Looking Closer at FDR's Fireside Chats

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Photo, FDR Memorial, 2008, Lara M. Harmon
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This website features 9th-grade students in Maryland taking the role of critics to analyze President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Fireside Chat on the Works Relief Program (April 28, 1935). This lesson guides students to shape a more nuanced understanding of the Depression and the New Deal, and thus engages them in questioning the evitability of programs often treated by history as inevitable or obvious.

Students study Roosevelt's Fireside Chat and consider what it would have been like to be an everyday American listening to it. They then switch roles to take the place of one of five critics of Roosevelt's New Deal policies to dig more deeply into the sources.

This video provides examples of two promising practices:

  • Using multiple perspectives to critically analyze a complex primary source document;
  • Questioning the tendency to think of history as a progression of inevitable events.
The Lesson in Action

The Classroom Practice and Teacher Analysis section presents video of classroom instruction interspersed with the teacher's reflections on the lesson. During the warm-up, students imagine what might have been on their minds had they lived in 1935. Keeping these concerns in mind, they listen to the April 28 speech and reflect on what it says and how it could have helped gain support for New Deal programs.

The use of multiple historical perspectives challenges students to engage with the source—FDR's speech—and to think carefully about the complexity of historical moments.

Students then work in groups as critics of the New Deal. Playing the role of a prominent critic (Huey Long, Jouett Shouse, Upton Sinclair, Norman Thomas, or Rev. Charles Coughlin), they craft a rebuttal to FDR's policies. The use of multiple historical perspectives challenges students to engage with the source—FDR's speech—and to think carefully about the complexity of historical moments. Each group presents its critique of the New Deal and the class votes on the most compelling criticism.

This lesson is effective in having students critically engage with the primary source. As critics, they are challenged to read Roosevelt's speech carefully to discern what he says and how he says it, and to unpack the nuances of his argument. Turning over the process of learning to students actively engages them in thinking of history as dynamic, complex, and subject to interpretation.

This activity makes use of a variety of historical perspectives to help students better understand the New Deal, its supporters, and its critics. You can find a comprehensive lesson plan, complete with additional primary sources, background information, and classroom worksheets, on the website.

Close Reading of a Primary Document

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In this 72-second video, a viewers follow the analytical processes of a high school student as reads an excerpt from former Louisiana Governor Huey Long's Share the Wealth speech.

The student slows down when she encounters difficult passages and asks questions when she encounters problematic language or logic. This example of close reading reveals a student considering the meaning of a document as she reads it. The accompanying written commentary explains what the student is doing and why such a skill is critical for reading complex historical texts. These two features work together to make reading strategies explicit that are usually hidden.

Japanese-American Internment Camps During World War II

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Photo, Japenese Mother and Son at Topaz, from the collection George G. Murakami
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This online exhibit captures daily life in two World War II Japanese Internment camps in America from 1942 to 1946 through 38 photographic images from the camps. The Tule Lake camp in northern California was one of the most infamous camps in which prisoners frequently conducted strikes and demonstrations to demand their release. The 28 photographs in the Tule Lake section, drawn from the Special Collections Department of the University of Utah's J. Willard Marriott Library, are grouped into four themes: Living, Labor, Education, and Buildings. They document the arrival, work, schools, homes, and businesses of the more than 18,000 Tule Lake residents. The ten camp photographs from Topaz, Utah, donated by George G. Murakami, an American from Berkeley, California, who was interned at Topaz, are a more personal account of internment. These images include 1944 and 1945 graduation announcements from the Topaz Camp High School as well as photographs of Murakami's friends and the school football team. Also included is an image of a 1990 letter from President George Bush to former internees. This site is somewhat limited in selection and scope and does not include captions or descriptive notes for the selected photographs; but for those researching the lives of Japanese Americans during World War II, this site offers a compelling glimpse into their everyday lives.

Worklore: Brooklyn Workers Speak

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Photo, Brooklyn Battery Tunnel Construction Workers, 1947
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This site explores the work lives of Brooklynites (historic and present) as they made their living in the borough. The site has four main sections: Confronting Racial Bias documents discrimination in the workplace; Women Breaking Barriers examines the ways in which women's work roles changed over the decades; Seeking a Better Life takes a look at the issues facing new immigrants; and Changes in the Workplace discusses challenges such as unemployment and job displacement.

Each section contains an approximately 2,000-word article on its respective topic, photographs, and audio files of people speaking about their various vocations. The site also includes eight help wanted advertisements from the 1850s, 1860s, 1920s, and 1930s.

Visitors should not miss the interactive feature Can You Make Ends Meet?, where they can pick one of four vocations, and see if they can stretch their salary out to adequately include housing, transportation, and entertainment.

Telling Your Story allows visitors to share their own recollections of Brooklyn life. The site includes few primary sources, but the personal stories of Brooklyn workers may be useful to students, teachers, or researchers.

Women of World War II

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Poster, date unknown (World War II)
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In 1943, at the peak of World War II, the United States military inaugurated the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASP, program. The program was designed to bring women pilots into the Air Force in light of the growing shortage of male pilots. More than 1,000 women served in non-combat positions, and eventually flew more than 60 million miles for the war effort. In March 2010, these women received the Congressional gold medal, among the highest civilian honors for courage, service, and dedication.

