Four historians, including two Pulitzer Prize winners, will lead a free panel for teachers Saturday, Sept. 19, in Rye. The "America at 250 for Educators" event at the Jay Heritage Center aims to help local educators frame the nation's 250th anniversary in the classroom.

The panel runs from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the Wachenheim Center, a restored 1907 carriage house at 210 Boston Post Rd. Seating is limited, and teachers must register by emailing Suzanne Clary at [email protected].

The lineup carries serious academic weight. David Blight, Sterling Professor of History at Yale, won the 2019 Pulitzer for his biography of Frederick Douglass. Beverly Gage, the John Lewis Gaddis Professor of History at Yale, won the 2023 Pulitzer for her biography of J. Edgar Hoover.

Joanne Freeman, the Alan J. Boles Jr. Professor of History and American Studies at Yale, served as the historical consultant for the musical Hamilton.

Frank Cogliano, professor of American history at the University of Edinburgh, specializes in the American Revolution and Thomas Jefferson.

Three of the four panelists co-taught a public lecture course at Yale in 2025 called "America at 250: A History." Blight, Freeman and Gage explored broad themes about what the nation's founding has meant across different eras.

In a 2026 Dwight Hall interview, Gage described the tension she sees in how Americans approach the milestone. "My book tries to tell a different story that leans into the tension between those two positions and finds a way to mark a moment like the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence without turning away from some of the most difficult parts of the past," she said, discussing her April 2026 book This Land Is Your Land: A Road Trip Through U.S. History.

The Jay Heritage Center described the Sept. 19 panel as "the first of many" conversations on the America at 250 theme, according to its website.

The event is part of the center's Constitution Month programming and is co-sponsored by the Mid-Hudson Social Studies Council.

The panel is open to teachers across the Mid-Hudson and Sound Shore regions and Fairfield County. No future panel dates have been announced.