06.20.09
Posted in Recent Posts, Primary Source Teaching Ideas, Digitization news at 12:37 pm by Mary, The Primary Source Librarian
After two months of neglecting this blog, the Primary Source Librarian cannot come up with any more excuses! Granted, I did travel in northern Spain for nearly a month, but I’ve already been back for several weeks. I have caught up on email and online banking, changed out my cable modem, set up a new wireless router, entertained out-of-town visitors, written summaries for upcoming conference presentations, organized photos, and…well, it’s time to get back into the blogging mode.
In honor of my addiction to world travel, let me lead my readers to a great new Library of Congress initiative called World Digital Library. Rather than take you on a complete tour of the website, let me simply point out two ways to begin your own discoveries:
- Go to the World Digital Library homepage and click on one part of the world on the map. What examples are shown? How could you use them in a world cultures unit?
- Go to the BibliOdyssey blog for a sampling of some of the most beautiful and unique treasures in the World Digital Library. How could you incorporate these items into your classroom activities?
Educators now on summer vacation deserve to enjoy some open-ended exploration time. Why not begin with primary sources and the World Digital Library?
Layla–the first women’s magazine published in Iraq, 1923
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04.21.09
Posted in Recent Posts, Primary Source Teaching Ideas, Primary Source Lessons at 10:39 am by Mary, The Primary Source Librarian
Remember the children’s book, Behind the Attic Wall, and its hidden world just waiting to be explored? Now imagine discovering a cache of Civil War letters and artifacts behind the wall of your vacation home! That’s just what a New York couple discovered as they were renovating their newly-purchased 200-year-old house in Bloomville, New York, in the Catskills. What did they find among these old papers?
The papers, more than 200 letters, notices, articles and other documents, belonged to S. B. Champion, the founder and editor of The Bloomville Mirror, a weekly newspaper published from 1851 to 1871. Almost all the documents, which were in a canvas bag, were from the Civil War years, and included everything from a local boy’s Army enlistment paper (Champion notarized it), to a love poem written by a soldier to his Mary back home.
How can you use these primary sources in your classroom? First, be sure to read the article by A. E. Velez in the April 20 New York Times. Next, tell the story in your own words to your students. Next, click on the “interactive feature” to view nine of the items in very readable (and printable) form. Print all of them in enough sets for small groups in your classroom, and place each set in a satchel or a box.
Next, model a couple of questions, and then let each student group begin to ask their own questions as they explore the contents of their box. What does this set of Civil War memorabilia teach them about the time period? What can they discover about the people who wrote the items? Why did they write them? Why would a newspaper publisher care about printing them for the community?
There are so many questions! Some questions will not find ready answers, whereas others can be researched through secondary sources. This activity can end with oral presentations by groups, slideshows of the items with narration, blogs with the items posted and comments written by group members, and even creative writing of letters that incorporate facts discovered through research.
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03.30.09
Posted in Recent Posts, Primary Source Teaching Ideas, Primary Source Lessons at 1:08 pm by Mary, The Primary Source Librarian
Today’s New York Times has the intriguing first part of a series titled “Whose Father Was He?” Written by filmmaker/author Errol Morris, the story reads as a sort of CSI-Civil War, and it is based on a photograph found on the corpse of a Union soldier at Gettysburg:
The soldier’s body was found near the center of Gettysburg with no identification — no regimental numbers on his cap, no corps badge on his jacket, no letters, no diary. Nothing save for an ambrotype (an early type of photograph popular in the late 1850’s and 1860’s) of three small children clutched in his hand. Within a few days the ambrotype came into the possession of Benjamin Schriver, a tavern keeper in the small town of Graeffenburg, about 13 miles west of Gettysburg. The details of how Schriver came into possession of the ambrotype have been lost to history. But the rest of the story survives, a story in which this photograph of three small children was used for both good and wicked purposes.
I am looking forward to following the unfolding story in the NY Times all this week. I was struck at the end of the first installment by the author’s series of implicit questions about the soldier, later identified as Amos Humiston:
The first question is: What is his name? The second question: Who is he? Tell me something about Amos Humiston. And then, there is a third question: “Who is he to us? What does he mean to us?”
