History of Education and Indigenous Americans: A Guide for Pre-Service Teachers

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Article Body

What is it?
Education and learning cannot be neutral. What we decide is important for young people to know necessarily reflects our values. This guide takes a look at two topics in history education of Indigenous people in the United States. First, the Federal Indian Boarding Schools which were a deliberate attempt to separate indigenous people from their communities and their cultures. The second topic is the emergence of the American Indian Movement and specifically that movement’s efforts to defend Indigenous culture and also establish schools, called “survival schools” to teach Indigenous young people about their history and culture.

Guiding questions

What is the purpose of education?
What history should be taught in schools?

 

Background - History of Boarding Schools 1880-1930


As the United States settlers expanded into the American West between 1865 and 1890, the federal government increasingly confined Native peoples who lived there to reservations and denied the ability to continue their livelihood through hunting and farming. In addition to this effort to separate Native Americans from their land, the government also acted to separate Native Americans from their history and culture. Indian Boarding schools were central to this effort. Beginning in the 1880s, Native children were sent to these schools typically located hundreds of miles from their parents and community with the expressed purpose of assimilating them into what the government considered to be U.S.-American culture. In order to coerce Native communities into sending their children to boarding schools, the U.S. government made basic aid such as food and supplies contingent on the reservation’s children going off to school. At these schools, the children were forced to cut their hair and take English-sounding names. Children who were caught using their given names or speaking a Native language were harshly punished. While the curriculum at each school was different, the schools tended to emphasize training in manual labor rather than academics. History, when it was taught, centered on white U.S-Americans. The fact that Native young people were separated from their elders and community meant that they did not have the same access to stories and oral traditions that they would have had they remained with their families.

Primary Source Activity:
Show students the following video (~8min) from PBS News Hour on Indian Boarding schools: https://youtu.be/gRNcCCgnauI.
When the video is over, ask the class how the boarding schools acted to separate Native children from their history and culture.

 

Examining Sources:
Direct the students to the following collection of primary sources related to Indian Boarding Schools. Have students choose a source and determine if it contains evidence of how Native children were separated from their history and culture:
 
https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/native-american-boarding-schools/

Along with these sources, have students consider the announcement by Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative:
https://www.doi.gov/priorities/strengthening-indian-country/federal-indian-boarding-school-initiative


Question when examining these sources:

  • In what way are Native people advocating for a reconsideration of history of a different perspective of the past?

 

The American Indian Movement 1961-

From the very beginning, many Native people criticized the boarding school program and opposed the effort to assimilate Native people into U.S. culture. (See guide on Charles Eastman, Zitkála-Šá, and the Society of American Indians for more on early opposition). By the 1920s, these schools were the subject of increased scrutiny for their teaching practices, living conditions , and lack of quality medical care that led to over 500 students' deaths over the years and most were eventually closed. Beginning in the 1960s, a new movement called the American Indian Movement (AIM) began organizing for Native rights including the right for Native people to practice their culture and to emphasize history from a Native American perspective.

Timeline:

1961 - Activists Clyde Warrior (Ponca) and Mel Thom (Walker River Paiute) among others form the National Indian Youth Council. A group that would grow to 15,000 members and was one of the first Native activist groups to use direct action protest.

1968 - American Indian Movement formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota around the issue of police treatment of Native Americans.

1972 - AIM members founded two schools in Minnesota, the Little Red School House in St. Paul and Heart of the Earth Survival School in Minneapolis; Beginning in October, the Trail of Broken Treaties march ends with an occupation of Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters in Washington, DC. AIM protestors demand that 110 million acres of land be restored to Native Americans.

1973 - At the request of Lakota elders, AIM participated in a protest against corruption within the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Tribal Council, which led to the famed 71-day occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota. Federal law enforcement killed two protestors and wounded 24 more.


1978 -  The Longest Walk a march on Washington that began in Alcatraz Island, California and ended on the National Mall. 30,000 individuals eventually join the march. As part of the protest, a tipi was set up and maintained on the grounds of the White House.The protest called attention to legislation that would have broken Indian treaties and threatened water rights. The legislation was defeated. Two AIM leaders, Dennis Banks and Russell Means, were indicted on charges related to the occupation, but prosecutor misconduct led to the charges being dismissed.

 

Primary Source Activity:
Show students this brief video about Clyde Bellecourt (Nee-gon-we-way-we-dun) and the American Indian Movement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLh3gw0kVhQ

An excellent alternative film, if your school can access it, is the 2020 documentary, Warrior Women, about Native American women activists in the American Indian Movement. https://www.warriorwomenfilm.com/synopsis

 

Examining Primary sources
Have students choose a primary source from the links below. As they examine or listen to the source, ask them to pay attention to how the American Indian Movement advocated for Native American culture and history. For more background on AIM, teachers may can consult this history of the movement: http://www.aimovement.org/ggc/history.html

Russell Means Radio Interview (1992)
https://americanarchive.org/primary_source_sets/american-indian-movement/2-224-257d81km


Interview of Vernon Bellecourt, AIM Leader (1973)
https://americanarchive.org/primary_source_sets/american-indian-movement/3-28-wh2d795w2v

“Survival Schools,” WGBH Journal, 1978
https://americanarchive.org/primary_source_sets/american-indian-movement/9-15-8279d3bf

“Wounded Knee,” Sunday Forum, 1973
(Pine Ridge Reservation Residents Discuss AIM)
https://americanarchive.org/primary_source_sets/american-indian-movement/6-15-78gf28x2


“Support the American Indian Movement” | Library of Congress
https://www.loc.gov/item/2016648080/

[Tipi with sign "American Indian Movement" on the grounds of the Washington Monument, Washington, D.C., during the "Longest walk"] | Library of Congress
https://www.loc.gov/item/2011646498/

