This document reports on a summer institute for 20 secondary school history teachers from the central Virginia public school community. Emphasis at the institute was on the fact that historically, as well as morally, all people are important. This idea is the basis for the "new social history" that tends to start with everyday experience. Because most U.S. high school history teachers completed their education before the development of an emphasis on social history, an institute was held to engage them in discussions about social history. The two-week seminar began each day with a lecture of 45 to 60 minutes by an historian, sociologist, or anthropologist and was followed by discussions. Ten books germane to the "new social history" served as a focus for the institute. Ten lecturers addressed four themes: (1) mobility and community; (2) religiousness; (3) a nation of immigrants; and (4) changing notions of the character and make-up of the family. Stephen Innes, Associate Professor of History, University of Virginia, addressed the question of why so much social history involves studies of neighborhoods and small towns. Robert Cross, Professor of History, University of Virginia, suggested that the questions asked since 1945 generated the new social history. An evaluation of the institute by the directors suggested that, even though the lecturers were outstanding, the discussions were not as animated as hoped because of the constraining factors of the risky nature of the subject matter and the participants' unfamiliarity with each other. (SM)