History of the Cherokee

Image
Logo, History of the Cherokee website
Annotation

Created by a tribal member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. From five sections--History; Images and Maps; Genealogy: Cherokee and other Native Americans; Books and Newspapers; and Related Links--users can access excerpts from 12 historical texts; 18 images dealing with Cherokee history; and seven maps. In addition, the site provides a bibliography of 18 books and newspapers on Cherokee history; information on seven relevant booksellers; and 43 links on such topics as Cherokee genealogy, language, and tribal organizations. A useful starting point for those interested in Cherokee history and culture.

Western Trails: An Online Journey

Image
Photo, Heliotherapy treatment at the Jewish Consumptive Relief. . ., U. Denver
Annotation

This archive of thousands of photographs, paintings, maps, and other primary documents on the history and culture of the trails of the American West brings together the "western trails" collections of the six libraries and institutions. The main features are exhibits and search function, but the site also offers some limited teaching resources. "Trails through Time Exhibits" features 10 exhibits on Native American, explorer, military, settlement, freight, cattle, railroad, tourism, health, and population trails. Each exhibit has a short essay, images, and links to related exhibitions and websites. "Western Trail Collections" allows the visitor to browse through 10 pre-selected categories or conduct a keyword search by creator, title, subject, or date.

The teaching section, "Trails for Teachers," offers one lesson plan for grades 1-6, two plans for grades 6-8, and two multi-grade level plans, all utilizing the collection's materials. Subjects include such diverse topics as ranch life and the early history of Jews in Colorado. A useful resource for researching the history and culture of the American West and for a basic introduction to the various movements in and across the West.

New Jersey Public Records and Archives

Image
Photo, "Charles A. Lindbergh Jr., aged 1 year," c. 1931
Annotation

For historians researching New Jersey, this site's main interest will be its "state archives." "Catalog" provides access to nearly 200 pre-established searches on the archive's manuscript series, genealogical holdings, business and corporate records, cultural resources, and maps. Topics include military conflicts, society and economics, transportation, public works agencies, and photographic collections, as well as state, county, municipal, and federal government records. The other major feature consists of eight image collections with themes that include New Jersey Civil War soldiers, Spanish-American War Infantry Officers, Spanish-American War Naval Officers, Gettysburg Monuments, and views of the Morris Canal. The archives site also includes a searchable index of New Jersey Supreme Court cases, a transcription of New Jersey's 1776 constitution, and a table summarizing the holdings of the state archives. This site is a useful aid for researching the history and culture of New Jersey.

Getting the Message Out! National Political Campaign Materials, 1840-1860

Image
Image, John C. Fremont and Wm. L. Dayton Republican banner, 1856
Annotation

After property qualifications for voting were eliminated in the 1830s, the American electorate expanded from 1.5 million to 2.4 million. As abolition, the extension of slavery, the Mexican War, and the Dred Scott decision dominated the national debate, songs, parades, and barbecues became increasingly important campaign tools to reach out to new voters. This type of political material culture is highlighted through this website, presenting 1,200 documents, more than 650 images, 100 songs, and interactive country-wide Presidential election maps for all six Presidential elections between 1840 and 1860. Detailed contextual information is available on a wide range of subjects, such as political campaigns, political parties, and major national events. Five short videos by well-known scholars address political culture, the second party system, politics as popular entertainment, and women's roles in antebellum politics. The detailed lesson plan in the "Teacher's Podium" challenges students to assess changing campaign strategies through song lyrics.

Exploring Amistad: Race and the Boundaries of Freedom in Maritime Antebellum America

Image
Barber, John W. "Hist of the Amistad" New Haven, Ct.: E.L. & J.W. B., 1840.LoC
Annotation

Presents more than 500 primary documents relating to the 1839–1842 revolt of enslaved Africans aboard the schooner Amistad, their legal struggles in the United States, and the multifaceted cultural and social dimensions of the case. The site features a searchable library that contains 32 items from personal papers, 33 legal decisions and arguments, and 18 selections from the popular media, including pamphlets, journal articles, reports, a playbill, and a poem.

In addition, 100 government publications, 28 images, 11 maps and nautical charts, and 310 newspaper articles and editorials are available. The website provides suggestions for using these materials in the classroom, a timeline, links to other resources, and a "living the history" component that encourages user feedback and participation. This visually attractive, well-conceived site provides a wealth of materials for students of slavery, race, politics, and print culture in antebellum America.

We the People . . . Rarely Agree

Quiz Webform ID
22412
date_published
Teaser

What does the Constitution mean to you? Match each quote to the historical figure whose view of the Constitution it reveals.

quiz_instructions

September 17, Constitution Day, commemorates the 1787 signing of the Constitution. Ever since its creation, the Constitution has provoked patriotic passion and heated debate. Match the quotes below to the historical figure whose view of the Constitution they reveal.

