A panel of scholars reviews the landmark school desegregation case Brown v. Board of Education and debates whether the case led to true improvement in the life conditions of African Americans.
A panel discusses and debates the troubled desegregation of schools in Little Rock, AR, and the move towards desegregation in general. Ernest Green, one of the nine African American students who attended Little Rock's desegregated school, speaks as one of the panelists.
American Textile History Museum curator Karen Herbaugh looks at the sewing diaries of three New England women and one young girl, compiled in the late 1800s and early 1900s. She examines the history of fashion and fabric revealed by the diaries. This presentation includes slides.
Audio and video options are available.
Professor Martha N. Gardner looks at the life of Lucy Ellen Sewall (1837-1890), a 19th-century Boston medical doctor, who worked for better care for motherless infants, including at the Massachusetts Infant Asylum. Gardner examines medicine in the 19th century and the role of women in medicine. Her presentation includes slides.
Father-and-son writers Steven and Paul Kendrick discuss the legal establishment of segregation (the concept of "separate but equal"), tracing it back to 1847. In that year, an African-American man sued the city of Boston, wanting his daughter to be able to attend a school closer to her home than the nearest all-black school. He was eventually defeated.
Note: Thank you for your interest in our posters. We no longer have the Civil War poster in stock, but you may print a copy or visit the interactive online version.
What can a quilt, a map, some photographs, a haversack, and a receipt tell you about the past? Thanks to Teachinghistory.org’s new FREE poster, “How Do You Piece Together the History of the Civil War?,” these objects can teach a lot about the Civil War and about how historians piece together the past.
This 24 x 36 inch poster features an engaging collage of primary sources and related questions that get students thinking about how we know what we know about the past, especially in relation to our country’s most devastating conflict, the Civil War. The question, “How can geography impact a battle?,” accompanies a map of Gettysburg while a slave receipt prompts students to think about the laws, economics, and people involved in the institution of slavery.
As a special bonus for teachers, Teachinghistory.org has created an interactive version of this poster with links to teaching materials and websites related to the Civil War. Topics include children’s voices during the Civil War, African American perspectives, women’s roles, Civil War era music, and emancipation, as well as military history and life on the battlefield.
This poster and online resources illustrate that it takes many sources and perspectives to develop a rich understanding of the Civil War in all of its complexity.
Catherine Clinton, professor of U.S. history at Queens University Belfast, sifts through the myths and realities of Abraham Lincoln's early life. Lincoln's youth was beset by poverty and loss—his mother died when he was only 10, and his father suffered from bouts of melancholy. Clinton argues that these ordeals helped Lincoln to deal with later obstacles and tragedies.
Comic book author Bentley Boyd talks about his work adapting Colonial Williamsburg's Revolutionary City living history program into comic form. Boyd discusses the challenges and merits of telling historical stories in a visual, narrative format.
To listen to this interview, select "All 2009 podcasts," and scroll to the July 20th program.
The George Washington Carver National Monument presents the early life and impact of George Washington Carver (1864-1943). Carver conducted experiments with peanut farming which would eventually bolster the economy of the South, suffering from the downturn of the cotton industry. The site includes Carver's boyhood home, built in 1881; family cemetery; and birth site. Visitors to the site also learn about Carver's interests in rocks, wood carving, and art, among other hobbies.
The monument offers hands-on programs which focus on 19th-century life, nature programs, guided tours, Junior Ranger activities, a 3/4-mile nature trail, a fourth-grade art and essay contest, curriculum-based field trip programs, outreach programs for students, traveling trunks, and rental videos. The website offers an education packet, curricula, and suggested reading for students.
Soaring food prices, a hunger for locally grown produce, high obesity rates, and the desire by people to reconnect with nature and with each other have sparked a national renaissance in community gardening. As part of this movement, school gardens are sprouting up everywhere. Teachers are using these green spaces to teach a variety of subjects, including horticulture, nutrition, history, science, math, writing, and art.
