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NEH Landmarks Project Scholars

MEET THE SCHOLARS

Rich Cairn, Project Director, has 32 years of state and national-level K-12 professional development experience. He earned a B.A. in American Studies at Yale and a Masters in Public Affairs from the University of Minnesota. He has published dozens of curricula and instructional guides in varied media. Rich Cairn built Emerging America into a vital partnership of scholars, museums, and archives, and a cadre of vital K-12 teacher-leaders. He supported dozens of teacher-student teams to research and publish online community histories. In 2010, Emerging America joined the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) Consortium, training hundreds of teachers yearly.  He is adjunct Education and History faculty member at Westfield State University.

Kelley BrownMaster Teacher, teacher at Easthampton High School. Since 2006, she has led teacher professional development programs for MA Department of Youth Services, Emerging America Teaching American History, and since 2011 for TPS. She was 2010 MA History Teacher of the Year.

Robert Forrant, UMass Lowell, has published research on the metals industry and has deep experience as lead scholar for ten years of NEH Landmarks program at Tsongas Industrial History Center (Lowell). He draws on his many years as a Springfield machinist.

Michael Frisch, University at Buffalo, examines the arc of industrial rise, decline, and rebuilding. 

Carrie Brown, cultural historian, museum curator (including on bicycles, early automobiles, the air age, women in industry, and impact of interchangeable parts), addresses the groundbreaking opportunities for women in Armory-related manufacturers in WWI and WWII.  

Chris Clark, University of Connecticut, examines how dispersed rural capitalism grew into concentrated industrial landscape in the early years of the Industrial Revolution. Chris frames the Connecticut River valley growth in the context of contrasting, ideologically motivated models of development.

David Glassberg, UMass Amherst, explores the impacts of industrialization on workers, especially on opportunities for African Americans and immigrants, and on the environment.  

Tom Goldscheider, David Ruggles Center, presents the example of an abolitionist utopian industrial community.

Tom Kelleher, Chief Curator and Historian, Old Sturbridge Village, presents the context in which the Industrial Revolution arose.

Alex MacKenzie, Curator and Historian, Springfield Armory NHS, interprets the Armory’s vast site and collection of 200 years of artifacts and documents.

Penni Martorell, Curator and City Historian, Wistariahurst, Holyoke, with the staff of the Holyoke Heritage Center introduces Holyoke, a planned industrial city; the mansion of the silk-factory-owning Skinner family, and presents the stories of workers, owners, and servants.  

Jim Terapane, Director, Museum of Our Industrial Heritage, and fifty-year machinist, provides hands on instruction in tools and the history of machining in the upper Connecticut River valley.

Upcoming Workshops


April 9, 2024 - Sponsored by the Learning Disabilities Association of America  This one-hour workshop empowers Special Education teachers to foster supportive…
July 15 - 8:30am - 3pm - Collaborative for Educational Services, 97 Hawley Street, Northampton, Massachusetts. Register.