African American History Month ends, and Women's History Month begins! Take a glance around the internet, and you'll find plenty of resources for teaching women's history—whether it be the Seneca Falls Convention, heroes of the American Revolution and the Civil War, social activists, First Ladies, workers during the World Wars, jazz and blues stars, or presidential candidates. You'll find photographs of many of these women, too—working in factories, on the campaign trail, helping the wounded, conducting scientific experiments.

But who takes these photographs? Who makes these images that become the records of history? Aren't the people behind the camera as significant as the ones in front of it?

Of course they are, though they can easily be forgotten. When we look at photographs of Amelia Earhart, we rarely ask who took the photo. When we're struck by a picture of New York during 9/11, do we ever ask if it was snapped by a man or a woman?

Explore women's history behind the camera this Women's History Month. What have women chosen to capture on film, as they record and live through history?

• The Kansas Historical Society tells the story of Alice Gardiner Sennrich, a professional photographer early in photography's commercial history. Born in 1878, Sennrich purchased a Kansas photography studio in 1902, and ran it throughout her life, including after her marriage. Recognized by the National Association of Photographers, she was also active in the Photographers Association of Kansas (PAK), an organization that had active female members since its founding. You can hear more about Sennrich in this podcast by the Society.
• During the Great Depression, the Federal Government gave photographers, both men and women, work documenting the lives of ordinary U.S. citizens and the social conditions of the day. The Library of Congress's American Memory collection From the Great Depression to World War II: Photos from the FSA-OWI preserves more than 150,000 of these photographs. Try browsing the collections' black-and-white and color photos by creator. Look for women's names and work—and remember to check names with only a first initial and a surname! These may be women, too. Giving only a first initial was (and remains) one way to avoid being judged (at least in print) by gender.
• Photographs aren't always taken as documentation. Sometimes, they're carefully composed as art. The online archive Women Artists of the American West showcases the artwork of 19th- and 20th-century Western women. Photography exhibits include photographs by white women of Pueblo arts and crafts workers (many of them women), taken from 1900 to 1935; modern art photography by Native women; landscape photography by Laura Gilpin (1891–1979); and 1972–1997 lesbian photography (some pages contain nudity). The Women in International Photography Archive, collects essays on more than 25 women photographers.
• For an example of a modern photographer using her work as part of a political journalistic career, check out Jo Freeman.com. A writer, lawyer, and activist, Freeman's site features her photographs of Democratic and Republican conventions, marches and protests, New York after 9/11, the Chicago riot following Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination, and Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm's 1972 campaign for the presidency.

If photographs aren't enough, branch out into art, journalism, fiction and nonfiction writing, and other ways of recording and responding to the world, all meant for the public eye. What have women created and documented? What were their (myriad, uncountable) reasons for crafting "snapshots" and composing reactions? Women make history when they're behind its lens, as well as in front!

Looking for more resources? Take a quiz on women in history, with our weekly quiz archive! See how well you do on quizzes with subjects like women in the West. Search our Website Reviews, as well—we've reviewed and annotated more than 200 websites with women's history content.

If you'd still like more, these organizations feature content and pages created just for Women's History Month:

• The Library of Congress
• EDSITEment
• Smithsonian Museum of American History and History Explorer
• Scholastic
• The History Channel
• Biography.com
• The New York Times’ Learning Project

On February 13th, National History Day (NHD), a year-long, nationwide contest that challenges students to hone their historical thinking, research, and interpretation skills, received the 2011 National Humanities Medal. Presented by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the medal "honors individuals or groups whose work has deepened the nation's understanding of the humanities, broadened our citizens' engagement with the humanities, or helped preserve and expand Americans' access to important resources in the humanities." This marks the first time a K–12 education program has received the medal, according to a press release.

Interested in learning more about the program? Your first stop should be the National History Day website. Then come back to Teachinghistory.org to read what our teacher-writers have to say about their NHD experiences! Eighth-grade teacher Amy Trenkle loves the website and documentary categories, which ask students to practice 21st-century skills in their NHD presentations (read her thoughts). Mike Yell, 7th-grade teacher and former National Council for the Social Studies president, recommends using the program as a differentiation option for self-directed students (read more here).

Are you and your students already involved in NHD? Do they have questions about historical thinking and research? Do you? Remember that anyone can submit questions to Ask a Master Teacher, Ask a Historian, and Ask a Digital Historian here at Teachinghistory.org. In the past, we've answered questions about aligning NHD to state social studies standards and given tips on places to begin research and steps in developing a research topic.

Congratulations, National History Day!

It's February! Resources throughout the web stand ready to provide you with lessons and primary source materials for Black History Month (also known as African American History Month), but African American history stretches far beyond the confines of one month and the narrative litany of a handful of cultural heroes. Maybe you want to go beyond Martin Luther King, Jr., Frederick Douglass, and Jackie Robinson. What stories can you uncover beyond the headlining stories textbooks provide? Remind your students of the complexity of African American history with these resources.

