Friendship Hill National Historic Site [PA]

Description

Friendship Hill is the country estate of Albert Gallatin (1761-1849), who is most notable for his thirteen year tenure as Secretary of the Treasury during the Jefferson and Madison administrations. In that time he reduced the national debt, purchased the Louisiana Territory and funded the Lewis & Clark exploration." Today, visitors to Friendship Hill can explore the restored Gallatin House as well as view several exhibits to learn more about the history of Albert Gallatin. Visitors can also enjoy a variety of outdoor activities, including picnics and hiking.

The site offers in depth historical and visitor information regarding the National Historic Site.

Central Sierra Historical Society

Description

The Central Sierra Historical Society and Museum, Inc. is a 501 (c)(3) public benefit corporation with a membership of over 500 individuals, businesses, and organizations. This grassroots endeavor was the catalyst for the Central Sierra Historical Society, which identified as part of its mission the creation of a regional history museum. CSHS launched the Museum of the Central Sierra with a major media event in 1998. In addition to museum building, CSHS is actively preserving local historical treasures, such as the Pine Logging Camp and a 1912 caboose from the SJ&E Railroad and collecting the oral histories of area pioneers.

The site offers information about the society and contains coverage of past events.

Caprock Canyons State Park and Trailway [TX]

Description

The escarpment's scenic canyons were home for Indians of several cultures, including the Folsom culture of more than 10,000 years ago. The region's historic era began when Spanish explorer Coronado traveled across the plains in 1541. After Spanish colonies were established in New Mexico around 1600, two-way trade between Plains Indians and New Mexicans began and gradually increased. The Plains Apache acquired horses and became proficient buffalo hunters. They were displaced by the Comanche, who arrived in the early 1700s and dominated northwestern Texas, until they were finally subdued in the 1870s. During the Comanche reign, trade prospered and New Mexican buffalo hunters, known as ciboleros, and traders, known as Comancheros, were frequent visitors to this area. Las Lenguas Creek, a few miles south of the park, was a major trade area, and a site excavated on Quitaque Creek has produced artifacts indicating that it may have been a cibolero camp.

The park offers tours and educational and recreational events and programs.

The Eastman Project: Images of California Life

Image
Photo, Garbage Cans, Jervie Henry Eastman, 1946, The Eastman Project
Annotation

This extensive archive offers more than 13,200 photographs taken in California between 1921 and 1965 by Jervie Henry Eastman. The collection includes photographs, negatives, and postcards "for a wide variety of northern California locations and events, including dam construction, logging, mining, food processing, and community buildings and activities." Eastman established his photo studio in 1921.

Clicking on the thumbnail images brings up a larger version of the photograph with descriptive data. For some of the images it is necessary to select "more information about this image" to find the specific subject of the photograph. This selection also provides a subject cross-reference list. Search is by keyword only. The collection is of interest to those researching the history of northern California and those interested in urban history or historical geography.

Oral History
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Emergence of Modern US, 1890-1930
Great Depression & WWII, 1929-1945
Postwar US, 1945-Early 1970s
Cities & Suburbs
Daily Life
Environment
Labor
Popular Culture, Leisure
Rural Life
Western States

Creation of the Modern City

Description

Kenneth Jackson, Jacques Barzun Professor in History and the Social Sciences at Columbia University, describes the ways in which 19th-century cities evolved from disorganized, unregulated communities into modern cities focusing on order, safety, and public health. Professor Jackson looks at the motivations behind these developments as well as implementation strategies.

Weathering the Storm

Description

According to BackStory:

"In 1815, a volcanic eruption in Indonesia sent enough ash into the sky to disrupt the world’s weather for the next year. In New England, 1816 became known as 'The Year Without a Summer.' Snow fell in June and July. Crops and animals died. Tens of thousands of people picked up and left; their search for greener pastures became an early chapter in a larger story of westward expansion.

This week on BackStory, we tackle extreme weather: how we’ve tried to predict it, control it, make sense of it. Along the way, we discover that our responses to wind, sleet, and rain have said as much about us as about the natural world."