You would almost think this author had been trained in the questioning skills vital to primary source learning! The subtle shift from simple questions of identity to questions of meaning–both to the past and to the present–is a great model for discussing questioning techniques with students.
Whether you have a single student or an entire class that would enjoy following this series, I hope you will start sharing it right away so students can benefit from the day-by-day uncovering of the mystery.
Mark H. Dunkelman Collection
Dunkelman, Mark. Gettysburg’s Unknown Soldier: The Life, Death, and Celebrity of Amos Humiston. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999.
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03.24.09
Posted in Recent Posts, Primary Source Teaching Ideas at 11:39 pm by Mary, The Primary Source Librarian
Pictorial Americana–a 1955 publication of the Library of Congress–is mostly available today in an online version. This is a great place for students and teachers to find some of the most famous images from American history for multimedia projects, primary source analysis, and more. Many of the images are prints, but the collection also includes cartoons, photographs, drawings, and daguerreotypes.
The Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress continues to add images to the online version, as indicated by the “New” icon next to many of the items in the Table of Contents. The latest additions include a number of images organized by state, which is always useful for teachers of state history. As of this writing, the site has active links to twenty-seven states.
The History section goes through 1899, beginning with Christopher Columbus and ending with the Spanish American War and the Philippine Insurrection. My favorite section, however, is General Subjects, which is filled with a wide variety of cultural and everyday life topics. Check out a few of my favorites below:
Interestingly, the collection includes the same items selected for the 1955 publication, and thus it reflects mid-twentieth century attitudes. Would a collection today include Religious Activity and Moralistic Themes? Would it include posters of Minstrels? How would a student respond today to a cartoon of a cock fight with a caption that mocks African American speech? In fact, teachers will find many useful images here for teaching critical thinking about history and changing cultural attitudes.
Age of iron. Man as he expects to be. (Cartoon)
Lithograph by Currier and Ives, 1869
“Women’s Rights”–Pictorial Americana
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03.16.09
Posted in Recent Posts, Primary Source Teaching Ideas, Primary Source Lessons at 12:03 pm by Mary, The Primary Source Librarian
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has an excellent new online exhibit for exploring sophisticated Nazi propaganda campaigns and their legacy.
One student activity explains the development of the “People’s Radio” that was mass produced and sold to millions of German citizens. The radio allowed the Nazi regime to control the information that all Germans received.
A timeline of Nazi, holocaust, and world history has many active links for deeper exploration of special topics. An interesting feature of the timeline is the addition of more recent incidents of genocide dating from the past twenty years. Likewise, students can dig further into themes related to Nazi propaganda, including “indoctrinating youth,” “writing the news,” “defining the enemy,” “assessing guilt,” and more.
In a section called the “Artifacts Gallery,” students can view and read about artifacts ranging from propaganda posters to photographs and from moving images to sound files.
Finally, in the Resources section, teachers will find lessons both from the museum and from outside Web sites.
As always, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum offers high quality resources, excellent Web design, and lots of support for educators. Librarians and teachers who regularly cover the Nazi Holocaust will also want to sign up for email notices (or Facebook or Twitter or whatever!).
German Propaganda Archive
Image used with permission
Randall Bytwerk, Calvin College
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03.11.09
Posted in Primary Source Teaching Ideas, Digitization news at 11:00 am by Mary, The Primary Source Librarian
I loved this article–Libraries’ Surprising Special Collections–from Smithsonian.com author Kristin Ohlson. In the article, Ohlson highlights eight libraries that hold special collections of such variety and richness that they hint at hundreds more yet to be discovered by amateurs like me.
- A chess collection at the John Griswold White Reading Room in Cleveland. Over 30,000 books about chess and checkers, 12th-century Arabic manuscripts, 50 Indian treatises, thousands of chess pieces, and more.
- Fore-edge books at the Boston Public Library. “These books feature a painting along the fore-edge (opposite the spine) of the book that can only be seen when the pages are subtly fanned—when the book is closed, gold leaf on the outside edge of the pages hides the image.”
- America’s largest collection of Arabic papyrus, parchment, and paper documents at the University of Utah’s J. Willard Marriott Library.
