The North Carolina Museum of History in partnership with the Thomas Day Education Project is offering a series of workshops for K-12 educators nationwide entitled, “Crafting Freedom: Thomas Day and Elizabeth Keckly, Black Artisans and Entrepreneurs in the Making of America.” This professional development opportunity to selected educators will have most expenses paid. We are especially eager to make this opportunity available to you and your colleagues. As there are 150 openings, we especially encourage you to apply and/or to share this information with your colleagues and others in your school system!

This series of three 5-day, professional development workshops in African American history are a part of the Landmarks of American History program funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. They are aimed at providing K-12 educators with the opportunity to engage in intensive study and discussion of important topics and issues in American history while providing direct experiences in the interpretation of significant historical sites. Media specialists, librarians, and teachers in public, private, parochial, and charter schools, as well as home schooling parents are urged to apply. Other K-12 educators including administrators, substitute teachers, and museum and site educators are also eligible.

The "Crafting Freedom" workshop theme is based upon recent scholarship on the participation of enslaved and free black men and women in the nineteenth-century "market revolution." Thomas Day was a celebrated free black Southern cabinetmaker. He had the largest furniture shop in North Carolina in 1850 and was recently described in a January '04 issue of the New York Times as a "major antebellum figure.” Elizabeth Keckly, generally considered the most important African-American woman in the clothing business prior to the Civil War, was also a skilled dressmaker and confidante of Mary Todd Lincoln. She was also the author of an important slave narrative and best seller, Behind the Scenes; or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House.

“Crafting Freedom” 2005 will be offered in 3 sessions:
Session 1: June 16-21, 2005
Session 2: June 23-28, 2005
Session 3: July 7-12, 2005

The postmark deadline is March 15, 2005 (Received by March 21). For full information on the application process and on the content of the workshops, please look for the “Crafting Freedom Workshops” link on our website.