Visited the renovated Old Courthouse in St. Louis - site of the Dred Scott court cases

You will hear this repeatedly - there is a reason I titled this website (and blog) "ECON and More". While I've spent the last 8 years of my life focused on professional development in economics, personal finance, and business - the previous 25 years before that was teaching middle school social studies (and math). That meant a LOT of areas of social studies . . . and always looking for connections between history, geography, civics, economics, financial literacy, and a number of other subjects. And - I just like learning (and seeing) new stuff!

So later this week I'm attending the JET (Journal of Economics Teaching) conference in St. Louis - but it is also a great opportunity to stop at some new sites or newly-renovated ones. One near the top of my list was the Old Courthouse in downtown St. Louis (part of the Gateway Arch National Park), which has been under renovation for most of the past 2 years. Civics teachers would appreciate the sections dedicated to the U.S court system and the process of a courtroom trial, but the area I was most interested in was the site of the beginning of one of the most famous trial verdicts in U.S. history - the Dred Scott decision.

While that trial ultimately concluded with the release of an earthshattering ruling in early 1857 by the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. - remember that the Supreme Court (as an appeals court) can only hear cases after they have gone through the "process" of state and lower federal courts. The initial trials took place in the Old Courthouse in the late 1840s and early 1850s, with a mix of verdicts and appeals for over a decade. The displays dedicated to that case (and slavery in the region in general) were very interesting and I learned several things I had not known - for example, I had not known that French citizens of Illinois were allowed to keep slaves (contradicting the Northwest Territories' ban on slavery) until the 1840s as a consequence of the Louisiana Purchase.

As usual, I want to throw in some resources teachers might find useful for this topic/location:

Let's start with a little bit about the Old Courthouse:

The basic National Park Service website for the Old Courthouse - https://www.nps.gov/jeff/planyourvisit/och.htm and a focus on the renovations - https://www.nps.gov/jeff/planyourvisit/old-courthouse-renovation.htm

A National Park Service page on the story of Dred and Harriet Scott and their petitions for freedom (eventually the cases were combined under Dred's name) - https://www.nps.gov/jeff/planyourvisit/dredscott.htm. Make sure you note the many links below the video.

A lesson plan to go with the Dred Scott case at the Old Courthouse - https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/-h-our-history-lesson-suing-for-freedom-dred-and-harriet-scott-s-case-at-the-old-courthouse.htm

You might think you live too far from St. Louis to do a field trip with your students - so how about a virtual one? The Gateway Arch National Park has a number of potential topics on westward expansion, the Arch, and the role of slavery (including Dred Scott). For more information - https://www.nps.gov/jeff/learn/education/distance-learning.htm.

And for those of you not familiar with the significance of the Dred Scott decision:

"Slavery and the Judiciary, 1740 to 1860" collection, from the Library of Congress - https://www.loc.gov/collections/slavery-and-the-judiciary-from-1740-to-1860/about-this-collection/

Transcript of the original Supreme Court decision, from the National Archives - https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/dred-scott-v-sandford

Crash Course Black American History (video) - Episode #16 The Dred Scott Decision, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VffLWl8asY

A lesson plan from the National Constitution Center on the Dred Scott case, from their "Landmark Supreme Court Cases" series - https://constitutioncenter.org/media/files/LP_-_CSPAN_Dred_Scott_Case.pdf

Dr. David Blight on the Dred Scott decision, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4i3090.html and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajlGIma6KSI (video lecture) - Admitting my bias, I got to do a Gilder-Lehrman PD summer at Yale years ago, taking a class from Dr. Blight and Drs. Jim and Lois Horton on the History of the Underground Railroad. One of the best classes I ever took - talk about drinking in knowledge through a firehose!