Virtual School Programs

Using images maps, primary documents, questionnaires, and other engagement tools, a museum educator leads students in a discussion on the lives and experiences of the enslaved community at Philipsburg Manor in the year 1750, and asks them to consider the ways enslaved people could resist legal efforts to deny their humanity and their agency. This program utilizes and builds upon resources from the award-winning website, People Not Property, which educators can also use after their trip.

This program examines the lives and labor of two women who were integral to the story of Philipsburg Manor in the Colonial Period: Sue, one of the enslaved women forced to work in the dairy at Philipsburg Manor, and Margaret Hardenbroeck, a Dutch merchant and enslaver who built Philipsburg Manor with her husband, Frederick. Using images of Philipsburg Manor, maps, primary documents, questionnaires, and other engagement tools, a museum educator leads students in an investigation of these women’s lives, and how they challenge assumptions about the role of women in Colonial America. The program also highlights how historians use primary documents to uncover stories that had been marginalized or erased from textbooks and public memory.

Students analyze primary source documents and maps to consider the experiences of free and enslaved women at Van Cortlandt Manor during the American Revolution. As the fighting reached New York, Cornelia Van Cortlandt Beekman and her family sided with Patriots, while the enslaved women sought freedom by escaping across British lines. Students will discuss what historians know about the experiences of these two women, what options were available to them, and what this means for our understanding of the American Revolution.