Dolley Madison Project

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This attractive and easy to navigate website focuses on the life and legacy of First Lady Dolley Payne Todd Madison, wife of James Madison. There are two main sections. "Resources" includes four short background essays on different periods of Dolley Madison's life; a timeline and chronology of her life; a short essay explaining the controversy over Dolley Madison's first name; an alphabetical listing of her correspondents with biographical sketches; and a link to the National First Ladies' Library page on Dolley Madison with a bibliography and lesson plans. "Exhibit" offers four presentations focused on Dolley Madison's life: early years, years in Washington, years at Montpelier during her husband's retirement, and widowhood. Each has a background essay, selected letters, an image gallery (41 images total), and a timeline. There is also a link to the Dolley Madison Digital Edition, a fee-based archive containing "the first-ever complete edition of all her known correspondence." Additionally, there is a section on the use of Dolley Madison's name and image in popular culture with a collection of 27 images. A useful information resource for those interested in Dolley Madison or teaching about her life.

U.S. Census Bureau

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The United States Census Bureau's mission is to collect and provide data on the economy and people of the United States.

The bureau's website is definitely worth an educator's time. Several sections are designed specifically for students of different ages, and the overall navigation is relatively simple and effective.

To start, perhaps you need current statistics to compare to historical data? In that case, the best recommendation would be QuickFacts, which offers data on the population of the states, individual counties, and all towns and cities with more than 25,000 inhabitants. State Facts offers similar data for states, presented in a more colorful, engaging, child-friendly manner. More detailed data can be found by choosing your area of interest from the navigation bar on the left of the American FactFinder page.

The bureau also offers a teacher and children's page. Highlights include lesson plans; warm-up activities; facts pre-selected for holidays and observances; and maps depicting city growth and distribution between 1790 and 2000.

A page for younger children provides counting, coloring, word, trivia, and memory games. Be aware that the site has a rather peppy little song clip, which may delight students or annoy them, depending on their ages and personalities.

Finally, if you're having a difficult time convincing individual teenage students that formal education is worthwhile, money is always a fantastic incentive. Consider showing them the financial payoffs of advanced education. The data also covers the earning differences among ethnicities in the U.S.

Teaching Future Historians: U.S. History Lesson Plans Using Primary Documents

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This website offers links to lesson plans, audio recordings, and video lectures related to the Antebellum, Civil War, and Gilded Age eras. There are 15 lesson plans on the Antebellum era focused on the Lincoln-Douglas debates, antislavery, Cherokee removal, slavery and the legal status of free blacks, gender roles, religion in political life, and the free-market labor vs. slave labor, "mudsill" theory debate. The nine lesson plans on the Gilded Age include such diverse topics as the WCTU and the lynching controversy, civil service reform, bimetallism, free trade, and political campaign songs. There are 145 downloadable songs organized by topic.

The site also offers access to downloadable video lectures on 12 different topics that include African Americans and race, economic development and labor, frontier settlement, law and society, religion and culture, women and gender, and political development. Most topics have 10 or more lectures available. A small site, but very useful for teaching the history of these three eras.

Illinois During the Gilded Age

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Focused on the Gilded Age in Illinois, this website offers 287 primary source documents. These include political speeches, pamphlets, songs, audio recordings, and maps that deal with such issues as politics, farming, law, labor, religion, and economic development. Visitors can browse all 287 items or search by author, title, date, theme, or genre. Visitors can search text documents, images, or audio files separately. The site also offers 26 video lectures from college professors interpreting the major issues of the period. Lecture topics include John Dewey, Dwight Moody, Chicago Gilded Age culture, women's suffrage, government and reform, the People's Party, William Jennings Bryan, William Mckinley, and the election of 1896.

