All Hands on Deck

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Oil on canvas, 1884, USS Constitution. . . , Davidson, USS Constitution Museum
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The USS Constitution Museum developed All Hands on Deck as a means of introducing K–12 educational elements across subjects (math, art, and more) using the history of one of the United States' most renowned military vessels, the USS Constitution.

The website itself is somewhat disorganized. However, there are a plethora of lesson plans embedded within it for students of any grade level.

The available lessons are divided into five sections—preview activities (to determine pre-existing knowledge), the building of early U.S. military frigates, the War of 1812 and the Barbary Wars, 1800s life aboard a warship, and the lasting legacy of the USS Constitution. These sections have subsections, within which you can find individual lessons intended for grades K–4, 5–8, and 9–12. Alternatively, visiting "How to Use This Online Curriculum" includes a linked list of states. Clicking on any of the available states—IL, MD, WA, SC, TN, MO, TX, NM, CO, MT, and VA—offers a list of the activities available on the website which correlate with state standards. The individual subsections also include recommended field trip sites, films, books, games, music, and more; as well as anecdotes, literature, and other "grab bag" additional items of interest.

The Image Gallery offers a smattering of paintings, illustrations, and photographs of the vessel and its officers. The gallery also contains a single newspaper recruitment ad dating to 1798.

Educators who would prefer a tangible copy of the curriculum can send an electronic request.

Alternatively, you may want to brush up on your USS Constitution history yourself. In that case, the website offers a 19-minute video in which a young girl meets a variety of figures aboard the ship—a captain's wife, a powder monkey, and an African American sailor among them.

Newspapers and Periodicals
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maritime history
ships
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War of 1812 Bicentennial
Learn War of 1812
Revolution & New Nation, 1754-1820s
Expansion & Reform, 1801-1861
African Americans
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Boston Harbor Islands Partnership [MA]

Description

The Boston Harbor Islands Partnership is an umbrella organization representing the public access islands of Boston Harbor. Islands suggested for U.S. history studies include Deer, Thompson, Spectacle, Georges, and Little Brewster Islands. Topics relevant to the islands include Native American and settler relations, the King Phillips War (1674-1676), seacoast and harbor defense, navigational and lighthouse history, and the industrialization of Boston.

The site offers Junior Ranger activities and a GPS-based self-guided tour. The website offers an interdisciplinary guide for teachers; lesson plans, which focus on civic action, maritime history, settlement, and the Native American experience; thematic information on Native American life, geology, the Civil War, the Revolutionary War, ecosystems, and science and technology; and a list of island suggestions according to educational theme. The partnership's other offerings include a video, for rent, on five local Native American tribes; the Harbor Connections educational program; and educator professional development programming.

Summer Reading: Clearinghouse Staff Recommendations, Part II

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watchman book cover
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Earlier this summer, Clearinghouse staff members shared some ideas for summer reading. In this installment, other staff members highlight their choices—a graphic novel, a maritime log book, film, and a political thriller.

When is a comic book not a comic book, but a novel?

If you've been in a bookstore lately, you've undoubtedly noticed sections and shelf space devoted to the graphic novel. Research Associate Lara Harmon is a fan of Watchmen, a 450-plus page graphic novel first published in the mid-1980s and released as a film in March 2009. One reviewer described Watchmen as the Citizen Kane of graphic novels, a multi-layered narrative that has not dulled with age. Lara agrees. "It changed perceptions of the comic book as a medium and remains a tightly-plotted, cynical look at politics, science, war, and human nature."

She recommends that educators look at how the story and characters treat Cold War anxieties, the Vietnam War, and issues of American world status and power following Vietnam.

Political Policy, Culture, and Film

Multimedia Developer Chris Preparato advocates Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner—later a PBS documentary series.

Chris explains, "It's part history of the settlement of the American West, part environmental study of people sustainably living in essentially the desert that is the West. The first half is a dramatized version of the settling of towns like Los Angeles and how speculators and politicians destroyed entire towns just to create water sources for the city. The second half looks at policy and ways to change current policies to make the west sustainable."

Great minds look at films as history and culture.

Chris also recommends Roger Ebert's Book of Film: From Tolstoy to Tarantino, the finest writing from a century of film. This anthology explores the history of films and how critics, authors, and others have written and talked about them. Chris sees this as a great source of film history and theory.

Maritime History and Exploration

Research Assistant Alaina Harmon recommends Logbook for Grace: Whaling Brig Daisy, 1912-1913 by Robert Cushman Murphy, first published in 1947. The Daisy was a whaling ship, and Murphy, an ornithologist and former curator of birds for the American Museum of Natural History, sailed with her to the sub-Antarctic to observe and collect oceanic birds. During a four-month stop to hunt elephant seals, he collected specimens of penguins, other birds, marine mammals, and plants later deposited in the Museum of Natural History.

Murphy's log entries are partly letters home to his wife.

Murphy comments on his own activities, the processes of whaling and blubber harvesting, and life at sea, periodically sending the manuscript home to his wife, Grace, to keep her informed about his travels. Alaina comments, "As a logbook, this is a great read, since maritime logs written by sailors are far more likely to list weather, current navigational standing, any crew punishments or exasperations of the writer, whale sightings or killings if relevant, and occasional poems or lyrics. The sailing logs are fantastic for research, but Murphy's book benefits from its triple focus: maritime history and life, zoology, and museum practice."

Political Thriller

Pondering questions about power, corruption in high places, conspiracy theories, and political vigilantes? For a change of pace and an entertaining read, suspend your critical thinking skills for this political thriller. Multimedia Associate Misha Vinokur recommends Term Limits by Vince Flynn. "It's an answer to just what could happen when ex-military commandos decide to rid Washington of corrupt officials."