- A collection related to literary forgers, hoaxers, and other literary frauds at the University of Delaware.
- A collection of nurse romance novels at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.
- The world’s largest collection of “tobacciana” at the New York Public Library. This collection even includes the most valuable baseball card of all time–the 1910 Honus Wagner card that Wagner pulled because he did not want children buying tobacco to get his card.
- America’s largest World War I print aviation collection at the Saint Paul Public Library.
- The Judaica Sound Archive at Florida Atlantic University.
I won’t put in all the links here because I’m on the road and short on time, but you can find several links within the article. Do you know of other collections hiding in your local library archives?
“Little Katie Chewing Tobacco”
The Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920
American Memory, Library of Congress
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02.28.09
Posted in Primary Source Teaching Ideas at 2:10 pm by Mary, The Primary Source Librarian
One hundred years ago, twenty-one-year-old Alice Ramsey left Broadway Avenue in New York City with three female companions to drive across the country in a Maxwell DA automobile. Alice became the first woman to make that transcontinental journey by car. This year, others are celebrating her milestone:
“In 2005, Richard Anderson, a Pacific Northwest antique car aficionado, and his 34-year-old daughter Emily, began preparations to rebuild a 1909 Maxwell DA. Their goal: to complete the car for June 9th, 2009 the 100-year anniversary of Alice’s landmark drive.”
The Alice Ramsey Centennial Drive group has put together an attractive Web site that is worth a visit. In addition to reading a description of the journey, your students can click on an interactive map to read Alice’s journal entries. They can view the film trailer for the documentary that Emily plans to produce. Mechanically inclined students will enjoy following the progress of the automobile restoration.
From what I have read on the Web site, the organizers are in need of donations to continue their work. They are hoping to follow Alice’s route (which took Alice 59 days to complete), and many people have expressed an interest in driving along with them for at least part of the route.
Your students could go so many directions with this project! They could contact the organizers via the Web site, follow the blog, raise money for the project, learn about historic automobiles and their restoration, research early automobiles and transportation, find images and history of early roads, and so on. According to the Web site, Emily Anderson sees the potential for education:
“It is within the Alice’s Drive mission statement to bring Mrs. Ramsey’s accomplishments to students across the United States, and the world, by creating for teachers a unique hands-on multi-media educational unit to use in their classrooms. What better way to teach a school unit devoted to Women’s History? By using Mrs. Ramsey’s cross-country adventure and the modern day Alice’s Drive documentary we hope to inspire students to get on board and learn about our history.
Alice Ramsey, 1909
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02.17.09
Posted in Primary Source Teaching Ideas at 11:32 am by Mary, The Primary Source Librarian
In honor of Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday anniversary last week, my husband and I dug into the far corners of our basement shelves for two Lincoln prints that we had inherited a number of years ago. We had been watching every Lincoln special we could find on our local PBS station, and we were curious whether one of our prints had been pictured on any of those television programs.
Here’s the first print we discovered:
While I am no historian, I did immediately begin practicing my best librarian skills to find out all I could about these two prints. My husband remembered the exact spot where the two prints hung in his grandmother’s “piano room” in central Iowa, so we can determine that they are sixty years old at the very least. We suspect they are originals, but I suppose I would have to hire an appraiser or show up at the Antique Roads Show to be sure.
The image is that of “Hon. Abraham Lincoln, Republican Candidate for Sixteenth President of the United States,” and it was published by Currier & Ives in 1860. I learned that it was drawn based on the first photograph of Lincoln made by Mathew Brady (or his studio), just after Lincoln gave his famous Cooper Union address in New York City that established him as a viable presidential candidate.
I also found a reference to a later Currier & Ives print of Lincoln in which they simply drew a beard on Lincoln and changed the label to “Hon. Abraham Lincoln, Sixteenth President of the United States.” One Lincoln expert wrote,
“The presidential contender grows into the bearded statesman. Hon. Abraham Lincoln, Republican Candidate for Sixteenth President of the United States (14 x 18 3/4) in the hands of the Currier and Ives artists becomes Hon. Abraham Lincoln, Sixteenth President of the United States (14 x 18 3/4). That Lincoln never quite had a beard like this seemed not to bother the unsophisticated print-buying public of mid-nineteenth century America. Today such lithographs are treasured by collectors.” The Historian’s Lincoln: Pseudohistory, Psychohistory, and History. Gabor S. Boritt, Ed. University of Illinois, 1988.
