George Washington and His World | Teacher Seminars Online

This seminar provides the unique opportunity to engage with the life, times, and memory of George Washington. Known in his own life as America’s father, Washington has long been identified as the country’s indispensable founder by scholars. More recently, historians have focused on his shortcomings, particularly his record with Native Americans and as an enslaver. We will examine Washington’s record in totality, as a soldier, politician, entrepreneur, enslaver, consumer, president, private/family man, national icon, and more. Heavy emphasis will be placed on the use and interpretation of primary sources, including historical documents and material culture at the Mount Vernon estate. Through these various materials, participants will develop their own critical interpretations of the American founding era and Washington’s place in it.

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Denver Brunsman, Lead Scholar

Denver Brunsman is department chair in history and an associate professor at The George Washington University. He writes on the politics and social history of the American Revolution, early American republic, and British Atlantic world. He is the author of the award-winning book The Evil Necessity: British Naval Impressment in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World (2013) and coauthor of a leading US history textbook, Liberty, Equality, Power: A History of the American People (2016; 2020), as well as the e-books Leading Change: George Washington and Establishing the Presidency (2017) and George Washington and the Establishment of the Federal Government (2020), among other publications. His honors include the Oscar and Shoshana Trachtenberg Prize for Teaching Excellence and induction into the George Washington University Academy of Distinguished Teachers as well as selection to the College Board AP U.S. History Development Committee (2018–2023; Higher Ed Chair, 2021–2023). He is co-director of the Albert H. Small Normandy Institute at GW and frequently leads K–12 professional development programs for organizations such as Humanities Texas, the George Washington Teacher Institute at Mount Vernon, and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, with whom he has twice partnered to lead the NEH Summer Institute “The Making of America: Colonial Era to Reconstruction.”
 

Alysha Butler, Master Teacher

Alysha Butler is a veteran social studies teacher who currently teaches US History and AP African American Studies in the District of Columbia. She was recognized as the 2019 History Teacher of the Year by the Daughters of the American Revolution for the District of Columbia and the 2019 National History Teacher of the Year by the Gilder Lehrman Institute for her innovative lessons and civics-based student projects. In 2023 she was awarded the Margaret Sue Copenhaver Contribution to Education Award. Alysha has presented at conferences hosted by the National Council for the Social Studies, the Council of Chief State School Officers Social Studies Collaborative, and the Middle States Council for Social Studies and published numerous essays and articles in historical journals.