This iCue Mini-Documentary describes American sugar planters' control of the plantations of Hawaii. They eventually exercised their power by forcing the queen to abdicate.
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Professor Eric Foner of Columbia University explains the origin of "forty acres and a mule."
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This iCue Mini-Documentary describes how, as the Civil War progresses, slaves fled north. As their numbers increased, they became a weapon of the Union Army.
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Professor Eric Foner of Columbia University discusses the Black Codes, which were written by white southerners to force blacks to keep working on plantations.
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The story of sugar's transformation from luxury product to ubiquitous commodity in the modern Western diet offers a rich vantage on transatlantic and world history. It also prods students and scholars to deeper consideration of the myriad social, cultural, and economic processes within which even the most seemingly banal substances can be enmeshed. Seminar participants will explore these connections and processes, with special attention to the Caribbean. The link between sugar cultivation and the transatlantic slave trade—and the enduring, intertwined legacies of both—will be an important area of discussion and analysis.
This iCue Mini-Documentary describes the social situation in the South prior to the Civil War, in which white society was divided between the wealthy class known as the Planter Aristocracy, and the poor yeoman farmers of the backcountry.
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Kitty Wilson Evans, an award-winning costumed interpreter at Historic Brattonsville, explains how slave children worked on the plantation.
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This iCue Mini-Documentary describes how both the north and the south had to draft soldiers during the Civil War. Since the wealthy could buy their way out of being drafted, class tension erupted into draft riots.
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This workshop examines the questions "How did the self-contained environment of a plantation—its layout, buildings, isolation, and use of the land—influence the lives and self-image of the enslaved?," "What made a plantation 'home?'," "What made a plantation 'hell?'," "How did a slave reconcile 'home' and 'hell?,'" and "What can plantation photographs tell us about plantation life?"
The Center's online resource workshops give high school teachers of U.S. history and American literature a deeper understanding of their subject matter. They introduce teachers to fresh texts and critical perspectives and help teachers integrate them into their lessons. Led by distinguished scholars and running 60 to 90 minutes, they are conducted through lecture and discussion using conferencing software. A resource workshop identifies central themes within a topic and explores ways to teach them through the close analysis of primary texts, including works of art, and the use of discussion questions. Texts are drawn from anthologies in the Center's Toolbox Library. To participate, all that is needed is a computer with an internet connection, a speaker, and a microphone.
This iCue Mini-Documentary introduces indentured servitude, which plantation owners offered laborers in order to attract them to the colonies. In exchange for travel expenses, these laborers were expected to work the land for several years.
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