=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 1 Nov 2002 09:47:34 -0500
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         Alan Taylor 
Subject:      Opening Statement

Dear Colleagues--

Teaching colonial settlement used to be easier, when the human cast
and the geographic stage were conveniently restricted to the
English-speaking colonists of the Atlantic seaboard.  Indians were
then seen as wild and primitive peoples: unchanging objects of
colonists' fears and aggressions. African slaves appeared as
unfortunate aberrations in a fundamentally upbeat story of
Englishmen becoming freer and more prosperous by colonizing an
open land.  The other colonies of rival empires - Dutch, French, and
Spanish - were a hazy backdrop of hostility: backward threats to the
English America that alone spawned the American Revolution and the
United States.

By giving more attention to the Spanish colonies of Florida, New
Mexico, Texas, and California and to the French of Canada and
Louisiana, and to the Dutch (and Swedes and Finns) of the Delaware
and Hudson valleys, we create intriguing opportunities for
comparisons.  But we also risk confusing our students, who will long
for the simpler clarity of the old story of American uplift.

I've had some success by seeking in environmental history and
ethnohistory new central threads for the complex story of North
American colonization, for every region experienced the
unprecedented mixing of radically diverse peoples - African,
European, and Indian.  And every region experienced an intermingling
of introduced microbes, plants, and animals from Africa and Europe.
Because students are intrigued by the diversity of their contemporary
world and troubled by its environmental crisis, they find intriguing a
story line of human and natural mixing.

I would welcome learning your thoughts (and suggestions) about
what has worked (or not worked) in your attempts to organize a course
on colonial America.

Sincerely, Alan Taylor

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 1 Nov 2002 12:11:36 -0800
Reply-To:     pkharo@earthlink.net
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         Peter Haro 
Subject:      Re: Opening Statement

Alan: When you describe your emphasis on an early America in environmental
crisis, what issues do you emphasize? I cover some of these issues when I
discuss the Columbian Exchange. What others do you address? Please advise.
Sincerely, Pete Haro.

On Fri, 1 Nov 2002 09:47:34 -0500 Alan Taylor  wrote:

> Dear Colleagues--
>
> Teaching colonial settlement used to be easier,
> when the human cast
> and the geographic stage were conveniently
> restricted to the
> English-speaking colonists of the Atlantic
> seaboard.  Indians were
> then seen as wild and primitive peoples:
> unchanging objects of
> colonists' fears and aggressions. African
> slaves appeared as
> unfortunate aberrations in a fundamentally
> upbeat story of
> Englishmen becoming freer and more prosperous
> by colonizing an
> open land.  The other colonies of rival empires
> - Dutch, French, and
> Spanish - were a hazy backdrop of hostility:
> backward threats to the
> English America that alone spawned the American
> Revolution and the
> United States.
>
> By giving more attention to the Spanish
> colonies of Florida, New
> Mexico, Texas, and California and to the French
> of Canada and
> Louisiana, and to the Dutch (and Swedes and
> Finns) of the Delaware
> and Hudson valleys, we create intriguing
> opportunities for
> comparisons.  But we also risk confusing our
> students, who will long
> for the simpler clarity of the old story of
> American uplift.
>
> I've had some success by seeking in
> environmental history and
> ethnohistory new central threads for the
> complex story of North
> American colonization, for every region
> experienced the
> unprecedented mixing of radically diverse
> peoples - African,
> European, and Indian.  And every region
> experienced an intermingling
> of introduced microbes, plants, and animals
> from Africa and Europe.
> Because students are intrigued by the diversity
> of their contemporary
> world and troubled by its environmental crisis,
> they find intriguing a
> story line of human and natural mixing.
>
> I would welcome learning your thoughts (and
> suggestions) about
> what has worked (or not worked) in your
> attempts to organize a course
> on colonial America.
>
> Sincerely, Alan Taylor
>
> This forum is sponsored by History
> Matters--please visit our Web site at
> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more
> resources for teaching U.S. History.
>

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 5 Nov 2002 11:44:54 -0600
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         Sheila Skemp 
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

I have two questions for the subscribers to the early settlement forum, one
general, one extremely specific.

First, I agree with Alan that this period is hard to organize--and is
perhaps harder to organize now that we include so much "more" in our
understanding of the meaning of colonial America.  I will confess that I
have taught my colonial course  (which ends roughly in 1740) on a more or
less continual basis, but that I have never been really happy with
it.  Each time, I try again.  Each time I end up feeling as though I have
thoroughly confused many of my students, and have not done the job that
needed to be done.  I am very interested in hearing from people about the
ways that they organize this course.