You can see that the bearded print (below) is identical to ours (except for the beard, of course). To think that Lincoln never really looked like this!
Our second print was produced five years later, and it is one of several made of Lincoln’s death bed scene. Like the others, it includes a number of well-known politicians and officials, as well as family members (note Robert Lincoln with the handkerchief covering his face–a symbol of grief). The print identifies all of these people, who were almost certainly not actually in the room at once. I love the primitive foreshortening of the bed and of Lincoln.
The Harry T. Peters Collection–19th Century American Lithographs: America on Stone–at the Smithsonian Museum of American History describes their copy in this way:
Abraham Lincoln is the central figure, in bed attended by two doctors. His political associates and residents of the Petersen House stand about and watch as he dies. Legend under the image identifies those depicted. Unique, head on perspective.
I think that the second print, with all of its people identified, would lead students in all directions as they research the names and the relationships of the people to Abraham Lincoln. Which ones were members of Lincoln’s “Team of Rivals?” Why was General Meade there instead of on the battlefield? Where was Mary Todd Lincoln? What happened next? Where was John Wilkes Booth when Lincoln died? Why was Lincoln’s Secretary of State, William Seward, not in the picture?
As for the first print, how old was Lincoln when he ran for the presidency? How did his face change over the years of his time in office? What other prints of Lincoln can students find and compare?
Ah, the possibilities! I’m thinking that VoiceThread would be a great tool for uploading the images and inviting student comments as they continue to research their questions.
Several friends have asked if we know the value of the two prints. Frankly, here’s what we know. In 1860, the first lithograph “was advertised in a period sales circular at 20 cents apiece, six for a dollar.” So I guess we can guarantee that it is worth at least 20 cents!
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02.12.09
Posted in Primary Source Teaching Ideas, Primary Source Lessons at 2:02 pm by Mary, The Primary Source Librarian
The Library of Congress opens its exhibit today in honor of Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday–With Malice toward None.
You can divide your classes into groups to explore each of the ten vignettes from different periods of Lincoln’s life. There’s also a notice on the Web site that two interactive exhibits (always a favorite of students) are “coming soon,” so check back often!
In addition to the exhibit, this Learn More Web page has lots of ideas and links to extra material about Lincoln. I’ve always liked the Matthew Brady Bunch photographic analysis lesson, as well as the What Do You See? lesson that you’ll find linked from this page.
Or you might check out the Learning Page Primary Source Set: Abraham Lincoln for pre-selected images of writings and artifacts from various Library of Congress Lincoln collections, an 1898 recorded performance of the Gettysburg Address, teacher guides, and analysis tools.
The exhibit continues in real life until May 9. Library of Congress exhibits always continue to live in cyberspace, however, so you can use them in classrooms for much longer.
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02.07.09
Posted in Primary Source Workshops at 5:15 pm by Mary, The Primary Source Librarian
A week ago I had an opportunity to present and facilitate at Librarian Days 2009, a two-day workshop organized each year by Teaching with Primary Sources–Colorado (TPS–Colorado). The TPS folks do such an amazing job! This year we based much of the event on the inquiry learning expertise of Leslie Maniotes, co-author (with Carol C. Kuhlthau and Ann K. Caspari) of Guided Inquiry: Learning in the 21st Century. Not only was Leslie delightful to work with, but her book is a valuable and important read. I highly recommend it.
Leslie totally got the connection between primary sources and inquiry learning, and it was really fun to develop a workshop that combined both ideas. We also incorporated three 2009 events: the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, the sesquicentennial of the founding of Denver, and the centennial of the Colorado Governor’s Residence. Participants enjoyed three fascinating lectures by Lincoln historians and a reception at the elegant Governor’s Residence. TPS set up a wiki (as with all wikis, a work in progress) to share Annotated Resource Sets developed by participants, along with useful links to standards, presentations, and so on. This was my first time to work with the new AASL Standards for the 21st Century Learner, and I continue to impressed with how perfectly they fit into inquiry lessons.
