Northern Valley Archives: Developing Web-Based Activities from the American Memory Collection

By Janice Cooper & Ronald Romano
Published on 01/20/2009

The NV Grant provided a unique opportunity for social studies teachers from Closter, Demarest, Harrington Park, Haworth, Northvale, Norwood, and Old Tappan to learn new ways to make history “come alive” for their students. In a year-long workshop, they learned to use the American Memory Collection, a digital collection of 7 million historical artifacts (photographs, maps, leaflets, videos, etc.) to create lessons that teach research skills, focus on primary resources, bring technology into the classroom, incorporate interdisciplinary activities, and address multiple learning styles.

On October 3, 2002, teachers met for an American Memory Workshop presented by American Memory Fellows Elizabeth Park and Judy Klement, both teachers at the Dover Middle School in Dover, New Jersey. Later that month, the participants developed their preliminary lessons with the assistance of webmaster Steve Adler and technology coordinator Bill Timme. The workshop concluded on June 4, 2003, with a day of demonstrations and discussion of complete, Internet-ready American Memory lessons. With the assistance of district technology coordinators, these lessons will become the nucleus of the Northern Valley Archives for middle- and high-school American history classes.

Summary of American Memory Projects

Constitution Project: Students examine the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation and the reasons necessary for a new constitution. Students become familiar with the amendments and relate them to current issues. They create PowerPoint projects using images from the collection to explain the amendments that they focus on.
--Micheline Benson, Tenakill School, Closter
(Editor’s note: The American Memory collection Documents from the Continental Congress provides a good starting point for this project.)

Civil War Gettysburg Project: Students analyze photos of battle scenes and answer guiding questions by supporting their ideas using facts. Students then analyze Civil War songs from the collection, to understand the human side of war. Finally, students analyze a draft in Lincoln’s hand of the Gettysburg address.
--Anthony Giaconia and Charles DeWolf, Old Tappan
(Editor’s note: The American Memory collections We’ll Sing to Abe Our Song, The Abraham Lincoln Papers, and Civil War Maps offer possible resources for this project.)

Industrial Revolution Project: The lesson evolves from a teacher-created CD of images from the collections that depict the Industrial Revolution; Lowell, Massachusetts; and Paterson, New Jersey. Students develop understandings about the differences between the domestic system and the factory system. After this introduction, students use materials from the American Labor Museum, Botto House, Museum in a Shoebox Collection – “Textile Industry in America.” Students also tour the Botto House and Lambert Castle Museum to enhance their understanding of the labor movement and the fight for workers' rights.
--Terri Nizewitz, Northvale Public Schools
(Editor’s note: The American Memory collections Working in Paterson, and America from the Great Depression to World War II: Photographs from the FSA and OWI, ca. 1935-1945 offer resources for this project.)

Advertising in the 1920’s & Political Cartoons in the Civil War:
Part 1: After viewing teacher-selected examples and discussing the purpose of advertising, students examine actual ads from the 1920s and choose an ad that interests them. Students then create their own visual and radio ads to sell that product.
Part 2: Students develop an understanding of political cartoons by analyzing a famous political cartoon of Benjamin Franklin, reviewing purpose, techniques and effectiveness. Students then go to the collections and select two cartoons, one pro-Union and one pro-Confederate, to compare and contrast using a teacher-created cartoon analysis worksheet. Working from their new understanding, students create their own political cartoon about an important Civil War topic or theme.
--Andrew O’Connor, Old Tappan High School
(Editor’s note: An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera offers a good starting point for this lesson.)

Japanese Internment Activity & New Deal Poster Activity:
Part 1: Using the Ansel Adams collection Suffering a Great Injustice: Photographs of Manzanar, the students compare and contrast visual, written and oral historical evidence of the Japanese internment experience. The lesson comprises a variety of activities: discussing the 14th Amendment; analyzing three photographs; locating 5 articles from the Museum of the City of San Francisco website; reviewing and analyzing oral histories from the Smithsonian website. The final activity would be to complete a teacher-generated compare and contrast worksheet of the photos, articles and oral histories to evaluate the Japanese internment experience and to see how the perception has changed over time.
Part 2: Students view the materials from the collection By the People, For the People: Posters from the WPA: 1936-43 to understand the goals of the New Deal Programs, then select a theme and choose posters that would best illustrate that theme. Students show their class the posters and describe how they convey the theme and New Deal concerns.
--Alexandra Drazniowsky, Demarest High School

Progressive Era: Five lesson outlines were created, all focusing on the Progressive Era.
1. New York City Window to the Past: Using images from the collection, students compare life in the 19th century to life in the 21st century. Students choose two images of 19th century life and write a brief summary explaining the significance of the images within the era as well as the similarities and differences to 21st century life that can be noted.
2. Social Ills: Students research social problems in 19th century New York. Then, in the voice of a “concerned citizen,” students write editorials to their local newspaper explaining what needs to be done to address one problem.
3. Social Reforms: Students do research on the reform movement and develop a proposal to the City Planning Board detailing a suggested reform and why the planning board should fund it.
4. Literary Cartographer: Students read a novel set in NYC between 1870 and 1900. They then locate a map and photographs and drawings of buildings and parks from that time period and. Finally, students locate those same locations today and create a then and now illustrated map of the novel.
5. Looking Forward Looking Back: Students read Edward Bellamy’s novel, Looking Backward, and identify examples depicting Bellamy’s accurate prediction of resolution or continuation of social problems from the late 19th century to the year 2000. Students then identify current social problems, and, projecting 100 years into the future, predict problems will continue into the next century. Finally, students write an essay or news article exposing the social plight of 22nd century urban citizens.
-- Janice Cooper, Demarest H S Library Media Center
(Editor’s note: The American Memory collections Touring Turn-of-the-Century America: Photographs from the Detroit Publishing Company, 1880 - 1920 and Map Collections: 1500-2004 offer good resources for beginning these lessons.)

Slave Narratives: Students prepare for an historical slave auction by
creating an advertisement for the auction describing the slaves for sale, prices, skills and other information to generate interest. Students research the process of preparing for auctions, how many slaves were sold and at what prices, and slaves tasks. Students view photos of slaves – their homes, grave sites, and documents of slave ownership. Finally students listen to the slave narratives and read excerpts of interviews with former slaves to deepen their understanding of what slavery was really like. They could then do an assignment from the abolitionists’ viewpoint of the slave auctions and slavery in general using the information they found to persuade others to end slavery.
-- Ronald Romano - Northern Valley Regional H S District
(Editor’s note: Possible resources in American Memory include First-Person Narratives of the American South, 1860-1920; Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938; Voices from the Days of Slavery: Former Slaves Tell Their Stories; and An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera.)


The American Memory project will facilitate continuity of the social studies curriculum between the middle schools and high schools through the archive of shared or sequential lessons. Teachers listed above, having attended this workshop series, can act as mentors in their schools for other teachers and students to use the American Memories Project, allowing them to become better “historians.”

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