Secondly, very specifically, as I try (once again!) to get it right this
time, I'm trying to figure out what books to assign.  I always have
problems with "the middle colonies."  I'd like to assign something on
Pennsylvania that is readable, relatively short, engaging.  Does anyone out
there have any good suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

Sheila Skemp

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 5 Nov 2002 13:16:17 -0500
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         John Gardner 
Subject:      Re: books on middle colonies
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

John Munroe's Colonial Delaware is a good book which I've used in teaching
Delaware History. For the earliest Delaware settlements, look for the works
of the late C. A. Weslager.   I'm interested in seeing what others
recommended for New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

John Gardner
Delaware State University

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=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 5 Nov 2002 13:37:15 -0500
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         "McNamara, Zak" 
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

A few quick book suggestions:

_Pursuits of Happiness_ by Jack Greene does a good job of comparing the
various colonial models

_Peripheries and Center_ by Greene also does a good job of putting American
settlement in a larger Atlantic context.

_The diary of John Woolman_ is a decent primary source account of colonial
life and attitudes written by a Quaker.

And Gary Nash's _Forging Freedom_ (I think I have the title correct, I'm
away from my books) is a solid piece of historiography on the early
development of Philadelphia.

If you have the time to mine it for details, David McCullough's book _John
Adams_ also spend a lot of time describing colonial Philadelphia.

Also for a slightly later or post colonial piece of mid-Atlantic
historiography see our very own Alan Taylor's _William Cooper's Town_ it
develops many of the same theme's of _Liberty Men & Great Proprietors_ in a
Mid-Atlantic (rather than New England) context.

I often compare the "radical rhetoric and conservative reality" of men Like
Jefferson in the South, against the "conservative rhetoric and radical
reality" of land speculators and upstarts like Cooper.  It shows how the
revolutionary experience meant very different things to very different
groups.

Just a few quick suggestions off the top-of-my-head,
Zak McNamara

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sheila Skemp [mailto:sskemp@SUNSET.BACKBONE.OLEMISS.EDU]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 05, 2002 12:45 PM
> To: EARLYSETTLEMENTFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
> Subject:
>
>
> I have two questions for the subscribers to the early
> settlement forum, one
> general, one extremely specific.
>
> First, I agree with Alan that this period is hard to organize--and is
> perhaps harder to organize now that we include so much "more" in our
> understanding of the meaning of colonial America.  I will
> confess that I
> have taught my colonial course  (which ends roughly in 1740)
> on a more or
> less continual basis, but that I have never been really happy with
> it.  Each time, I try again.  Each time I end up feeling as
> though I have
> thoroughly confused many of my students, and have not done
> the job that
> needed to be done.  I am very interested in hearing from
> people about the
> ways that they organize this course.
>
> Secondly, very specifically, as I try (once again!) to get it
> right this
> time, I'm trying to figure out what books to assign.  I always have
> problems with "the middle colonies."  I'd like to assign something on
> Pennsylvania that is readable, relatively short, engaging.
> Does anyone out
> there have any good suggestions?
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Sheila Skemp
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our
> Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources
> for teaching U.S. History.
>

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 5 Nov 2002 11:24:03 -0800
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         "Joshua.A.Piker-1" 
Subject:      Re: Sheila Skemp's questions
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

In response to Sheila Skemp's first question (btw, I've had the same problem with the Middle Colonies.  I teach Levy's book, which the students always learn a great deal from but which they tend not to enjoy.), I've been thinking about adopting the following approach:

Assign only three books (usually I require 8 or 9): Alan's "American Colonies"; Berlin's "Many Thousands Gone"; Richter's "Facing East from Indian Country."  We would spend the first half of the semester comparing and contrasting the approaches adopted by the three authors and asking how each author's perspective/subject matter changes the way we view early American history.  I would also give the students in-class assignments dealing with reading and critiquing primary documents.  Then, in the second half of the course, each student would conduct sa mall-scale research project on a subject that either interests him/her (in my ideal world) or that I suggest.  During the second half of the semester, we would meet twice a week (as opposed to three times a week in the first half), at first to discuss research strategies/problems and then to hear the students' report on their findings.