Quiz Answer

1. "Our Constitution is so simple and practical that it is possible always to meet extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis and arrangement without loss of essential form."

Herbert Hoover
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Woodrow Wilson
Abraham Lincoln

Roosevelt spoke these words on March 4, 1933, in his First Inaugural Address— which also included his famous phrase "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." In this speech, FDR first assured the American people that he had faith that the Constitution and current understandings of constitutionally-acceptable presidential power were sufficient to overcome the crisis posed by the Great Depression. He then went on to note that, if necessary for the good of the country, he would ask Congress for executive power equivalent to that granted in wartime.

During his presidency, many of FDR's New Deal reforms would be found unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court, leading to constant tension and conflict between the President and the court.

2. "In examining the Constitution of the United States, which is the most perfect federal constitution that ever existed, one is startled, on the other hand, at the variety of information and the excellence of discretion which it presupposes in the people whom it is meant to govern."

Pierre-Etienne Du Ponceau
Benjamin Franklin
Alexis de Tocqueville
Marquis de Lafayette

In his book Democracy in America, French thinker, writer, and politician Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), considers the strengths and weakness of the American federal system of government as it was in the early 1830s, when he visited the young country on a 9-month tour. This passage comes from chapter 8 of the book's first volume: "On the Federal Constitution." Subheading "The Federal Constitution, Part V," "Why the Federal System is Not Adapted to All Peoples" looks at the uniqueness of the Constitution and of the expectations it sets out for the people putting it into practice.

3. "A sacred compact, forsooth! We pronounce it the most bloody and heaven-daring arrangement ever made by men for the continuance and protection of a system of the most atrocious villainy ever exhibited on earth."

William Lloyd Garrison
Frederick Douglass
John Murray Spear
Lydia Maria Child

Fiery abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879) included this condemnation of the Constitution in the December 29, 1832, issue of his abolitionist newspaper The Liberator. The article in which it appeared, titled "On the Constitution and the Union," denounced the Constitution for allowing slavery to exist in the U.S., calling it a document "dripping" "with human blood."

Garrison famously burned a copy of the Constitution at a 4th of July gathering in Farmingham, MA.

4. "The Constitution was founded on the law of gravitation. The government was to exist and move by virtue of the efficacy of 'checks and balances.' The trouble with the theory is that government is not a machine, but a living thing."

Woodrow Wilson
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Lyndon B. Johnson

Woodrow Wilson included these words in his 1913 book The New Freedom: A Call for the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People, which laid out many of the views on which he had campaigned for the presidency. Writing in 1885, in his earlier book Congressional Government, Wilson saw many problems in the United States' established form of government, arguing that the Founders' system of checks and balances obscured responsibility more than it ensured balance. Wilson saw the Constitution as a product of a certain time and place, with questionable relevance to the present day.

For more information

For the full text of FDR's 1st Inaugural Address and related primary sources, turn to the Library of Congress's American Memory site "I Do Solemnly Swear . . .": Presidential Inaugurations' page on the speech. Many presidential inaugural speeches make reference to the Constitution, revealing the view of the Constitution that the president giving the speech holds (or claims to hold); search this collection for other presidents speaking on the document and its iconic status in U.S. government and culture.

You might also look at the American Memory collection Documents from the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention for 277 primary source documents "relating to the work of Congress and the drafting and ratification of the Constitution."

The National Endowment for the Humanities' EDSITEment looks further at the life and accomplishments of Alexis de Tocqueville in an August 2009 feature on the author and the introduction to his Democracy in America. The feature collects suggestions for teaching the introduction and selected links; a link to the full text of the book's two volumes, hosted by the University of Virginia, is included.

The full text of William Lloyd Garrison's "On the Constitution and the Union" can be read here, as can other articles by Garrison, in TeachingAmericanHistory.org's Document Library (which includes the Constitution and a range of other founding documents).

Project Gutenberg, a database of out-of-copyright public domain texts, hosts the full text of Wilson's The New Freedom, as well as other works by Wilson.

For more on the Constitution, try NHEC's 2008 round-up of Constitution and Constitution Day resources for teachers. Or how about checking out what the U.S. government thinks citizens should know about the Constitution? U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services offers a downloadable study guide for the current naturalization test, with sections on the Constitution.

Sources
Image
Portrait, Franklin D. Roosevelt
Portrait, Franklin D. Roosevelt
Portrait, Franklin D. Roosevelt
Portrait, Franklin D. Roosevelt
Portrait, Franklin D. Roosevelt
Portrait, Franklin D. Roosevelt
thumbnail
Preview Mode
On

Native American Heritage Museum State Historic Site

Description

Visitors to the Museum can share in the journey of the Great Lakes Indian tribes who were forced to emigrate to Kansas in the 1800s, adapting their traditional Woodlands cultures to the rolling prairie landscape. At the Museum, once a Presbyterian mission built in 1845 to educate Iowa and Sac and Fox children, you will find quillwork, baskets, and other artwork of present-day descendants of emigrant tribes. Through the interactive exhibits, Native Americans tell stories in their own words.

