The Amherst Project and Reform of History Education, 1959-1972

This article will analyze where the Amherst Project stood within the evolution of educational thinking since the early twentieth century and then show in detail how its activities developed fromits inception in 1959 to publication of the last pamphlet in 1972. The Amherst Project began among a group of instructors from Amherst High School and Amherst College who socialized regularlyat the Lord Jeffrey Amherst Inn. Leaders of the discussion group took it upon themselves to call a public meeting to confront the problem, during which a teacher from the high school insisted that students connect with history best through vivid primary sources. The first pamphlets came out in 1963; running from forty to eighty pages long, they were published by D. C. Heath under the title of the Amherst Project. From the start, it was obvious that most teachers were unsure how to use such lessons and needed extensive professional development if they were to use sources effectively. Reconsideration of the Amherst Project can help see how the history of history education relates substantially with present-day efforts to deepen teaching methods intellectually. This essay has traced how the most important attempts made to reform history education came about in the national reports of the 1890s, the progressive thinking of the 1920s, the movement for discussing primary sources in the 1960s, and, finally, the professional organizations begun in the 1980s.