“Prevent a 2nd massacre at Wounded Knee : show your solidarity with the Indian nations” Library of Congress
https://www.loc.gov/item/2016648079/

Protesters at Columbus landing, San Francisco, California | Library of Congress
https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1989022_kl_c104/

An American Indian Movement Wounded Knee button, 1990.
https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/the-american-indian-movement-1968-1978/sources/1338

Flag of the American Indian Movement (AIM). Image by Wikimedia Commons user Tripodero,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_the_American_Indian_Movement_V2.svg

“What we did in the 1960s and early 1970s was raise the consciousness of white America that this government has a responsibility to Indian people. That there are treaties; that textbooks in every school in America have a responsibility to tell the truth. An awareness reached across America that if Native American people had to resort to arms at Wounded Knee, there must really be something wrong. And Americans realized that native people are still here, that they have a moral standing, a legal standing. From that, our own people began to sense the pride."
AIM Leader Dennis Banks, from a 1996 interview

Wrap up
Pose the following question for students:

  • What can be done today to ensure that Native culture is defended and history will be learned? This can be an end-of-class discussion or written on an exit ticket to be handed in when students leave.

Extension idea
Have students examine the resources below to learn about what’s being done to defend Native culture and spread the understanding of Native history both in the U.S. and around the world. Students could develop a project on how the education system in their state could be changed to incorporate the culture and history of Native people.


Additional resources

About Native Knowledge 360° | Native Knowledge 360° - Interactive Teaching Resources
https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360/about/native-knowledge-360

OPINION: We must support the teachers who will be in charge of expanding Native history lessons
https://hechingerreport.org/opinion-we-must-support-the-teachers-who-will-be-in-charge-of-expanding-native-history-lessons/


From United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2018/11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf

Article 14
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to establishand control their educational systems and institutions providing education in their own languages, in a manner appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning.

2. Indigenous individuals, particularly children,have the right to all levels and forms of education of the State without discrimination.

3. States shall, in conjunction with indigenous peoples, take effective measures, in order for indigenous individuals, particularly children, including those living outside their communities, to have access, when possible, to an education in their
own culture and provided in their own language.

 

General Tips for Teaching Controversial Subjects

  • Center activities on primary sources. Primary sources are tangible evidence that allow students to engage directly with history. These primary sources in particular were preserved and digitized by the Library of Congress because they were deemed important to the history of the United States.
  • Discussion and analysis of these sources can be wide ranging, but within each class those discussions can always be turned back to the source itself.
  • The sources are also, by definition, only pieces of a puzzle. They bring us closer to understanding the past but there is always room for doubt and uncertainty.  
  • Questions, Observations, and Reflections should come from students. These are primarily student-directed learning activities. It is the instructor's role to create a space for inquiry and empower students to drive the inquiry.
  • It may help to remind students at the outset that it is normal for different individuals to come to different conclusions, even when we are looking at the same sources. Further, it would be strange if we all agreed completely on our interpretations. This can normalize the strong reactions that can come up and enables educators to discuss the goal of historical research, which is to hopefully go beyond the realm of individual  perspective to access a fuller understanding of the past that takes multiple perspectives into account.
  • Teaching historical topics that involve violence and other trauma can be traumatic for some students as well. Providing students with previews of what content will be covered and space to process their emotions can be helpful. The following video series from the University of Minnesota contains further tips for teaching potentially traumatic topics: https://extension.umn.edu/trauma-and-healing/historical-trauma-and-cultural-healing.

 

1916 Children's Code of Morality: A Guide for Pre-Service Teachers

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What is it?

In 1916 an anonymous businessman offered a prize of $5,000 for “the best code of morals suitable for use by teachers and parents in the training of children”. According to one newspaper this code was badly needed because: “In the schools of the United States there is no such thing as character education — a fact that is measurably accountable for the large percentage of young people who grow up into dishonest, lawless or otherwise undesirable citizens”. The competition was organized by the National Institution for Moral Instruction (later renamed The Character Education Institution). To judge the best code of morals, a three person panel was selected: a Supreme Court justice, Mahlon Pitney, a professor of moral philosophy at Yale University, George Ladd, and Eva Perry Moore of the National Mother’s Council. The winner was William Hutchins, President of Berea College, who came up with 10 “laws of right living” that could be used to train children. A later competition offered $20,000 to develop methods for teaching these laws in schools. 

In this guide you will find:

  • Primary sources from the Library of Congress along with context and tips for how to support students as they analyze these sources.  
  • Ideas for connecting these sources to a variety of commonly taught topics including industrialization, immigration, and compulsory public education in the Progressive Era United States. These resources would also fit well with any unit on character education or values education which are part of the curriculum in many states. 
  • Suggestions for activities and assignments that build on this topic and these sources including tips for class discussion and developing an activity where students create their own character education plans.

 

Focus questions as students explore these sources:

  • What were the concerns about children’s morals and behavior in this period?
  • What ideas were proposed to improve children’s behavior?
  • What themes do you notice in the sources that might explain this anxiety and worry about children? 
  • What else was happening at the time that might explain these concerns?
  • Should character education be a part of the school curriculum? 
     

Approaching the Topic with Students

This guide will use a variety of newspaper articles from 1916 to 1924 that will allow students to explore the effort to develop and promote a “code of morals for children”. To understand the historical context it might be useful to review the responses of the Progressive Era to the large-scale immigration of 1900-1915 when 15 million people immigrated to the United States. A resource on this history can be found here at the Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/progressive-era-to-new-era-1900-1929/immigrants-in-progressive-era/

Unlike previous generations of immigrants, these immigrants tended to come from eastern and southern Europe rather than northern and western Europe. Some middle class reformers were alarmed by the number of immigrants and what seemed to them to be large cultural differences between these new arrivals and those who had previously immigrated to the country. Religion played an important role here too as many of the immigrants were Catholic or Jewish and many of the reformers were Protestant. Worried that these groups might not assimilate into United States culture, reformers pushed for government programs to promote “Americanization” of recent immigrants. As a part of this effort, new public high schools were created where free schooling had previously ended at 8th grade. Laws requiring children to attend school were passed along with laws in part to ensure that the children of immigrants assimilate into American culture. 

