HarpWeek: Explore History

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Image, "Get Behind Me, Satan!," Nast, T., Harper's Weekly, 17 Feb., 1872.
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[FREE AND SUBSCRIPTION]

These 22 exhibits present free access to a wealth of texts and images on a variety of subjects dealing with 19th-century American history. Each section provides illustrations, articles, editorials, and overviews. Materials include four exhibits on politics and elections, including the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. Six exhibits deal with race and ethnicity, including slavery and Chinese Americans. Three exhibits offer material on business and consumer culture, such as advertising history and tobacco.

Additional exhibits include "The American West"; "A Sampler of Civil War Literature"; "Russian-American Relations, 1863–1905"; and "The World of Thomas Nast." A subscription-based website presents the entire run of Harper's Weekly. With free registration, Nineteenth-Century Advertising presents an archive of 40,000 advertisements that appeared in Harper's Weekly.

Sod House Museum [OK]

Description

Thousands of "soddies" once dotted the prairies of Oklahoma, but only this sod house built in 1894 by Marshal McCully remains. McCully took part in the largest of Oklahoma's land runs when the Cherokee Outlet opened for settlement at noon on September 16, 1893. McCully first lived in a one-room dugout, hollowed out of a ravine bank. He built the two-room sod house in August 1894 using blocks of the thick buffalo grass blanketing Oklahoma's prairies. Although the soddy remains in its original location a cover structure now protects it from the elements. Visitors can enjoy the unique experience of walking through the furnished sod house to imagine what life was like for Oklahoma's early settlers.

The museum offers tours and scavenger hunts (basic for grades 2-3, detailed for grades 4-8). The scavenger hunt is handed out to students after a brief history of the sod house, allowing them to answer questions about the house, surrounding area and find specific artifacts in the museum.
There is also a Trunk Show on kitchen items is for 1-4th grade. This is a hands on program: items are taken out of a trunk and passed around for students to see and feel, with students encouraged to name the item and discuss how it was used and why.

Jim Thorpe Home [OK]

Description

The Oklahoma Historical Society, with its affiliate, the Jim Thorpe Foundation, preserves and displays the former home of the 1912 Olympian containing exhibited artifacts from Jim Thorpe and his family.

The home offers tours.

Battleship TEXAS State Historic Site [TX]

Description

In 1948, the battleship Texas became the first battleship memorial museum in the U.S. That same year, on the anniversary of Texas Independence, the Texas was presented to the State of Texas and commissioned as the flagship of the Texas Navy. In 1983, the Texas was placed under the stewardship of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and is permanently anchored on the Buffalo Bayou and the busy Houston Ship Channel.

The site offers tours and occasional recreational and educational events.

Lyndon B. Johnson State Park, Historic Site, and Sauer-Beckmann Farm [TX]

Description

The park's location is historically significant since it is in the heart of the former President's home country. The area has been influenced by three major cultures: Native Americans, Spanish, and German. Indians roamed the Hill Country first, leaving behind artifacts which tell of their nomadic life. The Spanish conquistadors followed, bringing a culture which was to endure to the present. German immigrants settled the Hill Country in the early 1800s and their descendants still call it home. Their culture has had a major impact on the development of the region and the park itself. All of these cultures are represented at the park. The Visitor Center contains memorabilia from President Johnson's presidency and interactive displays about the land and people that shaped a president. Attached to the Visitors Center is the Behrens Cabin, a two-room dogtrot cabin built by German immigrant H. C. Behrens during the 1870s. The furnishings are typical of such homes in that period. Visitors can further explore the history of these immigrants by viewing the 1860s Danz family log cabin located just west of the Visitor Center. Also located in the park is the Sauer-Beckmann Farm, a living history farm. Life on the farmstead is presented as it was in 1918. Park interpreters wear period clothing, do the farm and household chores as they were done at that time, and also conduct tours for the visitors.

The site offers exhibits, tours, demonstrations, and occasional recreational and educational events (including living history events).

Belle Meade Plantation [TN]

Description

The 30-acre Belle Meade Plantation holds the Federal-style 1853 Belle Meade mansion and seven other historic buildings, including a stable and carriage house. The plantation was founded by John Harding in 1807. Harding was a devoted thoroughbred breeder and racer, as were many gentlemen from the South during his time. Tenneessee thoroughbred breeding became less common after the Civil War, as the state saw extensive troop movement. The mansion facade includes Greek Revival elements added in 1853, and the interior is furnished with 19th-century pieces. The plantation owned more slaves than the majority of antebellum Nashville plantations. Some of these slaves served as horse grooms and jockeys.

The plantation offers period rooms, 45-minute guided mansion tours, five educational program options for students, summer camps, home school days, traveling trunks, toddler programs, a student book club with online interactive activities, a junior docent program, culinary guided tours, and a restaurant. Reservations are required for groups of 15 or more. The second floor is not wheelchair accessible.

St. Mark's-in-the-Bowery

Description

From the Bowery Boys website:

"St. Mark's-in-the-Bowery is one of Manhattan's most interesting and mysterious links to early New York history. This East Village church was built in 1799 atop the location of the original chapel of Peter Stuyvesant, New Amsterdam's peg-legged director-general.

His descendants—with the help of Alexander Hamilton and the architect of City Hall—built this new chapel with the intention of serving the local farming community of Bowery Village. But in many ways, the more thrilling tales occur among the honeycomb of burial vaults underneath the church, the final resting place of vice presidents, mayors, and even Peter himself.

St. Mark's reflected the changes that swept through Greenwich Village during the 20th century, with experimental and sometimes scandalous church activities, from hypnotism, modern dance and even a trippy foray into psychedelic Christian rock.

ALSO: Find out why you can never EVER go down into the vault of the Peter Stuyvesant. And why is the church IN the Bowery, not ON the Bowery?"