The site can also be explored through eight historical themes, each with an interpretive essay, a bibliography, a search feature for related primary documents, and a list of related video lectures. The themes are: economic development and labor, labor, law and society, political development, race and ethnicity, religion and culture, settlement and immigration, and women's experience and gender roles. In addition, eight essays cover important periods: 1866-1868 (war's aftermath), 1869-1872 (the Chicago Fire), 1873-1876 (the Panic of 1873), 1877 (The Great Strike), 1878-1884 (Immigration, Labor, and Politics), 1884-1891 (Haymarket and Hull House), 1892-1895 (1893 Chicago's World Fair), and 1896 (The Cross of Gold). The "Teacher's Parlor" has nine lesson plans, including the WCTU and the lynching controversy, civil service reform, bimetallism, and free trade.

Dolley Madison Digital Edition

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This website presents all known correspondence of the wife of James Madison, containing roughly 2,000 letters. Although many letters are thank-you notes or polite responses to social invitations, others offer rich insights into the personality and experiences of the First Lady, especially those exchanged with her sisters. The letters are organized into five periods: birth and youth; the years as wife of the secretary of state; the years as first lady; retirement; and widowhood. Users can search by name, date, topic, or place. A table of contents lists the letters by date, author, and recipient.

Additional features include a biographical sketch; "Crosslinks" listing all names (including nicknames, middle, and maiden) appearing in each letter, in order of appearance; a different color font to highlight unclear or missing characters or words; and a summary of the contents of each letter. Although the site is gated, a free trial option is accessible to all.

Getting the Message Out! National Political Campaign Materials, 1840-1860

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After property qualifications for voting were eliminated in the 1830s, the American electorate expanded from 1.5 million to 2.4 million. As abolition, the extension of slavery, the Mexican War, and the Dred Scott decision dominated the national debate, songs, parades, and barbecues became increasingly important campaign tools to reach out to new voters. This type of political material culture is highlighted through this website, presenting 1,200 documents, more than 650 images, 100 songs, and interactive country-wide Presidential election maps for all six Presidential elections between 1840 and 1860. Detailed contextual information is available on a wide range of subjects, such as political campaigns, political parties, and major national events. Five short videos by well-known scholars address political culture, the second party system, politics as popular entertainment, and women's roles in antebellum politics. The detailed lesson plan in the "Teacher's Podium" challenges students to assess changing campaign strategies through song lyrics.

The Adoption History Project

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In 1851, Massachusetts passed the first law recognizing adoption as a legal and social operation. Since then, adoption has had a rich history in the United States, documented at this website through close to 200 reports, writings, letters, adoption narratives, and other documents. Users unfamiliar with adoption history might begin by exploring the detailed timeline that traces adoption history from 1851 to 2000, when Congress passed the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 eliminating the process of naturalization for international adoptions. Moving on to the Topics in Adoption History section, with in-depth explanations of orphan trains, proxy adoptions, infertility, child welfare, and eugenics, will help build historical context. The Document Archive and Adoption Science sections boast documents from the late 1800s to the present by notables such as Pearl Buck, adoptees searching for information on their biological parents, and court decisions on adoption throughout the 20th century.

Historical Agency in History Book Sets (HBS)

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What Is It?

A strategy that combines fiction and nonfiction texts to guide students in analyzing historical agency.

Rationale

Authors of historical fiction for children and adolescents often anchor their narratives in powerful stories about individuals. Emphasis on single actors, however, can frustrate students’ attempts to understand how collective and institutional agency affects opportunities to change various historical conditions. History Book Sets (HBS) that focus on experiences of separation or segregation take advantage of the power of narratives of individual agency to motivate inquiry into how collective and institutional agency supported or constrained individuals’ power to act.

Description

History Book Sets combine a central piece of historical fiction with related non-fiction. By framing a historical issue or controversy in a compelling narrative, historical fiction generates discussion regarding the courses of action open not only to book characters, but to real historical actors. Carefully chosen non-fictional narratives contextualize the possibilities and constraints for individual action by calling attention to collective and institutional conditions and actions.