 

The Moral Code Competition

This context helps explain why the idea of teaching a moral code might have seemed urgent to some Americans. When the competition was announced, the reaction was mixed. Some strongly agreed with the idea that a moral code was needed and children needed to be trained. The article quoted above in the intro included the headline, “What a Child Should do in a Moral Emergency” and featured pictures of children facing hypothetical moral dilemmas such as “When the Big Boy says, ‘Lem-me Look in Yer Basket or I’ll Punch Yer Face!’ What Should the Smaller Boy Do?” (Richmond Times Dispatch May 21, 1916) https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045389/1916-05-21/ed-1/seq-49/

Teachers might project the page for students on a white board and then zoom in on the photos and captions either as a class or on individual devices if available.

Teachers might also have students dig further into the text of the article. Depending on reading ability, teachers can distribute excerpts such as this one which outlines why character education is necessary: “In the schools of the United States there is no such thing as character education — a fact that is measurably accountable for the large percentage of young people who grow up into dishonest, lawless or otherwise undesirable citizens. Such education is a fundamental need of the nation. It is impossible for the child to protect its own interests in matters concerning character development. Therefore in matters of the kind it has a right to look to teachers and parents for help and guidance, intelligently given.”

Or this one which addresses critics who propose that the Bible’s Ten Commandments are already sufficient moral code (sources that make that case can be found below):

“Some foolish persons, having learned of the competition, have in all seriousness offered the Ten Commandments as the best possible code. But (says Mr. Fairchild) the Ten Commandments are written for adults. The first half of them deals with religious duties exclusively and not with moral problems. How about the latter half? 

"Honor thy father and thy mother" is appropriate for children. Likewise, "Thou shalt not kill," if there is a question of using a knife in a fight—a thing happily rare among boys. The seventh commandment can have no application to children. "Thou shalt not steal"? A much-needed commandment in the child world. But to children, what significance has "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house"? Most children never think of doing such a thing. A boy Is usually well satisfied with his own house, and to cast a slur on it means a fight. 

"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife." Why should a child covet a wife? What does a girl child want of a wife? A neighbor's wife would be some other child's mother, and all children want their own mothers. "Nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant." But in the homes of nine out of ten children who go to the public schools there is no servant at all. Unfortunately, a child has to wait to grow up before the moral ideas of adults are of any use. to him. It is just this lack of a definite moral code for children that, through the prize competition above described, the National Institution for Moral Instruction hopes to supply.”

When showing this primary source to students, encourage them to examine the images and the text that accompanies them. Prompts might include: 

  • What problems does the article seem to be concerned with? 
  • How might this connect with what we already know about the time period? 
  • What surprises you? 

Other reactions to the competition are revealing as well. Some responded that the a new moral code was not needed because the Ten Commandments already existed:

But interestingly the context specifically did not want the code of morals to be based in a specific religion. For example, they specifically asked representatives from multiple religions to participate including Catholic educators:

The Winning Code

The winning moral code developed by William Hutchins included the following ten laws which were published here along with an explanation of each:

Here are the Hutchins winning laws:

  1. The Law of Health: The Good American Tries to Gain and to Keep Perfect Health
  2. The Law of Self Control: The Good American Controls Himself
  3. The Law of Self Reliance The Good American Is Self-Reliant
  4. The Law of Reliability: The Good American is Reliable
  5. The Law of Clean Play: The Good American Plays Fair
  6. The Law of Duty: The Good American Does His Duty
  7. The Law of Good Workmanship: The Good American Tries to do the Right Thing in the Right Way
  8. The Law of Team Work: The Good American Works in Friendly Cooperation with his Fellow Workers
  9. The Law of Kindness: The Good American is Kind
  10. The Law of Loyalty: The Good American is Loyal

While these rules were new in one sense Hutchins also proclaimed that they were laws that “the best Americans had always obeyed”. Teachers can encourage students to examine these laws and consider how they reflect the historical time period. Prompts might include: why do you think there’s such a focus on being a “good American”? What laws would you not be surprised to see as rules in school today? What laws would you not expect to see today? 
 

Teaching Students to be Moral: The Iowa Plan

After the winning moral code was announced, The Character Education Institute held another competition to award $20,000 to develop a plan to teach Hutchins’s laws in schools. The winner was a group of professors and public school administrators from Iowa whose approach was outlined here: 

The plan argued that character education was necessary for democracy. Their plan was not to add extra lessons to schools’ curriculum but instead to incorporate character education into what was already being done. Also it relies on what it called the “collective judgment of ones peers” to enforce laws rather than relying on the authority of teachers and principals. 

As students engage with this source, teachers can ask students to reflect on what they think the legacy was of this effort to teach students character: Are some of these rules or these methods still used in schools? Do we have the same concerns over the effects of student morality on democracy? 

 

Using these Sources in the Classroom

Teachers can use all of these sources to deepen students’ understanding of the Progressive Era through a topic — teaching students a moral code — which should engage students and provoke discussion. This can be done as a whole class activity, in small groups,  as a “Think-Pair-Share” or any combination thereof according to what fits each class best. Alternatively the sources can be broken into parts with different excerpts assigned to different groups. What is important to emphasize is that students slow down their thinking, take time to examine the sources and notice details for interpretation or questioning. Encourage students to make connections with what they already know and also understand that each source is just a piece of the puzzle. Encourage them to imagine: What might those other puzzle pieces be? 