I'm still playing with how to grade the students, but they would probably have a mid-term test based on our readings and discussions of Taylor, Berlin, and Richter; a grade on their oral report; a general participation grade; a final paper.

There are a couple of things that I like about this approach.  In the first place, it would build ethnic and geographic diversity into the structure of the class.  I already try to make diversity the cornerstone of my course, but this would really drive the point home.  Secondly, it would allow us to discuss subjects and/or areas which I've either avoided or touched on only briefly -- for example, the diversity of African-American experiences; Spanish America; the Caribbean.  Finally, it would encourage the students to acknowledge the  complex, multifaceted, contingent nature of the American past.

I should emphasize, though, that I'm still in the "mulling it over" stage.  I'm on leave this year and I've been going back and forth between "Well, I already have a class that works pretty well" and "I'm bored with my own class and dissatisfied with my inability to cover the areas outside of the '13 colonies.'"  Problem areas?  Well, I'm concerned that Alan's book is, in fact, too inclusive (sorry; no good deed goes unpunished) to be pegged as the "European" centered text that balances out Berlin and Richter.  I also have no idea if the students will really read three survey texts, even if all three are very well written and engaging.  And I suspect that good students will like the new structure but that those who are just in the course for the credits will hate it.  I should also note that I'd only contemplate such an approach at a school with fairly long semesters.  For better or worse, the OU semester is 16 weeks.

I'd love to hear what others are doing and how students have reacted to Alan's book.

Regards,

Josh Piker
Assistant Professor
Department of History
University of Oklahoma

----- Original Message -----
From: Sheila Skemp 
Date: Tuesday, November 5, 2002 9:44 am

> I have two questions for the subscribers to the early settlement
> forum, one
> general, one extremely specific.
>
> First, I agree with Alan that this period is hard to organize--and is
> perhaps harder to organize now that we include so much "more" in our
> understanding of the meaning of colonial America.  I will confess
> that I
> have taught my colonial course  (which ends roughly in 1740) on a
> more or
> less continual basis, but that I have never been really happy with
> it.  Each time, I try again.  Each time I end up feeling as though
> I have
> thoroughly confused many of my students, and have not done the job
> thatneeded to be done.  I am very interested in hearing from
> people about the
> ways that they organize this course.
>
> Secondly, very specifically, as I try (once again!) to get it
> right this
> time, I'm trying to figure out what books to assign.  I always have
> problems with "the middle colonies."  I'd like to assign something on
> Pennsylvania that is readable, relatively short, engaging.  Does
> anyone out
> there have any good suggestions?
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Sheila Skemp
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web
> site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for
> teaching U.S. History.
>

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 5 Nov 2002 11:25:34 -0800
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         Alan Taylor 
In-Reply-To:  <5.1.0.14.0.20021105113953.01fe7d90@sunset.backbone.olemiss .edu>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

I agree with Sheila that the colonial course is getting tougher to present,
and probably more confusing for the students, and would very much second
her call for others to share their recommendations for schemes of
organization.

And I agree that the middle colonies remain especially underdeveloped in
the literature and especially for books that are "teachable."  We treat the
region as a conceptual whole but I don't know of any books dedicated to
that proposition; instead there are good books about aspects of particular
colonies that happen to be in the middle colonies.  Wayne Bodle has a book
project that may fill that gap in a couple of years.

In the meantime, the best seems to be to fall back on good works about
particular colonies, such as Jim Merrell's Into the American Woods
(Pennsylvania and Indians) or to use documents, such as pairing Franklin's
Autobiography with Billy Smith, ed., The Infortunate, which offers the life
story of a ne'er do well laboring man in the middle colonies.  I'd also
recommend Sheila's Bedford/St. Martin's collection of documents on Benjamin
and William Franklin, as especially good on gentility and on the place of
provincial elites in the British empire.

But I'd like to learn about books or readers that have worked well for others.

