Theater, and the renowned Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA), join us for a special week-long professional learning experience and learn from all-star historians and scholars, interactive excursions, and curated activities alongside fellow educators from across the country! With support from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), each participant will also receive a stipend of $1,300 for the workshop.
Schedule
Day 1: History in our Own Homes: An Introduction to the Tenement Museum
What is the Tenement Museum? How can we highlight the stories of everyday people?
Dr. Annie Polland, Tenement Museum President
Kathryn Lloyd, Tenement Museum Vice President of Programs and Interpretation
Day 2: Becoming an Immigrant City: Irish and German Immigrants transform New York
How did Irish and German immigrants view their experiences of immigration, and how were they viewed by US-born Americans? How did the Civil War and slavery impact immigrants’ experiences?
Dr. Russell Kazal, author of Becoming Old Stock: the Paradox of German-American Identity
Day 3: Black and Chinese New Yorkers in the 19th Century
How did free Black New Yorkers navigate the changes of the Civil War era? What factors shaped national immigration policy in the 19th Century?
Dr. Leslie Harris, author of In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York 1624-1863
Dr. Mae Ngai, author of The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes and Global Politics
Day 4: Yearning to Breathe Free: Rethinking the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island
How has the symbolism of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island changed over time? What role do symbols and myths play in American immigration narratives?
Matt Housch, Lead Archivist at Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island
Peter Wong, Supervisory Park Ranger for Education at Ellis Island
Day 5: Neighborhoods as Global Diaspora Centers: the Lower East Side and Harlem
What is an “ethnic” or “immigrant” neighborhood? How can a neighborhood serve as a hub for a globally diasporic community?
Dr. Tony Michels, author of A Fire in their Hearts: Yiddish Socialists in New York
Lead Historian from the New York Public Library Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Day 6: Immigrant Workers: From Factories to Food Carts in the 20th Century
How did (and do) working class immigrants’ jobs impact their cultural and community identity? How did immigration laws change the nation in the 20th Century?
Dr. Maddalena Marinari, co-editor, A Nation of Immigrants Reconsidered: The U.S. in an Age of Restriction, 1924-1965
Dr. Nancy Foner, author of One Quarter of the Nation: Immigration and the Transformation of America
How to Apply
Session 1: July 20 – 25, 2025 Session 2: August 3 – 8, 2025
Applications should be submitted online through the Tenement Museum’s application form. Applicants should include their resume/CV, personal essay, sample lesson plan, and two letters of recommendation.
Essay and Resume Requirements
(Acceptable file types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf.)
Resume/CV (5 pages max)
Letters of Recommendations (1 page each max)
Personal Essay (3 pages double-spaced max)
Your essay should address:
1) Your reasons for applying
2) Your relevant personal and academic information
3) What you hope to get out of this workshop
4) How this institute relates to you the subjects you teach
5) How you plan to use this information after the institute
Sample Lesson Plan (1 page double-spaced max)
Please upload a sample lesson plan you have used in the classroom.
Deadline
Applications open on December 8th, 2024, and close on March 8th, 2025, at 11:59 p.m.
Applicants will be notified of decisions regarding admission to the institute on April 2, 2025.
Participants must inform the director of their decision to accept an offer of admission by April 16, 2025.
Stipend
Each teacher will receive a stipend of $1,300 for the workshop. Participants will receive this once they have uploaded your curricular project and completed the required evaluation. Please note that this is taxable income and that the stipend is intended to offset the costs of participation, which may include lodging, travel, and meals.
Resources
Equal Opportunity Statement
NEH does not condone or tolerate discrimination or harassment based on age, color, disability, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity), genetic information, national origin, race, or religion. Nor does NEH condone or tolerate retaliation against those who initiate discrimination complaints (either formally or informally), serve as witnesses, or otherwise participate in the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) process, or oppose discrimination or harassment. For further information, write to the Equal Opportunity Officer, National Endowment for the Humanities, 400 7th Street, SW, Washington, DC 20024. TDD: 202-606-8282 (this is a special telephone device for the Deaf).