These sources can be part of a deep dive during a Progressive Era unit or part of a larger project. Students might develop their own plan for character education for the present day. Would they have a contest to determine the best moral code to teach children? If they did, who would judge the contest? What would the criteria be for judging the entries? Whether they decide to have a contest or not, how would they teach character education in schools? Students can work in groups to make their best case for what character education look like and then compare with the history of the 1916 Moral Code for Children. Also once the theme of character education for children has been introduced, teachers can revisit the topic for later historical eras. For example, students might investigate what concerns over children's morality existed during WWII, the 1960s or the 1980s-90s. 

 

General Tips for Teaching Controversial Subjects

Teaching history inevitably means teaching about topics that generate strong reactions from a wide range of people. While not every reaction can be anticipated, the following tips can provide a strong basis for a rationale for your learning activities:

  • Center activities on primary sources. Primary sources are tangible evidence that allow students to engage directly with history. These primary sources in particular were preserved and digitized by the Library of Congress because they were deemed important to the history of the United States. 
  • Discussion and analysis of these sources can be wide ranging, but within each class those discussions can always be turned back to the source itself. 
  • The sources are also, by definition, only pieces of a puzzle. They bring us closer to understanding the past but there is always room for doubt and uncertainty.  
  • Questions, Observations, and Reflections should come from students. These are primarily student-directed learning activities. It is the instructor's role to create a space for inquiry and empower students to drive the inquiry. 
  • Linking to state or national standards can provide support and justification for classroom activities such as these. Immigration is explicitly mentioned in many state standards for example and many states have character or values education in standards as well. The activities in this guide also link to NCSS Themes including Theme 1: Culture ("The study of culture examines the socially transmitted beliefs, values, institutions, behaviors, traditions and way of life of a group of people")  and Theme 10: Civic Ideals and Practices ("All people have a stake in examining civic ideals and practices across time and in different societies") 

Pockets from the Past: Daily Life at Monticello

Video Overview

TAH teachers explore the contents of recreated historical pockets with the help of Jacqueline Langholtz, manager of school and group programs at Monticello. What do the contents of the pockets say about their owners? Who might those owners be? Langholtz models strategies for examining and questioning artifacts.

Video Clip Name
mysterypocket1.mov
mysterypocket2.mov
mysterypocket3.mov
Video Clip Title
Mystery Pocket Exercise: Examining the Pockets
Mystery Pocket Exercise: Seeds and Keys
Mystery Pocket Exercise: French Lessons and Salad Oil
Video Clip Duration
4:15
5:52
7:18
Transcript Text

Jacqueline Langholtz: Take a few minutes working in groups to figure out what’s in the pocket in front of them. So first, what is it? How would have it been used? And then lastly, who they think would have carried this pocket. So I am going to just give you the exact same challenge, take 10 minutes or so, talk within your group.

[Group 1:]
Teacher 1: Somebody’s a seamstress.
Teacher 2: Yes.
Teacher 1: Must do some cooking or . . .
Teacher 3: Had responsibility—
Teacher 2: Yes.
Teacher 3: —because I remember reading about that in the dependencies.
Teacher 2: Yeah, cause not everybody had the keys.
Teacher 1: No.
Teacher 3: Martha had the keys and there was one other.
Teacher 1: And there was a sewing little table in there.
Teacher 2: Also a number of geese were killed.
Teacher 1: I would think this would be like somebody who's either a supervisor or somebody that’s not the bottom person.
Teacher 2: No.
Teacher 1: This person writes so it couldn’t be a slave, right? Because they weren’t suppose to be able to write. Not that they couldn’t.
Teacher 3: Yeah, yeah.
Teacher 2: For our own eating 28 hams of bacon. Twenty-one shoulders and 27 middlings.
Teacher 1: Well, I think it’s a she based on the embroidery, on the fan.
Teacher 2: Sewing stuff.
Teacher 1: Right.

[Group 2:]
Teacher 1: I think we have it.
Jacqueline Langholtz: You got it.
Teacher 2: Yeah.
Jacqueline Langholtz: So that’s a—
Teacher 1: We think this is a slave child’s pocket.
Teacher 2: Or a child’s pocket.
Jacqueline Langholtz: What makes you say that?
Teacher 1: Well, you said they made nails.
Jacqueline Langholtz: Excellent.
Teacher 1: Marbles.
Jacqueline Langholtz: What were the marbles for?
Teacher 1: A game.
Jacqueline Langholtz: Yeah, keep going.
Teacher 2: Making extra money if, like, they made some extra nails or they were able to—
Jacqueline Langholtz: That’s right. And can I ask you would you have known that before you did your gallery tour and your house visit?
Teacher 1: No, because I had no idea they made money.
Jacqueline Langholtz: Yeah, that is a surprising fact to a lot of students and teachers to find money in the slave’s pocket
Teacher 1: And that they had china and stuff.
Jacqueline Langholtz: Yeah, so that’s a great opportunity for discussion because a lot of people will think this must be from someone else’s pocket or they’ll look at this and say ‘I thought it was a slave pocket but there's money in it,’ but you knew why there might be money in it, good for you.
Teacher 1: Fishing.
Teacher 2: We had said actually, originally, we thought this might be something that they either made like a handle or we thought is it something that shaped the, you know.
Jacqueline Langholtz: And once you know it, it’s right there in front of you but for students finding their way through this on their own, it’s a really good activity and they have a lot of fun with it. And then we get to you know dim the lights and we'll do a flint and steel show for them.
Teacher 1: I like this as a pre- and post- activity. That’s amazing.
Jacqueline Langholtz: Yeah, and photos for a lot of this are online, too. And you knew what this was?
Teacher 1: She did.
Teacher 2: Yeah, I did.
Jacqueline Langholtz: Good for you, do you have a name for it?
Teacher 1: Mouth harp?
Teacher 2: Something, yeah, it’s a mouth harp. I think it’s the mouth harp.
Jacqueline Langholtz: Yeah, so if you then had to group these items, too, or tell us what types of things you see—work, right, you see some home life, you see some entertainment, slave garden.
Teacher 1: Yeah, like this would be making a fire at home. This would be work.
Jacqueline Langholtz: And possibly spinning, this is flax.
Teacher 2: Okay.
Teacher 1: This would be play. This could be work or play.
Teacher 2: Or I was going to say, or extra food.
Jacqueline Langholtz: And there are some things that can be made and some things that are bought.
Teacher 1: Why would they carry seeds?
Jacqueline Langholtz: You tell me, I don’t know. And we don’t know that all of this was always carried.
Teacher 1: Why would they have seeds? Maybe they traded for them or something.
Jacqueline Langholtz: Well, do you remember Elizabeth Chew told us a story about the gardens—well, she said the garden's main function was not to supply all the food for the table and then she supplemented that with the story about the main house actually sometimes purchasing food from the slaves so purchasing cucumbers that they have grown or . . .
Teacher 1: So this boy maybe is going to plant some seeds to grow some food.
Teacher 2: So there are slave gardens.
Jacqueline Langholtz: Yeah, sometimes for themselves. So on a plot of land where they're able to supplement their rations, food that they're given by the house or maybe they choose to grow something that they know that the house could have a use for and they sell it back to the house.

