Connecting Art and History

Description

From the Corcoran website:

"Explore America's cultural history through paintings, sculpture, and other works of art in the Corcoran's collection. Look at Western expansion, the Gilded Age, the Great Depression and other major issues and movements in our country through the eyes of artists. Hands-on activities, educator resources, and refreshments are included."

Contact email
Sponsoring Organization
Corcoran Gallery of Art
Phone number
2026391774
Target Audience
K-12
Start Date
Cost
$12, $8 for members
Duration
Three and a half hours

Integrated Public Use Microdata Series

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Logo, Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) USA Logo
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Currently provides 22 census data samples and 65 million records from 13 federal censuses covering the period 1850-1990. These data "collectively comprise our richest source of quantitative information on long-term changes in the American population." The project has applied uniform codes to previously published and newly created data samples. Rather than offering data in aggregated tabular form, the site offers data on individuals and households, allowing researchers to tailor tabulations to their specific interests. Includes data on fertility, marriage, immigration, internal migration, work, occupational structure, education, ethnicity, and household composition. Offers extensive documentation on procedures used to transform data and includes 13 links to other census-related sites. A complementary project to provide multiple data samples from every country from the 1960s to 2000 is underway. Currently this international series offers information and interpretive essays on Kenya, Vietnam, Mexico, Hungary, and Brazil. Of major importance for those doing serious research in social history, the site will probably be forbidding to novices.

Origins of American Animation

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Logo, Origins of American Animation
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This site traces the development of early American animation through a collection of 21 animated films from the years 1900 to 1921. The films, including several media--clay, puppet, cut-out animation, and pen drawings--indicate the "connection between newspaper comic strips and early animated films." In addition, these "tiny, often satiric, films tell much about the social fabric of World War I-era America." Films can be viewed in RealMedia, MPEG, or Quick Time formats. Part of the American Memory Collection at the Library of Congress, drawn from collections in the Library of Congress Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division.

Cleveland Digital Library

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Photo, A man standing on a ladder holds a..., Cuyahoga County Fair, 1964
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Featuring primarily maps, texts, and images, this gateway site is designed to be a resource for those interested in the history of the greater Cleveland area. The site includes approximately 35 journal articles (from journals such as the Saturday Evening Post) on the history of Cleveland, its newspapers, its railroads and industries, and a few prominent citizens; 36 digitized books; seven manuscript collections (three merely describe the contents of the collection, while four offer digitized resources); an audio file and a video file; two cartoon collections; and nine photograph collections, containing about 600 photographs. Although many of the collections are located on outside websites, visitors can access the collections by subject, date, geographic location, or format.

For educators, the site includes 20 lesson plans, under such categories as American Heritage and Democratic Process. The classroom activities are well-conceived; they feature problem solving and critical thinking exercises like the Mystery Photo Album, in which students attempt to figure out where in the Cleveland area historical photographs were taken, and By the Neck Until Dead, an e-book that details the history of Cuyahoga County, OH, hangings. The site also maintains a list of local history websites.

Best of History Websites

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Introductory image and logo (edited together), Best of History Websites
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Designed for history educators and students, this useful portal provides access to more than 700 of the best history resources online. Sites are organized into 10 categories—Prehistory, Ancient/Biblical, Medieval, U.S History, Early Modern European, 20th Century, World War II, Art History, General Resources, and Maps. Many of the five-star Pre-history, Ancient, and Medieval sites are hosted by Smithsonian Institution, PBS, and the Internet History Sourcebooks; and the Library of Congress is the creator of a wide-range of top-rated sites for U.S. history. The 20th-century and World War II sections are voluminous, the latter presenting 42 sites. There are three special categories: Lesson Plans/Activities, Multimedia, and Research. "Multimedia" includes 18 map sites, including the Rumsey collection with more than 8,000 maps. Instructors will find the section on "Teaching with Technology" especially informative. It offers articles and advice about integrating computers into lessons and links to dozens of useful resources on teaching with technology. Visitors can sign up to receive monthly email updates.

George Washington: A National Treasure

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Oil on canvas, "George Washington," Gilbert Stuart, 1796
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This national exhibit focuses on the Lansdowne portrait of George Washington, painted by Gilbert Stuart in 1796 (the last painting of Washington before his death). An historic tour from the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, this painting traveled across the country to eight major cities—Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Seattle, Minneapolis, Oklahoma City, Little Rock, and New York City—for the first time. Currently, Internet users may explore this historical portrait at the above listed site using three different filters: symbolic, biographic, and artistic. Each filter highlights a distinct component of the portrait, provides background information, and offers an interpretation of each individual element. In addition, the site contains biographical information on Washington's life and a teaching section for kids.

