All History is Local

Tip O’Neill famously said that “all politics is local.” This past February, participants in the Starr Center’s first Roots of a Nation program, “Hometown History,” applied the idea to history, using the colonial port town of Chestertown, Maryland as a springboard for new ways of thinking about teaching the history of their own local communities. Ten teachers – an accomplished and impressive group – spent two days immersing themselves in the history of Chestertown, through walking tours, visits to the local courthouse and historical society, and delving into a wealth of primary sources - ranging from an 18th-century painting to a 19th-century slave narrative set in Kent County.

On the second day of the seminar, participants were introduced to a rich array of electronic resources to use in building lesson plans around events in their own community’s history. Available free of charge through Washington College to all Roots of a Nation participants, the Readex Archive of Americana contains a wealth of information (newspapers, pamphlets, images, broadsides, etc.) about all eras of Maryland history. Participants found historic maps of their communities, advertisements for runaway slaves and slave sales, newspaper articles from 1861 describing local responses to President Lincoln’s call for troops, and much more.

Participants will soon share their reflections on this session on the blog, along with, we hope, a few of the new resources they’ve found!