Teacher Preparation
  1. Select a piece of well-crafted historical fiction that focuses on a historical experience of separation or segregation (NCSS Notable Books is a good    place to start). The example focuses on Cynthia Kadohata’s (2006)  Weedflower—a story that contrasts a young Japanese-American internee’s    relocation experience with a young Mohave Indian’s reservation experience.
  2. Select two pieces of related non-fiction that provide context for the historical fiction. Non-fiction should include courses of action taken by    groups and institutions, as well as individuals. This example uses Joanne Oppenheim’s (2007) “Dear Miss Breed”: True Stories of the Japanese    American Incarceration During World War II and a Librarian Who Made a Difference and Herman Viola’s (1990) After Columbus.
  3. Select photographs that visually locate the events in the literature. Duplicate two contrasting sets of photographs.
  4. Reproduce templates for poem (Template A) and recognizing agency chart (Template B). The recognizing agency chart works best if students begin    with an 8½x11 chart and then transfer their work to larger chart paper.
  5. The time you need will depend on whether you assign the historical fiction for students to read or use it as a read-aloud. Reading a book aloud    generates conversation, ensures that everyone has this experience in common, and lessens concerns about readability. If students read the    book independently, plan on three class periods.
In the Classroom
  1. Recognizing Changing Perspectives. In making sense of historical agency, it helps if students recognize that different people experience historical    events differently. For instance, the main fictional characters in the example have quite distinct views of relocation camps. The packets of    photographs help children interpret changing perspectives, and the biographical poem provides a literary structure for expressing their    interpretations.
      • Organize the students in pairs. Give half the pairs Packet A (Japanese Experiences); half Packet B (Indian Experiences). Students write captions for the pictures explaining how the experiences pictured influence characters’ view of the relocation camp.
      • Drawing on their discussion and readings, each pair of students writes a biographical poem (see Template A) representing how their character’s ideas and attitudes change over the course of the story.
      • Display captioned pictures and poems where students can refer to them during the next activity.
  2. Recognizing Agency: What Can be Done?
      • Distribute Recognizing Agency chart (Template B). Work through the chart using a secondary character in the historical fiction as an example.
      • Assign pairs of students to a fictional or historical participant. For example, students might investigate the fictional main character or a family member or friend or students could investigate a historical participant.
      • Display charts. Discuss:
        1. Why do some people, groups and institutions seem to have more power than others?
        2. How can people work most effectively for change?
        3. Can you identify strategies used to alter other historical experiences of separation or segregation?
  3. Agency Today. After considering the kinds of agency expressed by people    during the past, students might write an argument for or against    contemporary issues that surround the topic. For instance in the example,    students investigate efforts to restore the relocation camp.
Common Pitfalls
Example
  1. Book selection presents the most common pitfall in developing and using    an HBS. Historical fiction presents a two-pronged challenge: If the    narrative in the historical fiction does not hold up, good historical    information can’t save it. On the other hand, a powerful narrative can    convince students of the “rightness” of very bad history. Never use books    you have not read! With that in mind:
      • Make sure you check out reviews of historical fiction and non-fiction (i.e.    Hornbook, Booklinks, Notable Books) or more topic-specific reviews such    as those provided by Oyate, an organization interested in accurate    portrayals of American Indian histories.
      • Choose non-fiction emphasizing collective and institutional agency that    contextualizes actions in the novel.
  2. Because students’ identification with literary characters can be quite    powerful, use caution in identifying one historical group or another as    “we.” Implying connections between historical actors and students    positions students to react defensively rather than analytically. None of    your students, for instance, placed people in relocation camps or on    reservations, but referring to past actions by the U.S. government as    something “we” did can confuse the issue. Students are not responsible    for the past, but as its legatees they are responsible for understanding    what happened well enough to engage in informed deliberation about the    consequences of past actions.
  3. Historical Book Sets are designed to work against tendencies to    overgeneralize about group behavior (i.e. assuming all European    Americans supported internment). In response to overgeneralization, ask    for (or point out if necessary) counter-examples from the book set.    Occasional prompting encourages students to test their generalizations    against available evidence and to think about within-group as well as    between-group differences.
  4. Historical Agency: Internment and Reservation at Poston. Background for the teacher: Groups and individuals exercise power differently, depending on the social, cultural, economic, and political forces shaping the world in which they are acting. In the case of the internment and reservation systems, for example, the power of Japanese-Americans to resist internment was quite different from the power of the War Relocation Authority to enforce relocation. Or, consider that the options available to Japanese men were quite different from those available to women or to the Native American residents of the Poston reservation. Introducing the concept of historical agency—what action was possible given the historical moment—can be a powerful tool for making sense of past behaviors. Power is a familiar concept to students who, with relatively little prompting, understand not only that larger forces may limit or expand opportunities for action, but that individuals may not all respond in the same way to those opportunities. Beginning by recognizing different perspectives on an event prepares students to consider why people might take different action, and comparing responses to action prepares students to consider available options for expressing agency. This, in turn, reinforces an important historical understanding: nothing happens in a vacuum. By placing so much attention on individual agency (often some hero or heroine), history instruction too often ignores persistent patterns of collective and institutional agency. This is not to dismiss narratives of individual agency. This HBS begins with Sumiko’s and Frank’s story because individual agency captures students’ interest and engenders a level of care that motivates further investigation of the differential agency expressed by the individuals, groups, and institutions that framed Sumiko’s and Frank’s historical choices. * Agency refers to the power of individuals, groups, and institutions to resist, blunt, or alter historical conditions. Differential agency refers to differences in potential for and expression of power within and between individuals, groups, and institutions.
Bibliography

