A Library for California

Description

This lecture follows the history of the Bancroft Library, the leading research library for California and Western American history. It details Hubert Howe Bancroft's collection of historical materials, starting in 1859; continues with Bancroft's sale of the collection to the University of California in 1905; and then follows the library's development and leadership to 2005.

To listen to this lecture, scroll down to "A Library for California," and select "Listen to Broadcast."

Autry National Center [CA]

Description

The Autry National Center celebrates the American West through three important institutions: the Museum of the American West, the Southwest Museum of the American Indian, and the Institute for the Study of the American West. The Autry was established in 2003 following the merger of the Southwest Museum, the Women of the West Museum , and the Museum of the American West (formerly the Autry Museum of Western Heritage). Through innovative exhibitions, a broad range of programs, and an extensive collection of art and artifacts, the Autry National Center explores the distinct stories and interactions of cultures and peoples, and their impact on the complex, evolving history of the American West.

The museums provide exhibits, tours, performances, film screenings, and other educational and recreational programs.

Go West, Young Woman!

Quiz Webform ID
22415
date_published
Teaser

Men and women both settled the West. Answer these questions on women’s records of the experience.

quiz_instructions

It’s Women’s History Month, a good time to remember that women, as well as men, settled the West—and recorded their experiences. Answer the following questions on excerpts from the records of 19th-century (and one early 20th-century) women.

Quiz Answer

1. It was after dark when we came in sight of the camp and a dismal looking it is the tents are all huddled in together and the wagons are interspersed some are singing and laughing some are praying children crying &c. every sound may be heard from one tent to another . . .

This entry comes from a diary recording one woman's experience on:
c. The Mormon Trail

In her diary, 18-year-old Emmeline B. Wells describes her experiences on the trail from Nauvoo, IL, to Garden Grove, IA. In 1846, Mormons, followers of the Church of Latter-day Saints, began to migrate west from their settlement in Nauvoo due to persecution, following a trail that, for much of its length, closely followed the Oregon Trail. Wells's diary describes the first half of this journey; as 1846 ended, the Mormons would winter in Iowa and then continue on to the territory that would become Utah. Wells relates experiences both general to all trailgoers and specific to women—the diary ends with her husband unexpectedly abandoning her, and her grief at the event.

2. There were no battlefields, but over every mile of the long trail stalked the shadow of death. And what was waiting to greet us in [. . .]? A wilderness marked by faint trails of wild Indian feet (wilder than wild animals that would tear with bloody claws) and slow, agonizing death caused by the poison fangs of rattlesnakes who were in countless numbers.

This paragraph from a memoir by a female pioneer describes which state?
b. California

Lee Summers Whipple-Haslam, near the end of her life, wrote a memoir of her experiences as a child traveling to and living in California during the Gold Rush. Whipple-Haslam's parents brought her to California in 1850, where her mother ran a boarding house and her father prospected. Critics accused the memoir, published in 1925, of being more nostalgic fantasy than precise memory, but it still provides one woman's latter-life interpretation of the Gold Rush and California settlement.

3. We all take names - Wajapa names me, Ma-she-ha-the. It means, The motion of eagle as he sweeps high in the air. He gives me the name of his family and band. He belongs to the eagle family. Ma-she means high, ha-the means eagle.

In this diary extract, a woman is describing an encounter with which Native American group?
a. The Dakota Sioux

In this excerpt from her September 23, 1881 diary entry, ethnologist Alice Fletcher describes her assumption of a Sioux Dakota name before spending a month and a half studying the lives of Native Americans in the Dakota Territory. Fletcher, a woman from a well-off family, had developed a vocational interest in ethnology that led her to undertake this study. Like many other male and female reformers of the day, she would go on to attempt to "civilize" Native American culture through education and political action.

4.



In this image, a female photographer captures a scene in what city?
b. San Francisco

Words aren't the only medium in which women could capture their life experiences in the West. Here, photographer Laura Adams Armer records a street scene from San Francisco, c. 1910. Armer worked as a portrait photographer in San Francisco in the early 1900s, taking time to preserve not only portraits of native San Franciscans but also photographs of the life of the city—and, later in her career, of the lives of southwestern Native Americans, particularly Navajo communities.

For more information

diaries-ctlm.jpg Read the full text of Emmeline B. Wells's diary at the Library of Congress's American Memory collection Trails to Utah and the Pacific: Diaries and Letters, 1846-1849. The collection includes diaries written by three other women traveling the westward trails; refer to the author index and introductory essay for more information.

The first few sections of Lee Summers Whipple-Haslam's memoir, Early Days in California; Scenes and Events of the '50s as I Remember Them, can be read online in the American Memory collection "California as I Saw It:" First-Person Narratives of California's Early Years, 1849-1900. Try the subject heading "Women" in the "Browse" menu for more primary sources written by women.