Jacqueline Langholtz: Who thinks they know whose pockets they have? Just with a silent show of hands. I know, I know who my pocket represents. Great! Ah, wonderful.

Teacher 1: It’s a list and it’s written so we knew that person had to be educated—

Jacqueline Langholtz: Great.

Teacher 1: 'Cause even if they didn’t write it they had to read it.

Jacqueline Langholtz: And it’s a list of what kinds of things, can I ask?

Teacher 1: Ah, things they’re going to buy or—like it says kill chickens and stuff like that, you know, it would be like a grocery list.

Teacher 1: Like a grocery list, great.

Jacqueline Langholtz: Keys.

Jacqueline Langholtz: Can you hold those up so that we can all see them too? How would you describe that key set? If you said, oh, I left my keys on my desk, go and grab them. They look like . . .

Teacher 1: Like jail keys, no.

Jacqueline Langholtz: They’re big, right?

Teacher 1: They’re big, they’re bulky, they’re heavy. Must be somebody important 'cause not everybody had keys.

Jacqueline Langholtz: Great deduction, yes. And what’s that door like probably?

Teacher 1: Heavy.

Jacqueline Langholtz: It’s not a dainty little door, right. Great, what else is in your pocket?

Teacher 1: We had a fan and then an embroidered bag, so that led us to believe it was probably a female's bag.

Jacqueline Langholtz: Excellent. And that is a pocket that’s worn on the outside, tied around your waist, great. How about the big reveal? Whose do you think it is?

Teacher 2: Well, we thought it was Martha, Jefferson’s daughter.

Jacqueline Langholtz: Round of applause. Excellent. Yay. So, so why it, why is it Martha Jefferson Randolph’s pocket?

Teacher 2: Well, we knew based on what we had seen in the dependencies about the keys and the importance of controlling stores . . .

Jacqueline Langholtz: Great.

Teacher 2: And the list, keeping that. And then it was kind of also interesting, lots of sewing items.

Jacqueline Langholtz: Yep. You have spices in there, I heard you talking about the vanilla, you have a sewing kit—and carrying the keys, you’re right, even that phrase is responsibility in the house. So if I’m carrying the keys to the storehouse, I’m responsible for what’s inside there, and she would sometimes pass the keys over to a domestic house servant or a slave who needed to get in to retrieve something or she would get it for them. And this was apparently an exercise that each one of the granddaughters had to do for about a week and they write and complain about it because it’s such a pain that people are constantly coming and finding you and interrupting you because they need access to something in the storehouse. And it reminds me of when I was in high school or junior high and they made me carry around a fake baby for a while. I don’t know if that’s still done in schools but it was to teach that this is—being an adult is a lot of responsibility.

Teacher 3: Well, one of the things I knew 'cause I knew somebody that actually had one of these and could play it. It’s a mouth harp. So you can put it in your mouth and when you put it in between your lips and you go like this then you can change, like, and it makes a twangy kind of sound like—yeah, like a real twangy kind of sound so we thought that that would probably be some sort of recreational something that would be in this pocket.

Teacher 4: And then there's nails, and I remember somewhere we heard that they make nails in the—that the children make nails, so—

Jacqueline Langholtz: Yes, in the what though? You were about to tell us where?

Teacher 4: In the, I forget, the place where they make nails.

Teacher 3: The forgery.

Jacqueline Langholtz: Yeah, that's the forge, the blacksmith shop, great.

Teacher 4: And then fishing line and a hook and a bobber doohickey.

Teacher 3: And then a flint, which we didn’t know what this was, but you can make fire with it and you've got the flax—yeah, Chris helped us. At first we thought it was a handle on something, but you can actually hold it and you can do that and make fire.

Teacher 4: And it’s small so it’s not like an adult could use it because the way you use it has to be small for small hands.

Jacqueline Langholtz: I use it, I use it. That’s a typical striker size.

Teacher 4: Oh, it is? Oh, okay, I thought it was small.

Jacqueline Langholtz: But you’re right in saying that it's small, you’re also letting us know something about it, that it’s portable. Right? And if we are looking at pockets, everything wer'e looking at is something that is portable here.

Teacher 3: And then really quickly, interestingly, we had these little pieces—they look like Monopoly pieces, and so you can put them together and make a coin. Apparently you used to be able to break a coin apart to make change.

