The Wright Brothers in Photographs

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More than 400 items, including approximately 380 photographs, on the Wright Brothers' "early inventive period documenting their experimental gliders and flight testing in both North Carolina and Ohio." Most of the materials date from 1897 to 1908. Approximately half of the photographs were taken in the Outer Banks, NC. In addition to recording the Wrights' aviation trials, these images provide "a valuable record of their home life, camp life, and the flora and fauna" of the area.

More than 70 images were taken at Le Mans, France, and approximately 25 at Fort Myer, VA. The Wrights themselves produced more than 180 photos, and fellow flight pioneer Octave Chanute shot approximately 35. The site, which promises future additions, allows browsing by date, object type, place, and creator, and is fully searchable. Primarily of interest for those studying early flight history.

Milwaukee Neighborhoods: Photos and Maps, 1885-1992

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This website presents 638 images of the buildings and neighborhoods of Milwaukee that together document the development of the city of Milwaukee from the mid-1880s to the early 1990s. The collection brings together images from two rare books, the photograph collections of the American Geographical Society Library and the Archives Department at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Libraries, and two extensive photograph collections. Image subjects include residential and industrial facilities, local businesses, historic buildings, churches, and numerous Milwaukee parks.

An essay by professor Judith Kenny entitled Picturing Milwaukee makes use of images from the collection to examine the growth and development of Milwaukee and its 75 neighborhoods in the larger context of economic and social change. Topics addressed include early commercial development, industrialization, suburban development, and the post-World War II city. Additionally, there are 12 maps of Milwaukee that can be browsed separately. Each is accompanied by a descriptive record and a link to a larger image.

The collection can be searched by neighborhood, subject terms, or place/businesses. In addition to those interested in the history of Milwaukee, this site will be of interest to those studying urban development or historical architecture.

New France, New Horizons: On French Soil in America

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Designed to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the French landing in North America, this site is a collection of primary sources related to the French presence in what would later become Canada, the Great Lakes region, and Louisiana. Exhibition features 350 primary sources, including engravings, portraits, other artwork, as well as documents. They are organized by theme and are easy to find and view.

Database includes a database of more than 6,500 documents, including correspondence, reports, and maps. A special viewer allows visitors to zoom in and out of documents, making close viewing possible.

The collection is searchable by date, author, subject, or keyword. Visitors should keep in mind that although the site is written in English and French, the documents are written exclusively in French. The wealth of primary sources makes this a valuable resource for researchers, but language may prove a barrier for students and teachers.

Augustana College Library, Digital Projects

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This website presents thirteen "Digital Projects" curated by librarians at Augustana College in Rock Island, IL.

The projects, most with a regional focus on Western Illinois, include: the Upper Mississippi Valley Digital Image Archive, Civil War Diaries (two diaries kept by Union Army soldiers who served near Vicksburg, MS), Early Pioneer Biographies (transcripts of 15 interviews with early settlers of the region), Farm Life (roughly 75 images of farm implements, animals, personalities, and vehicles, including the John Deere homestead), Native Americans (50 images of and interviews with local Black Hawk Indians), Quad City Views (more than 100 photographs of parks, churches, and streets in Davenport and Bettendorf, IA, and Moline and Rock Island, IL from the early 20th century), Transportation (roughly 75 images of regional animals, cars, trucks, trains, busses, trolleys, and boats in the early to mid-20th century), Town and County in Miniature: Color Plate Books at Augustana, and Cardinal Pole's Mission to England.

The Digital Image Archive is the website's largest collection, containing more than 7,000 photographs, drawings, and paintings drawn from several local academic and public libraries. These images range in date from just after the Civil War through the 1950s, and include portraits of prominent local leaders and families, sports teams and social clubs, as well as images of architecture and natural landscapes.

Town and County in Miniature is an online exhibition providing an overview of the color plate book, an illustrative form especially popular in 19th-century Britain, and its dominant genres of topography and travel, caricature, and sport.

Cardinal Pole's Mission is an online exhibition centered on a manuscript containing the correspondence of Reginald Pole (1500–1558) during two diplomatic missions from the Pope, with content created by Augustana College history students.

H.H. Bennett: Photographer Extraordinaire

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This website makes available 650 photographs and stereographs taken by Henry Hamilton Bennett, a commercial photographer who worked in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Chicago from 1865 to 1908. Bennett was most renowned for his photos of the Wisconsin landscape, most especially his views of the Wisconsin Dells, and steamboats and lumber rafters on the Wisconsin River. Also collected on this website are his images of Milwaukee, Minneapolis (including its Winter Carnival with ice structures and sculptures), and Chicago during the Columbian Exposition of 1893.

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.