Nature Transformed: The Environment in American History

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Detail, Nature Transformed
Annotation

This collection of essays, commissioned from distinguished scholars, is designed to deepen content knowledge and offer fresh ideas for teaching. Essays begin with a thorough overview of the topic. “Guiding Discussion” offers suggestions on introducing the subject to students, and “Historians Debate” notes secondary sources with varied views on the topic. Notes and additional resources complete each essay. Essays include links to primary sources in the National Humanities Center’s Toolbox Library and are part of the larger TeacherServe project.

Visitors can browse 17 essays, divided into "Native Americans and the Land," "Wilderness and the American Identity," and "The Use of the Land." These focus on the changing ways in which North Americans have related to the natural world and its resources. Topics include, among others, “The Columbian Exchange,” “The Effects of Removal on American Indian Tribes,” “Cities and Suburbs,” and “Environmental Justice for All.”

Useful for teachers looking to expand their content knowledge beyond the information and viewpoints presented in textbooks, and to get a taste of historians' debate over the interpretation of history.

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environmentalism
Pre-1865 [9-12]
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Earth Day
Splash Pullout Earth Day
Learn Earth Day
All
American Indians
Environment

The Early Conservation Movement

Question

Was it successful for everyone?

Textbook Excerpt

Most begin by describing how industrialization marred the environment and wasted natural resources. They then describe how President Theodore Roosevelt secured new laws that gave the federal government power to curb environmental abuses and manage natural resources.

Source Excerpt

Sources show how conservation laws designed to protect wasteful and damaging uses of natural resources created entirely new categories of crime. They redefine traditional “pioneering” activities such as carving farmland out of the public domain, building log cabins, and hunting animals for food as the crimes of squatting, timber theft, and poaching. They also reveal how conserving Yosemite and the Grand Canyon for public enjoyment carried significant costs for Native Americans who called these places home.

Historian Excerpt

Historians describe the conservation movement as significantly more diverse, both geographically and politically, than textbook accounts suggest. They tend to emphasize the movement’s strong ties to the larger Progressive movement, explore conservation’s national scope, and highlight the work of local grassroots leaders. Historians have also emphasized the significant human costs and unintended environmental consequences of key conservation policies.

Abstract

Textbooks celebrate the conservation movement as an unalloyed success: New forestry laws prevented widespread clear-cutting, erosion, and fires. Game preservation laws protected wildlife from overhunting. Reclamation laws reformed the haphazard use of scarce water resources in the American West, enabling agricultural expansion. Preservation laws protected areas of scenic beauty from privatization and tacky commercial development. Yet historians have depicted the conservation movement much more broadly—and have assessed its legacy more critically. Why?

Resources for Earth Day

Date Published
Article Body

With its origins in the rising environmental awareness of the 1960s and '70s, Earth Day gives students a chance to consider how human relationships with the natural environment have changed over time. How did pre-colonial and colonial North Americans relate to nature? How were their lives shaped by it? How did the industrial revolution in the U.S. change these relationships? What changes have occurred since then?

If you're looking for resources to teach the relationship of geography and natural science to U.S. history, visit our Earth Day spotlight page. You'll find website reviews, teaching strategies for using maps and the environment, quizzes, and more.

Many other organizations also offer Earth Day resources. Here are some ideas to keep you browsing:

  • Discover events and volunteer opportunities nationwide on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s Earth Day page.
  • Browse articles, primary source collections, links, and more related to conservation history and present-day science with the Library of Congress's Earth Day reference guide.
  • Head back to the '70s with the National Archives and Records Administration's collection of Documerica photographs. (Documerica, an EPA project, asked freelance photographers to capture environmental problems on film.)
  • Explore the parks of the National Park Service (NPS), and learn about the history of the NPS on the PBS website The National Parks: America's Best Idea (a companion to Ken Burns's documentary of the same name).
  • Read presidential proclamations from past Earth Days on the White House's website.
  • Learn about the life of President Theodore Roosevelt, including his support of conservation, in the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History's journal History Now.
  • Introduce students to Earth Day with National Geographic Education's "Think Green" resource collection.
  • Follow a timeline on the history of Earth Day and watch videos on environmental science at History.com.
  • Learn how Earth Day got its start and explore environmental awareness activities at publisher Scholastic's Celebrate Earth Day hub.
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