Historic Southern Indiana

3rd Annual Lincoln Institute for Teachers
"Lincoln's World: the Frontier Years"
A workshop for K-12 Teachers
June 15-16, 2006

This is the third in a series of annual programs focusing on Lincoln as the bicentennial of his birth approaches in 2009. This year's institute focused on what life was like on the frontier during Abraham Lincoln's youth. Teachers from all grade levels and disciplines are invited to attend.

Douglas Wilson, co-director of the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College was the keynote speaker. He addressed the development of Lincoln's character. Nicole Etcheson, the Alexander M. bracken professor of history at Ball state University, discussed the society, culture, politics, and economics of the Lower Midwest during Lincoln's boyhood years. Martha Beckort, media specialist at Lanesville Community School Corporation, reviewed online and print teaching resources related to the institute's topic.

Speaker Biographies

Douglas Wilson is the co-director of the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. Much of his research is based on the letters and interviews collected by William H. Herndon, Abraham Lincoln's law partner and biographer. Wilson is the author of Honor's Voice: The Emergence of Abraham Lincoln, as well as a collection of lectures and essays on the early years of Lincoln's life, which have been published in Lincoln Before Washington: New Perspectives on Lincoln's Pre-Presidential Years.

Nichole Etcheson is the Alexander M. Bracken Professor of History at Ball State University. She is the author of The Emerging Midwest: Upland Southerners and the Political Culture of the Old Northwest, 1787-1861. Etcheson's most recent book on pre-Civil War history, Bleeding Kansas: Contested Liberty in the Civil War, was a History Book Club selection. In addition to teaching she has twelve years experience organizing History Day at the local and state level.

Martha Beckort serves as the media specialist and distance learning coordinator for the Lanesville Community School Corporation in Lanesville, Indiana and has prior teaching experience in the classroom. She serves in the American Library Association, the American School Librarian Association, the Association of Indiana Media Specialists, and the International Reading Association.

Agenda

Living on the Frontier Line
by: Nichole Etcheson

Link to Teacher Resources supplied by Martha Beckort, of Lanesville Community School Corporation: http://www.lanesville.k12.in.us/lcsyellowpages/lincoln/lincoln.htm (Click on 2006 Lincoln Institute Teacher Guide for Elementary or High School)

This program was an endorsed project of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.

This program was made possible through a matching grant from the Indiana Humanities Council in cooperation with the National Endowment for the Humanities.

8600 University Boulevard - Evansville, IN 47712-3596 - 812/464-8600