Jacqueline Langholtz: Not like a piece of candy bar, though, but cutting it.

Teacher 5: Like a piece of eight.

Jacqueline Langholtz: Piece of eight! So okay, there’s a story there. What do you know?

Teacher 5: They would cut it and they would weigh it so that they would make sure that they paid the right amount.

Jacqueline Langholtz: That’s right.

Teacher 5: 'Cause your silver was very precious to you.

Jacqueline Langholtz: That’s right. So cutting and weighing the silver. And a piece of eight—eight of those pieces go into a dollar piece.

Teacher 4: And then marbles, which are also recreation.

Teacher 3: So we thought that it was a slave's pocket, like a child slave or, you know, young person.

Jacqueline Langholtz: And they got it right. And we had what I thought was a great discussion, too, because often times if—even teachers—but students do this activity before they’ve gone through any part of the mountain or before they’ve gotten exposed to some of the things in the galleries, sometimes the money in that pocket can throw them off. They either think, well, I thought it was a slave's pocket, but there’s money in it, so it’s not, or they think the money is from someone else’s pocket, so it’s a great way to also teach about how Monticello has different roles and responsibilities for slaves here and that sometimes slaves were paid for their work. People like Joe Foset, the blacksmith, or John Hemmings who often times sold some of their work in town and then had some money from that or selling produce back to the house as Dr. Chew told us.

Teacher 1: We had a sampler with the alphabet on it. A game that has different levels of difficulty, either trying to catch it on top here or in the hole, which is next to impossible. We also had marbles in ours, as well. A little squirrel, which, that actually ended up being a game piece as well. We had a slate with the engraving—I don’t know if you call it chalk or not but—and we had a book in French that was on Anne of Cleves and that’s all we could really figure out because it’s entirely in French. And what was most helpful was a letter from Thomas Jefferson to Patsy that was written—it was dated 1783 in Annapolis and kind of went over his educational expectations for her while he was not at Monticello and that led us to believe that this was the pocket of Patsy, his daughter.

Jacqueline Langholtz: Yes, and would you mind for everyone’s intense enjoyment walking us through what the "miser of his time," Thomas Jefferson, recommends for how a young girl should spend her day?

Teacher 1: "From eight to 10 o’clock, practice music. From 10 to one, dance one day and draw another. From one to two, draw on a day you dance and write a letter the next day. From three to four, read French"—that explained the book—"From four to five exercise yourself in music. From five till bedtime read English and write"—looks like "writed." Communicate this plan to Ms. Hopkinson—

Jacqueline Langholtz: Her tutor.

Teacher 1: —"and if she approves of it, pursue it as long as I remain in Philadelphia. Activate her"—"articulate her affections, she has been a valuable friend to you and her good sense and her good heart make her valued by all who know her."

Jacqueline Langholtz: Excellent. Wonderful reading. So from family letters we learn a lot about the daily life—I mean, that’s the name of this program right, Daily Life at Monticello—for the family, for the staff, so for those who live in the house, for those who work in the house. We love that letter. And what do you think students—how do you think students react to that letter? What do they hear when they see it? They’re like, did she not eat? No, she ate. Did she not sleep? Right, but it sounds—you know, it sounds pretty stern. So who’s missing from this picture? El Jefe, right? Take us through what was in your pocket.

Teacher 2: Well, the first thing that was noticed was it's nice leather when we opened the pocket itself. The thing that we thought—we found really curious was the ivory for note-taking, for this. The glasses are really nice and they—

Jacqueline Langholtz: Ah, the spectacles.

Teacher 2: So they can be compacted a lot more. And this feels like very nice leather. There is a letter inside, it’s been sealed with the wax and the seal from here and it’s signed from Thomas Jefferson. It’s dated Monticello, April 16, and then the year 10, obviously 1810 because what other century could it be?

Jacqueline Langholtz: Right, but great question.

Teacher 2: And it says, "Dear Jefferson"—our question is who’s the Jefferson he’s writing to, it’s a person, he says they’re out of salad oil, he’s wondering if they have any in Richmond, if it’s good quality, they wanted—

Jacqueline Langholtz: They want a lot of it.

Teacher 2: They want a lot of it. I’m trying to think how many. If it’s mediocre then they want two or three. If it’s not so good just a single bottle just to serve them until he can get some from Philadelphia.

Jacqueline Langholtz: This is a man obsessed with salad oil, just so you know. Thomas Jefferson is obsessed with salad oil and this is—if it’s good stuff, get a lot of it, and if it’s bad, I need some, so just give me some and then we'll get some good stuff later on whenever we can. Yeah, that’s what that is.

Teacher 2: Just too fun. And then at the very end he says that everyone in my family is well except for Benjamin whose health isn’t too good. How are you in Richmond? And he said he’d probably see him in Richmond at some point in time. But we don’t know, at least we couldn’t figure out who Jefferson was. Was it his brother or somebody?

Jacqueline Langholtz: Well, that’s a great question and it’s someone in the family. Does anyone here—anyone here in a family where names are repeated in your family? Yeah, so the same thing here. And you’ve already seen that Martha’s name is repeated so his wife is Martha, his eldest daughter is Martha, and here his name is repeated—Thomas Jefferson Randolph is the grandson. He’s actually the executor of the will, so this is a letter from Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Jefferson Randolph.

Teacher 2: Randolph, the grandson.

Teacher 3: Provider of salad oil.

Jacqueline Langholtz: Provider of salad oil, that’s right.

Teacher 2: Okay, do we go through everything?

Jacqueline Langholtz: I like that next thing you’re grabbing, so please do.

Teacher 2: It’s a—this one is the quill—portable quill and the ink as well.

Jacqueline Langholtz: It’s a portable writing set. I love that. It’s so funny, too, because sometimes students ask us if it’s perfume or do you want to guess the other thing they were like—

Teachers: A flask.

