Name: Religion, Westward Expansion, and Fears for National Unity in George Washington’s World
Start: 2026-10-09T09:00:00-0400
End: 2026-10-09T15:30:00-0400
Location: George Washington's Mount Vernon

Learn more about the relationship of religion and politics in early American History

George Washington presided over a revolution and a new nation that promised tremendous opportunity but also created much anxiety. Washington and other leaders worried that a people spread across a vast continent would cease to be one people. The second part of the workshop will uncover the hopes and fears early Americans held about the future of their young republic. It will then consider ways they approached the West and the challenges it presented for U.S. settlement.

GWTI 250 promotes student-centered approaches to learning. The third part of the workshop will focus on GWTI's pedagogy of practicing history and critical thinking skills using primary source analysis, inclusive history and language, emphasizing change and continuity over time, and making historical connections.

Schedule

9 a.m.	Registration Katie Pearson and Lois MacMillan
9:15 a.m.	Introduction/Overview Katie Pearson, Hunter Price, and Lois MacMillan
10 a.m.	George Washington, Religion, and the American Founding Hunter Price
10:45 a.m.	Break
11 a.m.	Expansion and Settlement after the American Revolution Hunter Price
12:15 p.m.	Lunch
12:45 p.m.	Be Washington: Newburgh Conspiracy Lois MacMillan
2 p.m.	Break
2:15 p.m.	Farewell Address: Giving Advice and Leaving a Legacy Lois MacMillan
3:30 p.m.	Wrap up and Evaluation

Registration Requirements

Who can register?

Teachers MUST teach in a formal K-12 classroom or school setting.
The workshop is limited to 25 teachers.
A waitlist will be available if registration meets full capacity.

Questions? Please contact [email protected]

Meet the Speaker

Hunter Price

Dr. Hunter Price is Associate Professor of History and has worked at WWU since 2014. His areas of expertise are the American Revolutionary and Civil War eras and early American religious history. His book Sacred Capital: Methodism and Settler Colonialism in the Empire of Liberty was published by University of Virginia Press in 2024 as part of their Jeffersonian America series. He is at work on a second book, which examines the prominent 19th-century scientists John and Joseph LeConte, the people they enslaved, and the legacies of both groups in the development of science, environmentalism, and slavery.

Meet the Educator

Lois MacMillan

Lois MacMillan teaches U.S. History, World History and AP Government at Grants Pass High School in Grants Pass, Oregon, however in her thirty-four years of teaching, she has taught at the elementary, middle, and high school level. A National Board-Certified Teacher, MacMillan named 2024 Mary K. Tachau National Teacher of the Year from the Organization of American Historians and 2024 DAR Teacher of the Year. After winning Grammy Museum’s Jane Ortner Award in 2018, she took a one-year sabbatical where she worked with Title I high schools in fourteen cities on Founding Era curriculum culminating in their attendance to the Broadway show, Hamilton. For the past two decades, she has served as a Master Teacher for the University of Virginia’s Nau Center and the Gilder Lehrman Institute for over thirty summer seminars. She is paired with different American historians from different universities from around the country and teaches pedagogy applicable to various historical periods.