Children in Urban America: A Digital Archive

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Photo, Lester Earl Kesserling playing. . . , 1926, Children in Urban America
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This website offers more than 4,000 primary sources, including newspaper stories, photographs, statistics, oral histories, and personal narratives, related to children and childhood in urban America, specifically in the greater Milwaukee area, from 1850 to 2000. The search page is the most direct route to these sources and is accessible by clicking on the purple kite in the top, right corner of some pages. On other pages, "search entire site" in the footer is the only link. The site is organized around five sections-Work, Play and Leisure, Schooling, Health and Welfare, and "Through Children's Eyes." Each section offers a 150-word introduction, a gallery of five to 40 images, and approximately five "Special Topics" that combine a background essay (300 to 500 words) and a collection of five to ten relevant primary sources. "Special Topics" range from the Socialist Party, religion, and newsboys to National Child Health day and polio in Milwaukee County.

A section for teachers and students offers 25 possible research questions and tips for middle school, high school, and college and cover a host of topics, from games to newspaper coverage of children to the impact of technology on the lives of children. This website is useful for studying childhood and urbanization during a time when what it meant to be a child was changing rapidly.

Folkstreams

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Introductory graphic, The Angel that Stands by Me. . ., Folkstreams
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The declared mission of this film archive "is to build a national preserve of documentary films about American folk or roots culture." The archive contains more than 50 independent films and videos "depicting American folk, traditional, regional, and vernacular culture." Films include Dry Wood, a "glimpse into the life, food, and Mardi Gras celebrations of black Creoles in French Louisiana, featuring the stories and music of 'Bois Sec' Ardoin and Canray Fontenot" and New England Fiddles, presenting seven "traditional musicians as they play in their homes and at dances and contests, passing their styles to younger fiddlers, and commenting on their music."

All films are available in streaming video and can viewed with Quicktime or Realplayer. The site also provides background material on each film, explaining the subject and aesthetic importance. Transcripts are available for some films. Visitors can browse the collection by title, filmmaker, subject, region, or people. They can also search for films or search the available transcripts of films as well as essays about the films. This site should be of interest to those studying the history of American folk culture or the history of documentary film.

Florida Folklife Collection

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Photo, Tampa tobacco industry, 1920s, Florida Folklife Collection
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This extensive archive offers more than 10,300 photographs of Florida folklife from the 1930s through 2001. The archive can be browsed or searched by keyword. The site also makes available 17 interviews with folklorists and folk artists and 24 recordings of performances by Florida blues, gospel, shape-note, and folk singers. Additionally there are also 10 "voices of Florida" collections that include recordings of performances by or interviews with folk musicians, crafters, storytellers, and folklife interpreters on subjects such as children's lore, religious traditions, Seminole culture, maritime traditions, ethnic folk culture, material culture, and occupational lore. There are also 29 brief profiles of prominent Florida folklorists.

For teachers, the site offers five educational units that offer a history section with an interview, documents and audio, photographs, and lesson plans. Unit subjects include Zora Neale Hurston's 1939 recording expedition to the turpentine camps in Cross City, the history and practices of the net-making trade, the tradition of white oak basket making, and Seminole doll making. The visitor can also search the full catalog of photos and audio recordings (46,000 photographs and 5,000 audio recordings). Also available are five film clips from early Florida Folk Festivals and the Florida Folk Arts Conference. And the website provides 30 links to related websites on folklife programs and collections.

Medicine in the Americas, 1619-1914

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Logo, Medicine in the Americas 1610-1914: a Digital Library
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This small "digital library" offers a collection of eight historical medical books related to the development of medicine in the U.S. PDF files of the original documents are accompanied by a transcription and a brief description. Additionally, most of the documents have a link to a "historical note" with a more detailed description of the document. The text of the documents is searchable. The eight medical works are Clara Barton's 1878 pamphlet on the Red Cross; Thomas N. Chase's 1903 Atlanta University conference report on the mortality of African Americans in cities; Benjamin Coleman's observations on smallpox inoculation, written during the 1721 Boston smallpox epidemic; an 1825 description by Robert Waln, Jr., of the Friends Asylum near Philadelphia, the first private hospital in the United States entirely dedicated to the treatment of mental illness; William T. G. Morton's 1847 work on producing anesthesia by the inhalation of sulphuric ether; L. Emmett Holt's 1894 book on the care and feeding of children; Benjamin Rush's 1808 pamphlet on medical care for U.S. Army soldiers; and the text of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act that led to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration.