Jacqueline Langholtz: A flask. No, no, no! Jefferson’s a man of letters, it’s for writing, yeah.

Teacher 2: Then there’s more money. If you want to show them the money.

Jacqueline Langholtz: Yeah, and more money compared certainly to what you had in your pocket, yeah. Excellent. And any sort of epiphanies or questions you have about Jefferson the man after looking through a recreated pocket for him?

Teacher 2: I just love seeing this after we’ve talked about it. This was awfully fun for me.

Jacqueline Langholtz: So what did we—what did we say about this? Or I don’t know if the whole group heard the discussion&#8212

Teacher 2: It was—it was made from ivory and you can write on it with a pencil.

Teacher 4: How accessible was that?

Jacqueline Langholtz: I don’t know, that’s a great question. Jefferson often has things made specifically for him to his specifications. I, at least, haven’t seen this in other venues—David, I’m looking towards you. I mean I learned about it here but that’s not to say that no one else used it. Certainly other people and Jefferson is not alone in being obsessed with data collecting as a man of the Enlightenment, he’s doing this and he’s sharing data with other people, but this is his system of collecting, but you can’t buy these so they're at least uncommon enough that no one makes reproductions of them. So these are piano keys, this is ivory from piano keys that we bought and then they're just sort of tacked together. And he had very small ones for travel and slightly larger ones in the galleries too. And you’re right—you take shorthand notes on them in lead and then transfer it to the appropriate book, so maybe it transferred into the weather book or the garden book or the plantation book and then wipe it off and reuse it. I love these.

Teacher 4: Were some of Jefferson’s actually found onsite?

Jacqueline Langholtz: We have some of his upstairs but I don’t think they were ever buried and unearthed. I think they were always known to be his and treasured or at least known of. Let’s give them a round of applause. Wonderful job!

Coming of Age in the Twentieth Century, Stories from Minnesota and Beyond

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Photo, Donna, Age 13, c. 1966, Twentieth-Century Girls
Annotation

This website explores "girls' history" with 40 oral history interviews conducted by women's studies students at Minnesota State University-Mankato. Each interviewee was asked extensively about her girlhood. Questions focused on adolescence and growing up as well as the social, cultural, and physical implications of girlhood and personal experiences. Topics include family, race, sexuality, education, and women's issues. The archive includes brief biographies, video clips, and transcripts of interviews (arranged thematically), photographs, and reflections of the interview process. Most of the women interviewed were born and raised in Minnesota, although a few came from other states with a smaller number immigrating from other countries. The site is not searchable, and the video clips are not high quality.

Cartoons
Music
Oral History
Audio
Text
Women's History Month
Splash Pullout Women's Month
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Postwar US, 1945-Early 1970s
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Children's Lives at Colonial London Town

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Screencap, Children's Lives at Colonial London Town
Annotation

Children's Lives at Colonial London Town tells the stories of three 18th-century families who lived in the port town of London Town, MD. Funded by a Teaching American History (TAH) grant, Anne Arundel County Public School teachers created this interactive online storybook and complementary app in partnership with the Center for History Education at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) and Historic London Town and Gardens.

The storybook includes a three-chapter narrative exploring the lives of the Pierponts, a four-child, single-mother family running an ordinary (a public house) in 1709; the Hills, a middle-class young Quaker couple raising Mrs. Hill's five young siblings in 1739; and the Browns, 1762 tavernkeepers who owned several slaves, among them seven-year-old Jacob. Introductory sections explore the pre-colonial lives of Native peoples and the early days of colonization.

Each of more than 40 pages features images of primary sources, photographs of reenactors, and two to three paragraphs describing the everyday lives of these families. The stories look at how both parents and children (including enslaved children) ate, slept, dressed, worked, learned, played, and attended to their health. Questions throughout the text ask students to consider the information they read and develop questions about the past. Highlighted names and vocabulary invite readers to click to visit a glossary.

A slideshow gallery of images used in the storybook, an interactive map showing the locations of the three families' homes, and a timeline of events of both national and local London Town events from 1600 to 1800 support the storybook. Clicking on highlighted names and terms on the timeline takes visitors to related primary sources and articles off-site.

But how to use the storybook in the classroom? An Educators section orients teachers to the storybook and its supporting materials. A guide outlines the purpose and structure of the storybook, while the "Educator Resource" section offers more than 10 downloadable lesson plans and activities for 4th- through 5th-graders. Teachers can also review pre-reading and during-reading strategies for using the storybook, as well as strategies for writing prompted by it. Teachers can also follow links to sections of the Historic London Town and Gardens' website, including a 300-word introduction to London Town's history and information on London Town school tours.

To learn more about subjects covered in the storybook and to explore the sources that went into making it, see "Additional Websites and Places of Interest" for more than 25 links to websites focusing on Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, and Pennsylvania history and "Sources Used to Create This Book" for a bibliography of more than 30 books, primary sources, and websites.

A window into history tailored specifically for upper-elementary students, Children's Lives at Colonial London Town could make a compelling whiteboard read-along activity for teachers covering the colonial era. For students and teachers with smartphones and tablets, try the free app version and let students explore at their own pace.

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History Hitting Home: Children's History, Local History, and Digital Storytelling

Date Published
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Photo, Children playing on the street..., Edwin Rosskam, 1941, LoC
Article Body

How do you connect history to students' own lives? Do you introduce them to the lives of children in the past? Explore local history with them? Let them recount history themselves using digital storytelling tools? Try combining two of these techniques—or all three—to give your students a sense of ownership over history.