The site offers exhibits, tours, and educational and recreational programs.

A-mouldering in the Grave

Quiz Webform ID
22413
date_published
Teaser

"John Brown's Body" keeps reappearing. What do you know about the song?

quiz_instructions

March is Music in Our Schools Month! Have you considered using historical tunes in your classroom? Here’s one possibility—the 19th-century popular song “John Brown’s Body.” Answer these questions about the song’s history.

Quiz Answer

1. When was the music for "John Brown's Body" first printed?

c. 1858

The tune that would later become "John Brown's Body" developed in the religious camp meetings of the Second Great Awakening (a period of widespread evangelical religious revival, from the early to mid-1800s). Though it existed in various forms for at least several years beforehand, the music first appeared in print in choral books in 1858. Religious lyrics accompanied these versions—and included the "glory, glory, hallelujah" chorus that would remain in "John Brown's Body."

2. Which of the following lines was not in the early versions of "John Brown's Body?"

d. But tho' he lost his life in struggling for the slave

According to the most common "origin story," the tune to "John Brown's Body" gained its most famous lyrics—"John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave"—in 1859, some time after the execution of John Brown, the abolitionist who led an antislavery raid on Harper's Ferry, VA, and was subsequently hanged. However, these lyrics were not, originally, about that John Brown. Instead, they referred to a Massachusetts Union soldier, whose fellow soldiers improvised the song from the original camp-meeting tune and religious lyrics to tease him. The song gained verses and lyrics and spread, to be heard by others who assumed "John Brown" was John Brown the abolitionist. Later lyrics, like (d) above, worked from this assumption.

3. In 1861, William Weston Patton published a version of the song in which John Brown was whom?

d. A radical abolitionist executed in 1859

William Weston Patton (pictured here), abolitionist and president of Howard University, heard the song "John Brown's Body" in one of its early versions and wrote a more polished, elaborate set of lyrics for the tune. These lyrics changed the song from being about a John Brown (sometimes the abolitionist and sometimes not) to the John Brown, explicitly telling the story of Brown's execution and memorializing him as a martyr to the abolitionist cause.

4. Julia Ward Howe wrote the lyrics to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" (which shares a tune with "John Brown's Body") after hearing "John Brown's Body" sung by whom?

c. A battalion of soldiers in Washington, DC

Abolitionist Julia Ward Howe (pictured here) first heard "John Brown's Body" sung by soldiers during an 1861 troop review in Washington, DC. The tune struck her, but the lyrics, in one of their early forms referring to John Brown of the Massachusetts militia, did not. Shortly afterwards, she woke in a DC hotel and composed the words of a poem set to the tune of "John Brown's Body" while lying in bed. In 1862, the Atlantic Monthly published her new lyrics—a paean to the Union Army—to be sung along with the music that had inspired her to write it.

For more information

johnbrown-ctlm.jpg Foundations of U.S. History: Virginia History as U.S. History, a Teaching American History Grant project, offers a two-day 4th-grade lesson plan on the history of "John Brown's Body" and contemporary popular opinion on abolitionist John Brown's raid and execution. The lesson includes a historical overview; a collection of primary sources, including photographs, letters, articles, and the lyrics to several versions of the song; and links to resources on both John Brown and "John Brown's Body." The site also hosts video of teacher Heather Coffey discussing the lesson and implementing it in a classroom.

For the Clearinghouse's summary and review of this lesson plan, check out this entry in Examples of Teaching.

Foundations of U.S. History also features a 45-min. Primary Source Activity contrasting the lyrics to two versions of the song. Also check out the Primary Source Activity that compares the 1859 and 1861 lyrics of another song: "Dixie."

For higher grades, a NHEC blog entry covers a project at Harpers Ferry Middle School in which 70 students worked to create their own mini-documentaries on John Brown and the events at Harper's Ferry.

PBS' website John Brown's Holy War, designed to complement the American Experience documentary of the same name, includes primary sources, a timeline, and maps, as well as a short history of "John Brown's Body," with audio clips.

The University of Virginia's John Brown and the Valley of the Shadow archive uses contemporary accounts to link the story of John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry into the area's local history.

A podcast from Backstory reviews the history of the song in under eight minutes, if you're in a hurry.

And for more on teaching with music, check out "Making Sense of Popular Song", written by historians Ronald G. Walters and John Spitzer.

Sources
Image
johnbrown image
johnbrown image
johnbrown image
johnbrown image
johnbrown image
thumbnail
Preview Mode
On