Resources for the Titanic's Centennial

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Photo, Mrs. Lister Hill [Titanic Memorial, Washington, D.C., c.1940, LoC
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April 15, 2012, marks the centennial of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, a disaster that still looms large in popular imagination. Why is the Titanic so well remembered? What sets it apart from the hundreds of disasters at sea that have happened before and after?

Use the centennial as a chance to ask your students how they know what they know about history. Do they know about the ship? Where did they learn about it? From a book or a movie? Your students can bring together the skills of historians and scientists to uncover their own answers about the disaster—from who was on the ship to why it sank to how the story of the Titanic fits into history and the present day.

Where to begin? We've gathered some ideas for places to start your search for resources:

  • Research the Titanic with the Library of Congress's guide to Library resources. The Library's blog for teachers also rounds up useful primary sources and links to lesson plans.
  • Discover primary sources buried in the collections of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). NARA blog entries look at letters sent to President Taft about the sinking, one survivor's luggage ticket and coupon, and compensation claims from the widows of postal clerks. (NARA also holds a 1912 list of some of the survivors of the disaster.)
  • Interested in learning more about the Titanic's postal clerks? Get to know them with the National Postal Museum's exhibit Posted Aboard RMS Titanic. All of the clerks died at sea, determined to rescue the ship's mail.
  • View artifacts related to the voyage and disaster from the Smithsonian Institution.
  • Read articles related to the disaster and share teaching ideas on the New York Times Learning Network feature.
  • Get a UK perspective on the ship courtesy of the BBC, including survivor interviews and an interactive look at the wreck site.
  • Learn about the science and history behind the story of the Titanic with resources from National Geographic Education. A lesson plan from National Geographic Xpeditions connects geography and history, and "Unseen Titanic," an interactive web feature includes zoomable images of the wreck.
  • Navigate the creation and sinking of the Titanic with HISTORY.com's interactives, videos, and photos.
For more information

James Cameron's film Titanic has helped keep the disaster in public memory. But does the film say more about 1997 than it does about 1912? Historian Steven Biel shares a critical look at Titanic in a film review reprinted from the Journal of American History.

Historical Society of Newburgh Bay and the Highlands [NY]

Description

The Historical Society of Newburgh Bay and the Highlands seeks to preserve and share the history of the Newburgh area, New York. To this end, the society operates the 1830 neoclassical Captain David Crawford House, once home to an major local maritime entrepreneur. The house presents 19th-century upper class life and the histories of Newburgh and the Hudson River Valley. Society collections include furnishings, decorative arts, archival documents, and fine arts. Highlights include 18th-century furnishings, a Duncan Phyfe settee, and Hudson River School paintings.

The society offers tours and research library access. Appointments are required for library access.

The Slater Memorial Museum [CT]

Description

The Slater Memorial Museum presents world culture through a collection of fine and decorative arts. Collections include 18th through 19th century American art and decorative arts; African and Oceanic sculpture; casts of Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Renaissance sculptures; Native American artifacts; Tokugawa Period Japanese art; Chinese and Korean art; local maritime artifacts; and European decorative and fine arts from between 1600 and 1800. The museum is located within a circa 1886 Romanesque Revival structure.

The museum offers exhibits, guided tours, and weekly art classes for children. Four to six weeks advance notice is required for guided tours.

Oregon Coast History Center [OR]

Description

The Oregon Coast History Center seeks to preserve and share the history of Lincoln County, Oregon and the Central Oregon Coast. To this end, the society operates the Burrows House and Log Cabin. The 1895 Queen Anne-style Burrows House. The house offers exhibits on local history, a law office setting, and a Victorian parlor. The Log Cabin presents Lincoln County history, including maritime history, local bridges, and Native American life. Plans exist to create a maritime history center. Collections include more than 40,000 artifacts dating as far back as 1850. Collection highlights include the charter boat, Kingfisher.

The center offers exhibits, period rooms, district walking tours, educational outreach programs, research library access, oral histories, and research assistance. The log cabin includes a children's hands-on learning area. Reservations are required for group tours.

Peabody Essex Museum [MA]

Description

The Peabody Essex Museum is an art museum, which seeks to engage visitors' interest in the cultural, historical, and human aspects which the works convey through their context of creation. Museum galleries include American decorative arts, Native American contemporary and traditional art, Korean art, Chinese art for use in China and for export, Japanese art for use in Japan and for export, Asian arts on paper, Indian art for use in India and for export, Oceanic art, maritime art, and photography. The museum also operates Yin Yu Tang, a Qing dynasty (1644-1911) home from Anhui Province, China.

The museum offers traditional and interactive exhibits, hands-on art activities, themed guided tours, self-guided tours, 14 curriculum-based programs for students, programs for educators, family programs, a restaurant, and a cafe. Student programs are available with focuses on American art and culture, Asian art and culture, and the visual arts. The website offers Asia, Chinese aesthetics, and Salem witch trials curricula; a teacher's guide to the American collections; slide shows of select current exhibits; images of collection highlights; and a virtual tour of Yin Yu Tang.

The Art and Nature Center will be closed until June 20, 2009 for the installation of a new exhibit. The galleries housing Intersections, Native American Art in a New Light are closed until August 2009.

Pultneyville Historical Society and Museum [NY]

Description

The Pultneyville Historical Society seeks to preserve and present the history of Williamson Township, New York. To this end, the society offers exhibits within a circa 1858 home. Exhibits address the life and work of Horatio Nelson Throop, the 1898 loss of the schooner St. Peter, and local history as depicted through photography. Throop was a boat builder and captain. In the 1830s, he conducted experiments with wind and screw propeller propulsion systems. He was also active in the Underground Railroad. The society owns a collection of artifacts recovered from the wreck of the St. Peter.

The society offers exhibits and archival access. Appointments are required for archival access.

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