Dear Colleague:
We invite you to sail back in time with us as we investigate “Empires of the Wind: Exploration of the United States Pacific West Coast” in a five day teacher workshop supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities Landmarks of American History and Culture program,  and a ”We the People” initiative. If you ever dreamed about sailing into the past, this is your opportunity to join a crew made up of distinguished university professors and noted historians as we navigate through 400 years of West Coast history while exploring one of the world’s greatest collections of historic vessels, rare museum gallery exhibits, and historic sites in San Diego.

The Program. The workshops will be held July 11-16 and August 1-6, 2010. 
Every day leading academics will conduct lecture-discussion sessions aboard the fleet of historic landmark ships of the Maritime Museum of San Diego’s collections. The workshop culminates with at-sea sailing adventure aboard the 145 ft. State official Tallship, Californian with Maritime Museum president and Landmark’s project director, Dr. Raymond Ashley, as our Captain. 

The workshop is designed to take advantage of a location, institution, and collections that relate directly to West Coast exploration in compelling ways. San Diego is justifiably known as “the place where California began.” Its promontory, Point Loma, was the first location currently within the boundaries of the United States West Coast to be described, provided geographical coordinates, and placed on a map. San Diego was the first city on the U.S. West Coast to be established as a European settlement in Spanish response to the exploration of the Pacific by rival European powers during the eighteenth century. It was one of the first strategic ports seized by the United States in its war with Mexico, and today is home to the greatest concentration of conventional naval power that the world has ever known.
            
The selection of workshop topics, sites, and activities collectively explains historical developments in the Pacific that set the stage for the arrival of the Americans. Thematically, the lecture-discussion sessions are intended to provoke new ways of thinking about the Pacific and its role in the American story.

Day 1, “The Pacific as two worlds imagined,” begins with an opening lecture-discussion, “Sailing with Cabrillo from a medieval world to the modern: How maps changed the world view by changing the view of the world,” led by Dr. Ray Ashley, who specializes in the relationship between sea power and the development of the modern scientific establishment in the age of sail.  Dr. Ashley’s discussion will cover early voyages along what are today the west coasts of the U.S. and Mexico and the emerging understanding of a “Pacific world” characterized by seaborne connections across vast oceanic space and fantastic and fanciful geographical constructions.  The topic will then be explored first hand in the Museum’s exhibition “Mapping the Pacific Coast: Coronado to Lewis and Clark,” containing an astonishing and rare collection of original nautical charts and maps from the Sonoma County Museum’s Quivira Collection, some of them several centuries old.  This gallery lecture, utilizing the collection, will be followed by cartographic and navigational activities that relate directly to these rare primary source materials.
           
“First peoples and their cultures: contacts between native peoples and Europeans: Cortez, Ulloa, Cabrillo, and Coronado,” the second lecture-discussion of the workshop, will be led by Steve Colston, Ph.D., associate professor of history at San Diego State University, whose specialties include early Mesoamerica and Spanish Borderlands.  Dr. Colston will examine early Spanish contacts with native peoples in Mexico and the Pacific Coast and lead participants on an exploration of translations of original accounts of these first contacts.  The extraction of native voices from these firsthand narratives will be achieved through textual analysis, which will include the use of ethnohistorical and ethnographic analogs (for example: sixteenth-century Nahua textual and pictorial accounts of the Cortez expedition).  Dr. Colston’s lecture will take place at the Cabrillo National Monument which commemorates the first landing of Europeans on what is now the West Coast of the United States and offers substantial teacher resources. This lecture will be followed by a presentation by a National Parks Service education interpretation specialist. Workshop participants will then have time to explore the National Monument.
           
Day 2, “The Pacific deciphered,” continues the narrative with a session on “Cracking the code of the winds: How the quest for empire devolved onto the quest to learn the oceanography and climatology of the Pacific and the American West Coast,” led by Professor Emeritus David Ringrose of the University of California San Diego, the author of numerous books on the history of the Spanish colonial empire.   Participants will discuss how the vast Pacific Ocean initially posed a seemingly-impossible barrier to finding a route to the Indies. This lecture will not only review the fundamentals of early oceanographic exploration but look at climatology in a historical perspective to help teachers make connections to current issues and the expansion of past empires. Following this presentation, we will discuss the available teacher resources and curriculum developed by National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, National Marine Sanctuaries and Maritime Heritage Programs that address both science and history curricula.

Dr. Ashley will next discuss “Science and seafaring: the role of Pacific navigation in the creation of modern nation states,” by looking at how technical challenges involved in navigating the vast Pacific called forth new ways of problem solving, including the establishment of European institutional science. This day will conclude with an examination of the Museum’s temporary exhibition, “New Treasures from the Lost Galleon,” featuring the cargo of the Manila Galleon San Felipe of 1546, one of the earliest shipwrecks in the America’s 

Day 3, “The Pacific rationalized” begins with “The Voyages of the Enlightenment and the founding of California,” a session led by Professor Kevin Sheehan, who specializes in Spanish maritime enterprise in the Pacific during the eighteenth century.  This lecture will tie the Spanish decision to colonize California, more than two centuries after its discovery, to events taking place across the expanse of the Pacific and to the loss of Spain’s monopoly on Pacific seafaring to other European powers during the Enlightenment period.  Following this lecture-discussion, participants will have the opportunity join Dr. Sheehan, curator of the Museum’s exhibit “Voyages of the Enlightenment,” aboard the eighteenth-century replica frigate Surprise, a close match for the European ships that roamed the Pacific in the age of exploration.
           