Often, textbooks skim over or omit the stories of young people in the past. How did they live? What did they wear and eat? How did they play? What kind of work did they do? How did they learn? Seek out primary and secondary sources that explore the rich details of children's lives in the past. Some websites focus on children's history. Try:

(Choose topic "Children" and search our Website Reviews for more. Search "Children" in our general search to find resources like Beyond the Textbook primary sources on girls' lives in the Progressive era.)

Textbooks also omit local history. Where did children play, learn, and work in the past in your area? How might you and your students connect with that past? Teachinghistory.org's Daisy Martin suggests trying local museums, historic sites, and libraries. High school teacher Roseanne Lichatin has had good luck connecting students with volunteer opportunities at local history museums.

But what about digital media and tools? How can you combine those with children's and local history? With the help of a still or video camera and digital storytelling tools, your students can recreate stories from your local past. For inspiration, check out our feature on the Of the Student, By the Student, For the Student project, a program of The Journey Through Hallowed Ground partnership. In this program, students visit local historic sites and write and film their own short documentaries or historical films "on location."

Remember that once students create materials such as these documentaries, you can use them, with students' permission, as teaching tools for future classes. Students often respond with enthusiasm to learning from and teaching their peers! The Journey Through Hallowed Ground's new lesson plans demonstrate ways to teach using student films. High school teacher James A. Percoco also taps into this energy by having his students guide the class around historic sites, and Elizabeth Glynn has her 11th-grade students create tours incorporating local monuments.

The Japanese American Exhibit and Access Project

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Photo, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, Museum of History and Industry
Annotation

Internment experiences of Americans and Canadians of Japanese heritage in the Northwest during World War II are documented in this site, which features an exhibit that "tells the story of Seattle's Japanese American community in the spring and summer of 1942 and their four month sojourn at the Puyallup Assembly Center known as 'Camp Harmony.'" The internment camp section furnishes nearly 150 primary documents--including 12 issues of the "Camp Harmony Newsletter," 16 government documents, ten letters, 39 photographs, 24 drawings, a scrapbook, 20 newspaper clippings, and a 7,500-word chapter from the book Nisei Daughter that describes camp life. The site also provides archival guides and inventories for 21 University of Washington Library manuscript holdings relating to the internment and for 21 related collections; a 46-title bibliography for further reading; and additional information and documents related to Japanese Canadian internment. Valuable for those studying the wartime experiences and culture of interned Japanese Americans.

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Asian Pacific American Heritage Month
Learn Asian Pacific American Heritage Month
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Florida State Archives Photographic Collection

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Image, Conch Town, WPA, C. Foster, 1939, Florida State Archives Photo Collection
Annotation

More than 137,000 photographs of Florida, many focusing on specific localities from the mid-19th century to the present, are available on this website. The collection, including 15 online exhibits, is searchable by subject, photographer, keyword, and date.

Materials include 35 collections on agriculture, the Seminole Indians, state political leaders, Jewish life, family life, postcards, and tourism among other things. Educational units address 17 topics, including the Seminoles, the Civil War in Florida, educator Mary McLeod Bethune, folklorist and writer Zora Neale Hurston, pioneer feminist Roxcy Bolton, the civil rights movement in Florida, and school busing during the 1970s.

"Writing Around Florida" includes ideas to foster appreciation of Florida's heritage. "Highlights of Florida History" presents 46 documents, images, and photographs from Florida's first Spanish period to the present. An interactive timeline presents materials—including audio and video files—on Florida at war, economics and agriculture, geography and the environment, government and politics, and state culture and history.

Film and Video
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authors
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educators
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feminists
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folklore
folklorists
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teachers
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writers
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Disability History Museum

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Image, "The Polio Chronicle," Bolte Gibson, 1932, Disability History Museum
Annotation

This ongoing project was designed to present materials on the historical experiences of those with disabilities. The website currently presents nearly 800 documents and more than 930 still images dating from the late 18th century to the present.

Subjects are organized according to categories of advocacy, types of disability, government, institutions, medicine, organizations, private life, public life, and personal names. Documents include articles, poems, pamphlets, speeches, letters, book excerpts, and editorials.

Of special interest are documents from the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation Archives, including the Polio Chronicle, a journal published by patients at Warm Springs, Georgia, from 1931 to 1934. Images include photographs, paintings, postcards, lithographs, children's book illustrations, and 19th-century family photographs, as well as postcard views of institutions, beggars, charity events, and types of wheelchairs.

Literary Sources
Newspapers and Periodicals
Official Documents
Paintings and Prints
Personal Accounts
Photographs
Speeches
articles
books
disabilities
disabled; Roosevelt
editorials
Franklin D.; letters
hospitals
institutions
letters
lithographs
museums
paintings
pamphlets
photographs
poems
polio
postcards
speeches
wheelchairs
Images
Text
Devel. of the Industrial US, 1870-1900
Emergence of Modern US, 1890-1930
Great Depression & WWII, 1929-1945
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Art
Business
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Education
Health & Medicine
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Literature
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Politics
Reform
Science & Tech.

Brown v. Board of Education

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Photo, Protester, 1961, Brown v. Board of Education
Annotation

Created in anticipation of the 50-year anniversary of the monumental Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Board of Education, this website covers four general areas. These include Supreme Court cases, busing and school integration, school integration in Ann Arbor (home of the University of Michigan), and recent resegregation trends in America. The site contains a case summary and the court's opinion for each of 34 landmark court cases, from Plessy v. Ferguson to Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

Brown includes transcripts of oral arguments, as well. Visitors can also read the oral histories of five members of the University of Michigan community who remember the Brown decision and its impact. There are more than 30 photographs of participants in the Brown case and other civil rights activists, as well as a collection of documents pertaining to desegregation in the Ann Arbor Public School District. A statistical section details the growing number of African Americans in Michigan and Ann Arbor schools from 1950 to 1960.

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Brown v. Board of Education
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bussing
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race relations
schools
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Text
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