Western History Photography Collection

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Photo, Black cowboy and horse, c. 1890-1920, Western History Collection
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This combined archive and exhibit contains more than 100,000 images, including photographs, broadsides, posters, maps, advertisements, and other documents. There is a keyword search but no feature for browsing the entire collection. Many of the images can be browsed, however, through nine "galleries," or thematic collections of selected images. "Scenic Rails of the West" is a large exhibit with seven image galleries that include towns, touring, railroads, native culture, and national parks. The "Photos West Classics" gallery is also large and includes the most frequently requested images. Topics include children, saloons, trails and covered wagons, famous Westerners, famous Native Americans, Wild West shows, and Western life. Other galleries include "Railroads," "Building Histories," and "Native American Women." All images are accompanied by a descriptive catalog record and are available for purchase. A learning page (accessed through "news") offers 18 lessons. This website is a valuable source of images on Western figures, culture, environment, politics, and economic development. Teachers of the American West will also find valuable instructional resources.

Dime Novels and Penny Dreadfuls

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Image for Dime Novels and Penny Dreadfuls
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More than 2,300 covers of American "dime novels," and their British counterparts, the "penny dreadfuls," are available on this website. In addition, the full text of nine books and a series entitled Secret Service (1899–1912) are available.

The site offers "guided tours" with images and essays of approximately 1,500 words on print processes and dime novel covers. The full-text selections include stories featuring such heroes as Nick Carter, Buffalo Bill, Jesse James, Deadwood Dick, Fred Fearnot, and Calamity Jane. A full-text search is available only for those affiliated with Stanford University.

The site provides basic information on each title and indexes books according to subject, genre, setting, intended audience age and gender, and type of graphic material. Subject indexing of cover iconography is especially valuable. Listings are organized according to depictions of ethnicity/nationality, occupation, types of places, types of sports and recreations, types of violence, and types of gestures and actions classified according to gender of character portrayed.

Integrating Material Culture into the Classroom

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The creators of the Public Broadcasting Series (PBS), Antiques Roadshow developed this guide to integrating material culture into the classroom. Using artifacts from the show, such as late-19th-century American Indian clothing and a napkin drawing by Andy Warhol, it presents strategies for teaching with material culture and questions to ask about how people make, collect, and use material objects.

National Center for Education Statistics

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According to the official site, “The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is the primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data related to education.”

If you're looking for information on educational trends or teaching strategy analyses, try the NCES Publications and Products Search, or browse publications from the last 90 days to review the latest. If you’re not sure where to begin, try the subject index. Examples of titles available include "Teacher Strategies to Help Fourth-Graders Having Difficulty in Reading: An International Perspective" and "High School Dropout and Completion Rates in the United States: 2007." Statistical projections are also available.

Another option is to look through the surveys and programs section to find your area of interest, and then browse a given project’s products. Of particular interest is the elementary/secondary section, which includes information on national statistics, school to work transitions, high school activities, safety, library use, family involvement in childhood education, rural education, and more.

Quick rundowns, "Fast Facts," of certain topics are also available. These include average reading scale scores, SAT scores, teacher trends, English as a second language, and students with disabilities.

The website also provides a number of relevant tools. Teach high school? Point your students toward the College Navigator to help them begin their college search.

Finally, the Kids' Zone also offers a graph making tool and a fun quiz feature. The quiz includes civics and history options for fourth, eighth, and twelfth grade students. Students can select five through 20 question versions. When they’re done, they can click on the "National Performance Results" icon by each question’s answer to see how their knowledge of the question compared to students around the country.

Mudtown Doll

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From the Kansas State Historical Society website:

"A decade before the end of segregation, a kind woman and a little girl broke through racial barriers in Topeka. This handmade African American doll symbolizes a bond between whites and blacks in the Mudtown neighborhood during the 1940s."

They Had a Dream, Too

Description

This 28-minute mini-documentary, intended for 11th and 12th grade students, focuses on the stories of young people who took part in the civil rights movement protests of the 1950s and the 1960s. It begins with the story of the Little Rock Nine, the first African American students to attend Central High School, AR, following Brown v. Board of Education; continues with interviews with people who participated in the movement as children and teenagers; and ends with present-day examples of struggles for civil rights.

Curriculum to complement the video is available at the same URL as the video, below.