The idea of incorporating gardens in schools began in the late 19th century when Henry Lincoln Clapp, a teacher at the George Putnam Grammar School in Boston, MA, established the first school garden. Inspired after visiting school gardens in Europe, Clapp created a wildflower and vegetable garden at Putnam in 1891 with support from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. The establishment of school gardens soon spread throughout the state and eventually became a nationwide movement, with an estimated 75,000 school gardens by 1906.
For garden advocates, integrating school gardens in the public schools served many purposes. It was a way to get city children outside, engage them in physical activity, and instill in them a sense of pride and teamwork as they cultivated and maintained their gardens. Gardening classes provided students with vocational and agricultural training. Teachers taught a variety of subjects through garden activities. Students practiced writing by keeping planting journals and writing compositions about the garden. Math skills were acquired by counting seeds, measuring garden plots, and determining the appropriate soil depth for planting. Students learned botany and entomology by observing plants and insects and their interrelationships. Geography and history came into play when students studied the origins of fruits and vegetables and planting customs among different cultures. The gardens provided inspiration for drawing, painting, and performing music. In 1914, the federal government established the Bureau of Education’s Office of School and Home Gardening, which promoted school gardens and provided “how-to” pamphlets and course guides.
Children’s involvement in gardening took on a new urgency when the United States entered World War I in 1917. In order to provide food to European allies facing a food crisis and to U.S. troops fighting overseas, citizens were encouraged to grow food for domestic consumption as part of the war garden campaign. Children were enlisted to join the School Garden Army, which adopted the motto, “A garden for every child, every child in a garden.” Students became important contributors to the garden campaign, growing thousands of dollars worth of produce in their school and home gardens.
When the United States entered World War II, children once again played an active role in growing fruits and vegetables to assist in the war effort. During the war, citizens were encouraged to establish victory gardens in their backyards, vacant lots, and schools to provide food for civilians and troops. Gardening was also promoted to boost morale, encourage physical activity and healthy eating and to help Americans deal with the stresses of war. The U.S. Office of Education encouraged victory gardening at schools and promoted school lunch programs that served locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables. The Boy Scouts of America, 4-H clubs, parks and recreation departments, churches, and many civic organizations were involved in victory gardening programs for children. In 1944, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that victory gardens produced 40 percent of the vegetables that were consumed nationally.
The post-war suburban housing boom of the 1950s and 1960s generated more interest in backyard gardening than in community gardening. This changed in the 1970s when rising food prices, an increase in environmental awareness, and a desire by citizens to revitalize neighborhoods plagued by crime and neglect sparked a new community garden movement. Citizens and non-profit groups, such as Boston Urban Gardeners and New York’s Green Guerillas, turned vacant lots into colorful, productive green spaces. The U.S. Department of Agriculture initiated the Urban Garden Program in 1976 to help residents in major cities grow their own food. Educators and activists who were concerned that children were disconnected from nature and unaware of where their food came from reached out to young people and encouraged them to participate in neighborhood, youth, and school gardens. In a 1974 article in the Washington Post, writer Henry Mitchell noted that in Washington, DC, “there are 1,000 small gardens about town in which children grow such plants as the radish, the onion, and (as the weather stops being barbarous) the tomato.”
Since the 1970s, the popularity of school and youth gardens has grown steadily. California took the lead in 1995 by launching the “Garden in Every School” program. As in the school garden movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, teachers are utilizing these outdoor classrooms to teach a wide range of academic subjects through hands-on experiential activities. In addition, educators are using school gardens to encourage a healthier lifestyle, promote environmental stewardship and provide students with the opportunity to develop leadership and team-building skills.
These free resources provide ideas on how to incorporate school gardens into the academic curriculum, including social studies:
Lawson, Laura. City Bountiful: A Century of Community Gardening in America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.
Mitchell, Henry. “A Child’s Garden in The City.” The Washington Post, May 19, 1974.
School Gardens with Constance Carter. Library of Congress webcast.
Test your knowledge of (modern) historical gardening with our quiz on victory gardens!