Freeze Frame: Eadweard Muybridge's Photography of Motion

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Collotype, "Walking and turning around rapidly with a satchel"
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This companion site to a National Museum of American History exhibit explores the most famous work of English photographer Eadweard Muybridge. Muybridge's photographic studies of motion have been interpreted as scientific models, but the proofs included in the five exhibit sections suggest a more complex blending of art and science. "Capturing the Moment" tells the story of the commission by California Governor Leland Stanford to study the hooves on a galloping horse and Muybridge's resulting fame. "Muybridge in Motion" traces the University of Pennsylvania study of animal and human locomotion. "From Proof to Print" outlines the process and artistic nature of motion photography. "Sequences and Structures" describes the scientific principles of motion and sequential structure. "Epilogue" discusses Muybridge's influence on late-19th century visual culture and invites visitor comments.

Each section offers a 750-word introductory essay and 10-12 images illustrating the scientific and artistic elements in Muybridge's work. The site also offers five links to related sites and a five-work bibliography. A disclaimer notifies parents and teachers that many subjects were photographed nude or semi-nude. This is an interesting site for those researching the place of photography in American science and culture.

Florida Heritage Collection

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Graphic, Florida Heritage Collection
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This project provides a collection of more than 280 digitized materials documenting the history of Florida from pre-contact to the present. It includes materials relating to Florida history, culture, arts, literature, and social sciences in a number of major thematic areas, including Native American and minority populations, exploration and development, tourism, natural environment, and regional interests. These materials are drawn from the archives, special collections, and libraries of the 10 state universities in the Florida system.

Items include family papers, local history books and booklets, diaries, advertising materials, and Civil War letters, business records, maps, and photographs. Many of the materials are regional or local in scope.

The site also includes an extensive (5000-word) Florida history narrative timeline from pre-contact (before 1492) to the present. A user guide and tutorial are provided, and the documents are searchable by county name, keyword, subject, author, or title. The search engine has an option for listing either electronic holdings only or all collection holdings under a particular subject. Entries in the electronic catalog include the archive in which the original is located as well as a 20-word description of the item and its contents.

Note that a few links are still under construction with no completion date indicated. The site is ideal for researching Florida's state and local history.

American Photography: A Century of Images

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Photo, Dodge, Nikloas Murray, 1933
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This site, designed as a companion to the PBS film, is quite useful in its own right. Among other themes, the site explores the role of photography in American history, beginning with the role of photography as a relative newcomer to art.

In addition, the site examines the ways in which photography has impacted warfare, politics, and advertising. Moreover, the site raises important questions about whether photographs portray a subjective reality and whether photographers influence viewers' perceptions through cropping or digital manipulation. An Image Lab allows visitors to explore the ways that camera perspective and cropping can change the meaning of a photograph. Visitors can use the tool to manipulate stock photographs and view the results.

A Teacher's Guide provides five lesson plans, asking students to decide whether censorship is a worthwhile practice and to consider ethical issues related to altering photographs.

Not a particularly deep collection of images, this site's strength is the way it teaches how to evaluate and understand photographs, especially historical photographs.

Chicago Imagebase

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Map, Chicago
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Dedicated to "enhancing knowledge about the built environment of the Chicago region," this site hopes to offer a comprehensive "system for indexing, storing, retrieving, comparing, and analyzing images, maps, data, literature, and other geographically-based materials" on Chicago.

Contains an array of historical and recent maps, photographs, and illustrations, plus textual information about Chicago's history and architecture.

Includes approximately 600 aerial photographs taken in 1996 by Alex S. MacLean; 83 photographs by C. William Brubaker; 14 by Robert Thall; multiple images of 55 buildings and historic sites; four Works Progress Administration land use maps; more than 30 images dealing with the Chicago Fire of 1871; 20 photographs by William Henry Jackson and Charles Dudley Arnold of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition; 22 Rand McNally "Bird's Eye Views" from 1893; and numerous additional maps and images.

An animated map shows the city's expansion and the development of neighborhood communities from 1850 to 1990.

Presently, the site focuses on four Chicago areas: the "Loop," Lawndale, Armour Square, and Bridgeport. Though not updated since 1999, the site contains useful materials documenting Chicago's development.