• The New York Times' lesson plan "Stories to Tell: Curating an African-American History Exhibit" introduces students to the difficulties in curating a large museum—or even just one exhibit. How can curators for the developing Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture create a museum that honors all of African American history?
• Search the Carnegie Museum of Art's Teenie Harris Archive Project for photographs taken by photographer Charles "Teenie" Harris for the Pittsburgh Courier. Published from 1907 to 1965, the Courier was a major African American newspaper, and these photographs show Harris's journalistic perspective on Pittsburgh events of all scales. Use the keywords "Teenie Harris," along with others related to your topic of interest, to find images of life at school, home, community events, church, work, and out on the town.
• The Smithsonian National Museum of American History's Portraits of a City provides a similar photographic record of a place. The Scurlocks ran studios in DC for much of the 20th century, documenting African American life in the nation's capital.
• The Library of Congress's American Memory collection The African American Experience in Ohio, 1850-1920 focuses on the themes of slavery, politics, and religion. Its wide range of primary-source documents, including thousands of newspaper articles, can help students construct a view of just what the collection's title implies.
• High-quality photographs in the National Archives and Records Administration's "Pictures of African Americans During World War II" could give students a look into another kind of community—one that formed both overseas and on the home front during war.

If none of these resources fit into your curriculum or spark your interests, there's plenty where they came from. Search our Website Reviews using the topic "African Americans," and you'll turn up close to 300 websites, on topics ranging from Marcus Garvey to the construction of race to Seattle's Black Panthers to sheet music by and about African Americans. Or test your African American history knowledge in our weekly quiz feature! You and your students can take online quizzes on African American baseball players and other athletes, the historical accuracy of the film Glory, Jim Crow laws, and foodways.

You can also explore the African American History Month pages of history and educational organizations, including:

• The Library of Congress
• EDSITEment
• Verizon Thinkfinity
• Smithsonian Museum of American History and History Explorer
• Scholastic
• The History Channel
• Biography.com

For a time early in my teaching career, I lived in the historically black neighborhood in St. Augustine, FL, known as Lincolnville, which had been the home to prominent black civil rights leaders Henry and Katherine "Kat" Twine as well as the location of several stops by Martin Luther King, Jr. during the 1950s and 1960s. About three blocks from my house was the Excelsior School which served black students from the neighborhood and surrounding areas from the early 20th century to the late 1960s. I passed by the building every day on my way to teach history at a high school some 30 years after integration. After living in the neighborhood, I learned that the Excelsior building had ceased operation as a school after the 1967–68 school year when its students were finally integrated. The state took over the building some time after and used it for offices during the 1980s, but it was vacant for much of the decade before I moved into the area.

I had an idea to use a room or two in the building to provide some after-school tutoring. You see, several of my students lived in this neighborhood. Some had struggled academically and a few had dropped out. I would see them, unemployed and idle on the streets at all hours. This neighborhood, which had seen hard times economically and socially since its heyday in the 1950s as an African American business hub was, by then, riddled with drugs and occasional violence. My goal was to operate a class to prepare my former students and any other neighbors for a high school diploma through the GED test. In my search for access to this historic building I learned that a former teacher and school board member was just beginning the process of renovating the property to become a museum and cultural center for the neighborhood. As I began the program, I learned more about the school and the education its teachers provided. I learned that many prominent black leaders were educated at this school. I learned that (when allowed) this school not only competed favorably with surrounding white schools in athletics, but academics as well. The artifacts, including photographs, newspaper articles, and yearbooks that were being gathered for the museum, presented a vibrant school with classroom and hallway walls covered in empowering posters and exemplary student work, a decorated debate team, Latin club, and more.

As a history teacher I was intrigued. The narrative of segregated education as presented in the textbook I used showed none of this. In my undergraduate studies in history education, I learned little beyond the traditional narrative. My students came away from my classroom with the idea that, without qualification, black schools were inferior, and I was complicit in their misunderstanding. The message was that only with integration were black students given the opportunity to get a quality education. I realized that this message failed to dig deep enough. It failed to present the complexities that existed in these disparate systems, to recognize the education that was occurring in spite of remarkable challenges. Students need opportunities to challenge the traditional narrative, and this topic is well suited to illustrate that opportunity.

Since my time at Excelsior, I have had the opportunity to talk with some former students, teachers, and administrators who shared stories from their time there. What I found from these interviews echoed the themes discovered by Vanessa Siddle Walker in her extraordinary meta-analysis of articles related to segregated schools from the Fall 2000 issue of the American Educational Research Association journal. Her findings showed that schools in segregated communities were not only centers of education but also often fundamental to neighborhood cohesiveness. Along with fostering nurturing learning environments with high academic expectations, these schools often served as community centers, social gathering places, and information hubs.

In the interest of presenting our students with a more inclusive history, teachers can presents sources to students that challenge the idea that the black community was incapable of providing quality education to their students and that only through integration into the white school system were black students able to receive a worthwhile education. With review of articles such as Siddle Walker's, teachers themselves can become more knowledgeable about the historiography of segregated education beyond the traditional narrative. Through examination of web resources from the Library of Congress, the National Archives, and others, teachers can show that even in the face of inadequate facilities and tremendous societal discrimination, many of these schools educated generations of future teachers, doctors, lawyers, civil rights leaders, and informed and active democratic citizens with constructive learning environments and challenging curriculum. For instance, "Education Resources on School Desegregation" on the National Archives website provides useful resources as well as implementation ideas and strategies for the classroom.

Allowing students the chance to discover sources for themselves, which open up this more nuanced paradigm, can also serve as an entry into this topic and provide experience in moving beyond the textbook when examining the past. Students may begin by using keywords such as "segregation and education" in the Library of Congress site to get started in their search to challenge the traditional narrative of African American education.

The notion that a segregated school system is moral or even tenable is nonsensical. Schools that educated black children during the Jim Crow era struggled with inferior facilities and resources. However, in the spirit of good history, teachers have an opportunity, within the theme of racial segregation, to challenge the traditional narrative that separate and unequal education extended to the abilities and desires of teachers, administrators, and parents to provide their students with quality education.