My own short presentation took attendees through a beginning lesson applying “guided inquiry” to primary source learning. As always, one question led to another, one primary source led to another, and discoveries about the past connected to today. I began with President Obama’s oft-repeated line–”This is our time”–and wondered what primary sources I could find that would paint a picture of Lincoln’s own time, especially at the moment of his first inauguration.
Then last night I watched PBS’ Bill Moyers NOW program and heard Moyers’ interview with Eric Foner, editor of Lincoln: New Perspectives on Lincoln and His World. Foner said, “The questions we ask about Lincoln change as our times change.” He went on to say, “You have to understand Lincoln in the context of his times.” Ha! He didn’t even attend the TPS workshop!
So it seems that even the experts are still developing new thinking about the endlessly fascinating Lincoln. Do you want to join them? The Library of Congress has scheduled a number of Lincoln Institutes for educators in the upcoming months, and they’ve just opened up registration online.
Spring Break Institutes March 3-5 and April 6-8. As the nation celebrates the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth, take the opportunity to learn more about him and about the primary sources available at the Library. Participants will have the opportunity to view a Library exhibition that documents Lincoln’s life and explore Lincoln’s life through the use of photographs, maps, and documents. Participants will also have the opportunity to create inquiry-based instructional activities using resources from the Library of Congress Web site.
Summer Institute 1 July 7-10. “Advanced Session: Using Library Resources to Create Lessons.” Teachers who have attended the Library’s previous summer institutes, or who have served as American Memory Fellows, now have the opportunity to build on their skills with this advanced institute. Participants will work closely with Library specialists to improve their skills in searching the Library’s Web site, to learn more about using collections at the Library, and to develop inquiry based primary source teaching materials for use in their own classrooms. In addition to attending training sessions with Library specialists, participants will undertake intensive individual research in the Library’s collections to discover primary source documents that support their teaching goals. By the conclusion of the institute, each participant will have created the initial stages of a lesson plan or other primary source-based learning experience that they can take with them and integrate into their teaching. For previous summer institute participants or American Memory Fellows only.
Summer Institute 2 July 15-17. “Women’s History.” This institute will examine documents that trace the diverse and complex roles played by women throughout the history of the United States. Participants will meet with women’s history specialists at the Library and examine original historical materials from the Library’s collections. Library staff will also guide participants in finding and using materials related to women’s history on the Library of Congress Web site, as well as exploring different ways to integrate those materials into the classroom.
Summer Institute 3 July 29-31. “Going Global: Locating International Resources at the Library of Congress.” Interested in incorporating primary sources into world history classroom activities? Unsure where to find resources that you can use? This session will introduce participants to the international resources that can be found at the Library. Participants will have the opportunity to visit some of the international studies reading rooms, work with the specialists from those reading rooms, and create inquiry-based activities using primary sources from the online collections.
Summer Institute 4 Aug. 5-7. “Incorporating Primary Sources into the Teaching Process.” This institute will help teachers take advantage of the instructional power of primary sources. Though many teachers are familiar with the importance of primary sources, they are not sure how to use them in the classroom, how to develop inquiry-based lessons, or how to help students use them in projects. In this workshop, Library of Congress specialists will introduce participants to the unique characteristics of primary sources, while helping explore some of the millions of digitized primary sources available on the Library’s Web site. Participants will look at ways to introduce students to primary sources and how to incorporate them in inquiry based classroom activities.
Why should you register for one of these sessions? I guarantee that you will never work harder nor have more fun, and one institute could change everything about your teaching and the pleasure you find in teaching. That’s what I think, but the Library of Congress gives a few more good reasons to register:Participants in the Library’s Teacher Institutes will:
- Discover Library of Congress primary source materials
- Develop strategies for using primary source digital content in teaching
- Engage in inquiry learning in hands-on workshops
- Learn from Library of Congress subject matter experts and education specialists
- Network with other teachers from across the country to share ideas and experiences
- Leave with a plan for creating a primary source-based lesson or activity to be used with their students
Go online and register now! (Thanks to Sherry Galloway for all this information!)
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