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Shirley Brown-Alleyne Director of Student and Teacher Programs, Tenement Museum Brown-Alleyne will serve as Project Director. Brown-Alleyne will manage all major activities of the workshop, coordinate with the VP of Programs and Interpretation and project scholars to design presentations aligned to workshop goals and themes, supervise the Education Specialist in crafting curriculum development sessions, oversee recruitment and jury selection of teacher participants, and structure tour program offerings to support workshop themes. |
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Kathryn Lloyd Vice President of Programs and Interpretation, Tenement Museum Lloyd will serve as primary liaison to participating scholars. She will work closely with Brown-Alleyne and scholars to develop presentation sessions that support teachers’ content knowledge of the topics, time periods, and essential questions of the workshop. Lloyd will also serve as the replacement director if necessary. |
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Steven McIntosh Chief Officer of Education, Tenement Museum McIntosh will provide key support and oversight of the Project Director and team around the areas of budgeting and expenses, marketing and recruitment, website development, program quality and efficacy, communications, safety and operations, on-and-off site event logistics, interdepartmental collaboration, evaluation, and reporting. |
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Annie Polland, Ph.D. President of the Tenement Museum Polland will provide key project oversight and direction helping to develop the overall workshop and themes as well as connect with and guide participating scholars. She will help select workshop participants and lead a session of the workshop that examines the Statue of Liberty and its changing meaning over time. |
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Janise Mitchell Education Specialist Mitchell will work closely with the Museum project team to design and implement a series of curriculum development sessions. In addition, she will share over 30 years’ classroom experience to lead workshops on teaching with primary sources, and mentor teachers as they craft their own lessons throughout the week. |
Tyler Anbinder is Professor Emeritus at George Washington University and author of numerous books on immigration, including Five Points: the 19th-Century New York City Neighborhood that Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and became the Nation’s Most Notorious Slum, City of Dreams: the 400-Year Epic History of Immigrant New York, and his latest book, Plentiful Country: the Irish Potato Famine and the Making of Irish New York.
Debbie Ardemendo is the Director of School Programs at the Apollo Theater. Prior to the Apollo, she worked at the Museum of the City of New York and at the Intrepid Museum. Debbie has a MS in Education and Museum Studies from Bank Street College of Education.
Hasia Diner is a Professor Emerita at New York University and author of numerous books on immigration, including Hungering for America: Italian, Irish and Jewish Foodways in the Age of Migration; In the Almost Promised Land: American Jews and Blacks. 1915-1935; and Erin’s Daughters in America: Irish Immigrant Women in the Nineteenth Century. She previously served as Director of the Goldstein-Goren Center for American Jewish History and Interim Director of Glucksman Ireland House at NYU.
Jennifer Guglielmo is an award-winning author, teacher, and public historian, and author of Living the Revolution: Italian Women’s Resistance and Radicalism in New York City, 1880-1945. She specializes in the histories of labor, race, women, migration and revolutionary social movements in the late 19th and 20th century United States.
Leslie Harris is a Professor of History at Northwestern University who specializes in making African American history accessible to the general public. Harris’ first book, In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City 1626-1863, broke new ground on the history of slavery in NYC with her research on the role of enslaved and free Black New Yorkers.
Russell Kazal teaches history at the University of Toronto, specializing in migration studies and the German immigrant population in 19th-century America. His book Becoming Old Stock: the Paradox of German-American Identity looks at how German immigrants retreated from an ethnic identity in the 20th-century. His current research project, “The Regional and Immigrant Roots of American Multiculturalism,” examines the emergence of popular notions of ethnic pluralism in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.
Tony Michels is the George L. Mosse Professor of American Jewish History and Director of the Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Wisconsin. He is co-editor, with Mitchell Hart, of the forthcoming Cambridge History of Modern Judaism: The Modern Era. His first book, A Fire in Their Hearts: Yiddish Socialists in New York, won the Salo Baron Prize from the American Academy for Jewish Research. He is currently finishing a book on American Jewish responses to the Russian Revolution.
Lauren Nechamkin is Director of Education at MOCA, the Museum of Chinese in America. She is a graduate of NYU’s Steinhardt School of Education, where she earned her BS in Social Studies Education. She taught at CASTLE Middle School on the Lower East Side and the High School of Arts & Technology.
Irma Watkins-Owens is author of Blood Relations: Caribbean Immigrants and the Harlem Community, 1900-1930. She is currently working on a study of African American women, migration and community in NYC from 1898 – 1945. A shorter project examines African Caribbean immigrants in port cities of the 19th Century. She is an emeritus professor at Fordham University.
Peter Wong is the Supervisory Park Ranger in Education at the Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island Immigration Museum. He has created and implemented programming for the over 600,000 students who visit the site annually with notable successes including an immersive activity where students “get processed” as newly arrived immigrants and “Ranger in the Classroom” a program which helps teachers bring the history of immigration and liberty into schools in the NYC area.
Landmark Partners
National Park Service at Ellis Island
The Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration is a living monument to the story of the American people. Housed inside the restored Main Building of the former immigration complex, the Museum documents the rich story of American immigration through a carefully curated collection of photographs, heirlooms, and searchable historic records.
The Apollo Theater
Since opening its doors in 1914, The Apollo has played a major role in the emergence of jazz, swing, bebop, R&B, gospel, blues, and soul — all quintessentially American music genres. Located in Harlem, The Apollo is a vibrant non-profit organization that celebrates and presents work that centers Black artists and voices from across the African Diaspora.
Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA)
Since its founding in 1980, MOCA has celebrated the living history of the Chinese experience in America by preserving and presenting the 200-year history, heritage, culture, and diverse experiences of American communities of Chinese descent. MOCA contributes to a fuller and more nuanced and layered American narrative in highlighting the stories of this immigrant community.
The National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom.
Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this project do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Contact
Questions about the NEH Summer Institute? Email us at [email protected].