Bamford, Rosemary A. and Janice V. Kristos, eds. Making Facts Come Alive: Choosing Quality Nonfiction Literature K-8, 2nd ed. City: Christopher-Gordon Publishers, 2003.

Levstik, Linda S. and Keith C. Barton. Doing History: Investigating with Children in Elementary and Middle Schools. London: Routledge (2005).

Willa Cather Archive

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Willa Cather (1873–1947) wrote 12 novels and numerous works of short fiction. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1923 and is known for her intensive examination of life in the midwestern U.S. This extensive archive is dedicated to her life and work. At its core is a collection of all of her novels, short fiction, journalistic writing, interviews, speeches, and public letters published before 1922. All materials are fully searchable. Notably, both O Pioneers! and My Antonia are accompanied by extensive scholarly notes, historical context, and introductory material. Accompanying her published materials is a collection of 2,054 of Cather's letters (again annotated and fully searchable), more than 600 photographs of Cather and important people and places in her life, audio of Cather's Pulitzer Prize acceptance speech, and a short video clip of Cather. Several scholarly articles and a text analysis tool are also available.

Jewish Women's Archive

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These exhibits and resources are valuable for studying American Jewish women's contributions to their communities and the wider world. Women of Valor focuses on 16 notable historic women—including Congresswoman Bella Abzug; radical Emma Goldman; philanthropist Rebecca Gratz; poet Emma Lazarus; actress Molly Picon; Hadassah founder Henrietta Szold; and nurse, settlement worker, and political leader Lillian Wald. Women Who Dared offers oral history interviews of Jewish women activists in text, audio, and video formats. Interviewees discuss activism in the context of Jewish and gender identity, values, and situations, and elucidate the path to activism, challenges, rewards, and impact. The Encyclopedia, browsable by keyword, time period, and country, includes 2,000 articles on Jewish women's history. This Week in History looks at moments in the lives of Jewish American women corresponding to the date; visitors can subscribe to this feature by RSS feed or email. On the Map pinpoints locations important to Jewish American women's history—and to Jewish American women today. Visitors can add their own locations with photos. Jewesses with Attitude, the JWA blog, features articles on Jewish American women past and present and on other topics relevant to the lives of Jewish American women today. The site has also digitized nine volumes of The American Jewess. Most recently, the Jewish Women's Archive has compiled objects, photographs, and personal accounts of the Hurricane Katrina disaster and the aftermath, complete with 100 oral histories, blog postings, emails, and other firsthand accounts.