McVicar/Stein Photo Copy Service Collection

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This diverse collection of some 2,000 photographs, both negatives and prints, consists of pictures taken in Madison, WI, by commercial photographers Angus McVicar and George Stein from the 1920s through the 1960s. The images are of businesses, people, the University of Wisconsin campus and its students, street scenes, the urban environment, and civic and fraternal organizations. Visitors can browse the collection by pre-selected topics under businesses, people, transportation, University of Wisconsin, and workers. Some of the sub-categories include the central business district, restaurants, celebrities and entertainers, politicians, airplanes, railroad cars and employees, student activities, and office workers. Visitors can also use the Wisconsin Historical Society advanced search to view the entire collection. Full bibliographic information accompanies each image. This site is a useful resource for researching the 20th-century social and cultural history of the Midwest or Wisconsin and its people.

Northern Visions of Race, Region, and Reform in the Press

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This website brings together more than 200 letters, articles, official documents, and illustrations focused on issues of race and reform during and after the Civil War, including unpublished letters written by Northern women who taught freedmen in the South and letters written by their students. Many of the texts are presented in original (handwritten) format and transcription. The website is a combination exhibit, with introductory and explanatory text, and primary source archive.

Materials are available through two paths-through the "Primary Resource Index" or through three topics: "The Freedmen," "Freedmen's Education," and "At War's End" (not yet complete). Within each topic, there are four to seven subtopics, such as "The Emancipation Proclamation" and "Visions of Freedmen in Letters of Freedmen" and at least one subtopic has further subcategories. Each subtopic begins with introductory text, often several paragraphs in length, that provides background information as well as links to relevant documents. The site cautions that "some of the materials on this site are racially offensive." A search is available at the bottom of document pages, but the dedicated search page is not currently working. There are links to more than 100 additional online primary and secondary sources.

The African-American Mosaic

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Comprised of 15 essays, ranging from 700 to 1,800 words, and about 120 images, this exhibit is drawn from the black history and culture collections of the Library of Congress. The materials cover four areas: colonization, abolition, migrations, and the Works Progress Administration (WPA)--a New Deal program of the 1930s. Specific subjects include Liberia and the American Colonization Society; prominent abolitionists; Western migration, homesteading, and Chicago as the "promised land" for Southern blacks; and ex-slave narratives gathered by WPA writers. No primary texts are available here, but the essays are well-illustrated with historical photos and images.

Abraham Lincoln

Teaser

This lesson leads students to see how Lincoln's life in Springfield influenced important national issues.

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Description

Students analyze Abraham Lincoln's adult life in Springfield, Illinois, and its influence on his political thinking.

Article Body

This lesson provides an opportunity for students to see how Lincoln's home and life in Springfield influenced the way he thought about the important issues of the time. Students answer questions about photographs and maps to develop a context for thinking about documents related to Lincoln and the Civil War. An engaging set of vintage photographs and maps shows Lincoln's world and helps students better understand the spirit of the times. But the real strength of this lesson is in the excellent text resources and accompanying questions provided for students. We especially like the carefully excerpted passages from key speeches by Abraham Lincoln that are provided in the readings section of the resources. We suggest that teachers use this excellent set of materials to design their own final writing assignment. We would love to see something that has students make explicit their understanding of how Lincoln's political ideas were influenced by the place and time in which he lived and died. Students could use evidence from both the visual and print media they have studied to write an essay on this topic. Another approach would be to assign separate essays relating to specific texts such as Lincoln's Farewell Address to Springfield. The suggested activities, listed in the Putting it All Together section of the lesson plan, unfortunately do not focus on helping students do this kind of synthesis.

Topic
Abraham Lincoln, U.S. Civil War
Time Estimate
1-2 class sessions
flexibility_scale
3
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Rubric_Content_Accurate_Scholarship

The supplementary resources for teachers are excellent.

Rubric_Content_Historical_Background

Yes Background readings are provided for students.

Rubric_Content_Read_Write

Yes Students read primary and secondary sources and answer questions about them. Teachers can be selective about which questions to feature. We recommend requiring written answers.

Rubric_Analytical_Construct_Interpretations

Yes Guided questions are included to help students analyze the resource materials. We particularly like the questions that ask students to compare different sources to create their answer. However, the lesson lacks a culminating activity that requires students to interpret and synthesize the set of materials. Teachers will need to devise a task that requires this.

Rubric_Analytical_Close_Reading_Sourcing

Yes The lesson uses a variety of sources. However, students may need reminders to pay close attention to the date and location of the source's origin as there are no explicit questions that help them do so.

Rubric_Scaffolding_Appropriate

Yes Students at lower skill levels may require additional guidance from the teacher.

Rubric_Scaffolding_Supports_Historical_Thinking

Yes Significant portions of texts are excerpted or highlighted to make reading easier. In addition a structured photo analysis worksheet is provided to help students learn to interpret visual evidence.

Rubric_Structure_Assessment

No No assessment strategies or criteria are included.

Rubric_Structure_Realistic

Yes Directions are clear and the materials are suitable for all classrooms. Specific instructions on how to use historic sites to teach history are provided.

Rubric_Structure_Learning_Goals

No Several different learning goals are attainable with these materials. We suggest that teachers make use of the strong visual component in this lesson to highlight how non-textual sources of evidence can help us understand how Lincoln developed and expressed his political ideas.