Later in the day, Dr. Sheehan will discuss, “California both as an island and an administrative extension of New Spain.”  Participants will investigate how imaginative geographies arose from the quest for fame and fortune on the part of European explorers. For two hundred years cartographers presented an impression of California as an island, one of the greatest geographical misconceptions in history, while it was also functioning as an administrative extension of the Spanish frontier. Complementing the lecture, participants will visit Old Town San Diego State Historic Park, the site of the first Spanish settlement in California, where a mission and fort were built in 1769.     

Day 4, “The Pacific contested,” will open with a session, “Empires in collision: the Nootka Sound Crisis,” emphasizing the pivotal role played by indigenous peoples in the European quest for empire on the Pacific coast.  The session will be led by Dr. Iris Engstrand, professor of history at the University of San Diego, who specializes in the history of Spanish Borderlands, Pacific exploration, and California history. Participants will then have the opportunity to engage with indigenous west coast native peoples through lecture and activities presented by faculty members of local Kumeyaay College.        

Our final formal lecture-discussion will be “Americans in the Pacific: from the China trade and the search of furs to the maritime role of California in the U.S. Civil War,” led by Captain Bruce Linder, USN (ret). Captain Linder’s lecture will constitute a reimagining of U.S. history and continental expansion from a Pacific and maritime perspective: the story of a nation drawn westward by the maritime lure of the Pacific rather than pushed westward by continental pressures of the Atlantic world. Dr. Linder is a widely published author and historian specializing in the relationship between naval power and its influence on the development of seaport communities. 

Day 5: “The Pacific remembered.” Unique to this workshop will be the culminating activity which will be conducted aboard the official state Tallship, Californian, a 140-foot topsail schooner and replica of the ships that patrolled and defended the West Coast between the Gold Rush and the Civil War. Participants will take an active role in sailing the ship: raising sail, standing a watch on the helm, and firing a broadside from her battery of guns. Sailing ships were the enabling technology that links all of these stories. They were the first large scale technological system of the modern world and first in which people, cargoes, power, and ideals all traveled in the same package. The voyage on the Californian will supply experiential understanding of both the power and limitations of this once revolutionary technology.

Housing & Transportation. Participants have several options for housing in San Diego: University housing, hotels and motels. A limited number of rooms have been reserved at the University of San Diego (USD) San Buenaventura residential Hall. Rooms will cost $60/night/person with shared bath, and $75/single room/person/ with private bath. Both options require a minimum one meal per day that is an additional charge. USD is located seven miles away from the Maritime Museum. Both the museum and USD are conveniently located on public transportation bus and trolley lines. USD also operates a shuttle to the local transportation center in Old Town. In addition, there are several hotels situated on the waterfront near the Museum; further information can be obtained from the MMSD web site. Participants needing to use a computer are encouraged to bring laptops; wifi will be available at the Museum and the University housing.  

San Diego is home to many world famous attractions, museums, restaurants and a spectrum of cultural amenities including theater, art galleries, and a symphony. Information on San Diego’s many diversions and cultural attractions can be obtained through links on the MMSD website www.sdmaritime.org
 
Applying
This workshop is available to full-time and part-time classroom teachers and librarians in public, private, parochial, and charter schools.  Other K-12 school personnel, including administrators, substitute teachers, and classroom professionals, are also eligible to participate, subject to available space. There are no pre-requisites for participation; however successful applicants will be responsible for a modest selection of pre-workshop readings, to be sent to them prior to the workshop dates and posted on the project website; in addition, workshop faculty will provide additional source materials and readings to accompany the daily sessions. During the workshop, participants will be expected to participate in curriculum sessions each day and to develop materials for their classrooms. Participants wishing to receive academic credits will have additional assignments.

A stipend of $1,200 per participant will be paid at the end of the workshop session to help with travel and living expenses.

Prospective applicants should be aware that they must:
           
•    Submit an essay of up to one double-spaced page.  This essay should include information about your professional background and interest in the subject of the workshop; your special perspectives, skills, or experiences that would contribute to the workshop; and how the experience would enhance your teaching or school service."
•    Submit a letter of recommendation from the principal or department head of their teaching institution in support of their application. 

 The completed application should be postmarked no later than March 2, 2010, and should be addressed as follows:

                                                            Susan Sirota, Director of Education
                                                            Maritime Museum of San Diego
                                                            1492 North Harbor Drive, San Diego, CA 92101

The MMSD website provides a comprehensive program overview including the faculty, the venue, field trips, and information about stipends, housing, and transportation. Before submitting an application, be sure to read the 2010 NEH Applicant Guidelines, which are included with this letter and have been posted on the project website. Completed applications are submitted to Susan Sirota, not the NEH, and must be postmarked no later then March 2, 2010. Successful applicants will be notified of their selection by April 1, 2010.

We look forward to sailing with you!

Raymond Ashley,
Project Director, Empires of the Wind: Exploration of the United States Pacific West Coast Teacher Workshop;
President, Maritime Museum of San Diego