This website presents more than 250 photographs of women in the service during World War II, including 30 of the WASPs. The Women's Army Corp (WACS), Coast Guard SPARS, Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), Army nurses, and women Marines are also included. There are photographs of nine "notable women," such as Jacqueline Cochran, the founder of the WASPs program, and Lieutenant JG Harriet Ida Pickens and Ensign Frances Wills, the Navy's first African American WAVES officers.

Accompanying these photographs is a selection of close to 100 recruiting posters targeted at women. While other websites document the role of women during World War II, this website stands as one of the largest repositories of contemporary photographs of their military efforts.

Brown@50: Fulfilling the Promise

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Photo, School integration. Barnard School, Washington, D.C., May 27, 1955
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Created for the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, this website provides the legal history of the court case, and focuses attention on Howard University's contributions.

The website is divided into five main sections. Chronology presents a timeline of events and offers links to external resources. Brief History is a concise background of the Brown v. Board case and an overview of the case details and impact. Cases & Other Law provides a "legal road to Brown," with court decisions leading up to and following the Brown decision. Biographical Sketches introduces key figures. And Educational & Other Resources links to a wide variety of external websites and resources pertaining both to Brown v. Board of Education and to civil rights more generally.

Brown@50 will be especially useful to those researching the legal arguments of the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case.

SpaceProgramArchive.com

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Photo from Press Telegram, February 1, 1958
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On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched the satellite Sputnik, effectively beginning the "space race" with the U.S. that would last throughout the Cold War. Sputnik followed more than 25 years of research by scientists interested in rocket propulsion. This extensive archive presents more than 50,000 scanned newspaper pages, shedding light on virtually all aspects of the space program from 1930 through 2009. A good place to begin is the website's "Timeline" section, which highlights prominent events in the history of space discovery, such as the Guggenheim Foundation's decision in 1935 to support Dr. Robert H. Goddard's research into self-propelled rockets, and the launch of the Challenger in 1985 which made Sally Ride America's first woman in space. It also provides links to newspaper articles. An "Advanced Search" features allows users to input specific search terms and dates and retrieve newspaper pages—primarily from newspapers published in smaller and medium-sized cities in the south, mid-west, and California (Fresno, Jefferson City, Tuscon, Danville, VA) covering those events. The archive's decision to provide full scanned newspaper pages (as opposed to transcribed articles) allows users to better historically contextualize these events with other prominent contemporaneous events.

Doing Oral History

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Photo, From project, "The Stonewall Riots and Their Aftermath"
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A collection of 17 oral histories conducted by secondary students focusing on topics relating to "The American Century": World War II; the Cold War; Vietnam; the "rights revolution"; immigration; education; and science and technology. Each oral history entry contains a biography of the interviewee, historical contextualization and evaluation essays, and bibliography.

The site provides tools for teachers to use in designing oral history courses: release form for interviewees, pre-interview worksheet, "do's and don'ts," guidelines for transcribing and editing interviews, how to analyze the historical value of an interview, grading rubrics, and student feedback. Also offers a 36-title bibliography, including 24 links to related sites. Of interest to teachers preparing oral history courses and for those studying selected 20th-century American history topics.

Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum

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Travel guide, Rand, McNally, & Co., 1871
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On May 10, 1869, in Promontory Summit, UT, a rail line from Sacramento, CA met with another line from Omaha, NE. When the last spike was driven, the Central Pacific became the first transcontinental railroad. This site provides a vast collection of online materials documenting the history of the Central Pacific Railroad and rail travel in general, as well as material on the history of photography. The site boasts more than 2,000 photographs and images, including stereographs by Alfred Hart and Eadweard Muybridge; engravings and illustrations from magazines, travel brochures, and journals; and more than 400 railroad and travel maps. Also included are more than 60 links to images and transcriptions of primary documents dealing with the construction and operation of the railroad, including government reports, travel accounts and diaries, magazine and journal articles, travel guides, and railroad schedules.

A separate section documents the Chinese-American contribution to the transcontinental railroad, including four scholarly articles, two links to Harper's Weekly articles and illustrations about Chinese workers, a bibliography of 15 scholarly works, and links to more than 20 related websites. Timelines on the building of the transcontinental railroad from 1838 to 1869, the history of photography from 1826 to 1992, and the development of the railroad from 1630 to 1986 also help to contextualize the history of the railroad in America. The volume of information on the home pages make this site slow loading, unwieldy, and confusing to navigate, and there are no descriptive captions or other information on most of the images. But the site is keyword searchable, and for those interested in the history of railroads, this site is certainly worth the time.

The North Star: A Journal of African-American Religious History

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Logo, North Star Journal
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The complete archives and current editions of a journal about African-American religious history from the 18th to the 20th centuries. The first issue was published online in the fall of 1997. Each issue includes one or two scholarly articles of 30 to 40 pages, two to four book reviews, and a 200- to 2000-word discussion of research resources. In addition, each issue provides a list of Internet resources for research in African-American Religious history. Articles address topics such as "church media and racial discourse" (Lawrence Little) and "rap, religion and the politics of a culture," (Charise Cheney). The site will be useful for research in African American history and the history of religion in America.