Alice Fletcher's diary of her time with the Dakota Sioux can be read in full at the National Anthropological Archives' exhibit Camping With the Sioux: Fieldwork Diary of Alice Cunningham Fletcher. Kate and Sue McBeth, Missionary Teachers to the Nez Perce Indians offers the diaries of two other women who took up the cause of Native American assimilation in the late 19th century.

Yale University's Women Artists of the American West features photographs by Laura Adams Armer and other female photographers of the American West, as well as essays on the women and their work.

For suggestions on analyzing diaries and other personal narratives, try Making Sense of Letters and Diaries by professor, author, and historian Steven Stowe.

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Smithsonian American Art Museum: Lure of the West

Description

The third in this series of workshops featuring different areas of the permanent collection focuses on images of the West. Depictions of pioneers, Native Americans, and western scenes are used to enhance your curriculum. Landscapes, history paintings, and portraiture are featured.

Contact email
Sponsoring Organization
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Target Audience
K-12
Start Date
Cost
None
Duration
Three hours

Westward Expansion: Beyond the Wagon Train

Description

"This workshop will introduce participants to the Native American cultures of the Ohio River Valley and the personalities that scouted, surveyed and established Ohio's first Euro-American settlement. Guest speakers will include Dr. James H. O'Donnell, Professor of History at Marietta College, and curators and archivists from the Ohio Historical Society and the Marietta College Archives."

Contact name
Blankenship, Jody
Sponsoring Organization
Buckeye Council for History Education
Start Date
Contact Title
Coordinator
End Date
History Colloquium: "The Growth of a Nation: Westward Movement" Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 02/13/2008 - 15:44
Description

"An NCHE team of Elliott West, Flannery Burke, and Linda Clark will explore the topic of The Growth of a Nation: Westward Movement at this Teaching American History colloquium."

Contact name
Willey, Tiffany
Sponsoring Organization
National Council for History Education
Phone number
1 440-835-1776
Target Audience
Kindergarten through Twelfth Grade
Start Date
Cost
Not listed
Course Credit
Not listed
Duration
Three days
End Date

History Colloquium: "Frontiers: Homesteaders, Native Americans, Immigrants, and Settling the West"

Description

"An NCHE team of Greg Smoak, David Byrd, and JoAnn Fox will explore the topic of Frontiers: Homesteaders, Native Americans, Immigrants, and Settling the West at this Frontiers of History colloquium."

Contact name
Willey, Tiffany
Sponsoring Organization
National Council for History Education
Phone number
1 440-835-1776
Target Audience
Kindergarten through Twelfth Grade
Start Date
Cost
Not listed
Course Credit
Not listed
Duration
Three days
End Date

History Colloquium: "The West and the Constitution"

Description

"An NCHE team of Elliott West and JoAnn Fox will explore the topic of The West and the Constitution at this The Constitution in Historical Context: Teaching Exemplars of American Constitutional History--Project TEACH II colloquium."

Contact name
Csepegi, John
Sponsoring Organization
National Council for History Education
Phone number
1 440-835-1776
Target Audience
Kindergarten through Twelfth Grade
Start Date
Cost
Not listed
Course Credit
Not listed
Duration
Two days
End Date

Westward Expansion in the Nineteenth Century

Description

This seminar, led by Kathryn Morse of Middlebury College, will explore westward expansion in the U.S. during the nineteenth century, offering "in-depth exploration of historic personalities, themes, and events and intensive work with primary source materials."

Contact name
Sopcak, Amy Lynn
Contact email
Sponsoring Organization
American Antiquarian Society
Phone number
1 508-471-2129
Target Audience
Kindergarten through Twelfth Grade
Start Date
Cost
Not listed
Course Credit
May earn PDPs.
Duration
One day

The Worlds of Thomas Jefferson

Description

"This seminar gives special emphasis to selected Jefferson manuscripts, offering participants an intensive exploration of primary sources—the building blocks of historical study. Monticello itself is the site of several study tours. Lecture and discussion topics include Jefferson and the West; archaeology at Monticello; African Americans at Monticello; the architecture of Monticello; Jefferson’s empire; the Louisiana Purchase; and Jefferson and the Constitution."

Registration Deadline
Sponsoring Organization
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Phone number
1 646-366-9666
Target Audience
Secondary
Start Date
Cost
None ($400 stipend)
Course Credit
"Participants who complete the seminar in a satisfactory manner will receive a certificate. Teachers may use this certificate to receive in-service credit, subject to the policy of their district. No university credit is offered for the course."
Duration
One week
End Date