Sincerely, Alan

At 11:44 AM 11/5/02 -0600, Sheila Skemp wrote:
>I have two questions for the subscribers to the early settlement forum, one
>general, one extremely specific.
>
>First, I agree with Alan that this period is hard to organize--and is
>perhaps harder to organize now that we include so much "more" in our
>understanding of the meaning of colonial America.  I will confess that I
>have taught my colonial course  (which ends roughly in 1740) on a more or
>less continual basis, but that I have never been really happy with
>it.  Each time, I try again.  Each time I end up feeling as though I have
>thoroughly confused many of my students, and have not done the job that
>needed to be done.  I am very interested in hearing from people about the
>ways that they organize this course.
>
>Secondly, very specifically, as I try (once again!) to get it right this
>time, I'm trying to figure out what books to assign.  I always have
>problems with "the middle colonies."  I'd like to assign something on
>Pennsylvania that is readable, relatively short, engaging.  Does anyone out
>there have any good suggestions?
>
>Thanks in advance.
>
>Sheila Skemp
>
>This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>
>

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 5 Nov 2002 14:41:40 -0500
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         BRIDGETT WILLIAMS-SEARLE 
Subject:      Re: How to structure the Colonial North American Survey
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252"
Content-Transfer-Encoding:  quoted-printable

Sheila, Alan, and all...

I have just started teaching Colonial North America and am feeling =
challenged
to do so effectively, so it's nice to know that more senior professors =
are also struggling to interpret this capacious subject to their =
students. I suspect
in my case that it's because the interpretive strengths of the field -- =
the=20
diverse cast of characters, the multiple sorts of labor systems
we present, the regional differences, the creation of an Atlantic world, =
the
three-continent reach of the literature -- make it difficult for me to=20
create a strong central narrative. With such a lot of
interesting work from which to choose, it's hard to make some =
disciplined=20
analytic choices and decide what story (or perhaps, whose story) to =
tell.=20

I'm focusing this semester on the evolving political economy of race and =
sex in=20
North America but I'm unsure whether my classes are really buying the =
story.=20
I'm using monographs by Kathleen Brown, Jill Lepore, and Kirsten =
Fischer. The
paper assignments are primary document driven. For example, I just =
assigned
 a portion of the NLC's on-line Jesuit Relations so that students could =
engage
in a longitudinal study of life in Iroquoia during the Beaver Wars. They
were to choose a sub-focus such as material culture, gender ideology,
warfare, or political economy, analyzing and explaining the changes and =
continuities
they found. Sounded like a good idea, and maybe would have been =20
for an upper-division class, but it was too challenging for my intro =
students.

As is perhaps evident, I too focus a lot of my course on ethnohistory -- =
much
to the frustration of some of my students, who feel that I'm not giving =
them
the "real story." (I think they mean that the ratio of council fires to
powdered wigs is out of whack, but I'm not sure.) How do other people =
persuade
their students that teaching about American Indians as critical actors =
is not=20
a perverse act of special pleading?


Bridgett Williams-Searle
Department of History and Political Science
College of St. Rose
Albany, NY

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 5 Nov 2002 12:19:07 -0800
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         Brett Rushforth 
Subject:      Re: structure of Colonial North America course

I was interested to see Josh Piker suggest a course using Taylor, Richter,
and Berlin.  I have designed just such a course for this winter semester
at the University of Utah.  The syllabus is below, pasted into the body of
this message so I didn't have to send an attachment.

As Eric Hinderaker pointed out to me, the trade-off with this syllabus is
what I have to cut out...most stikingly, I sacrifice real depth on the
Chesapeake and New Enlgand for more coverage of New France and New Spain.
I would welcome any comments or criticisms regarding this approach.

Best,
Brett Rushforth
Ph.D. Candidate, History
UC Davis

History 3700, Colonial America
Syllabus:

INTRODUCTION
This course will survey the history of colonial America, from c. 1492 to
c. 1763.  We will discuss Colonial America broadly, including the Spanish,
French, Dutch, and English colonies that would become part of the United
States, as well as the colonies’ European, African, and Indian
populations.

REQUIRED TEXTS
Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of American
Slavery.
Daniel K. Richter, Facing East From Indian Country: A Native History of
Early America.
Alan Taylor, American Colonies.
Ian Steele, Betrayals: Fort William Henry and the “Massacre”
Course Reading Packet, available at the bookstore.

ASSIGNMENTS AND GRADING:
In addition to class attendance and participation, students will complete
four written assignments for the semester, three short analysis papers and
a longer research paper.  The grading breakdown is as follows:
·       25% - Attendance and Participation (including 5 in-class reading
quizzes)
·       15% - Primary Document Analysis (5-7 pages)
·       15% - Comparative Historical Analysis (5-7 pages)
·       15% - Historiography Paper (5-7 pages)
·       30% - Research Paper (15-20 pages)
To pass the class, students must hand in all four written assignments and
complete at least three of the reading quizzes.  All papers must be turned
in at the beginning of the class on the day they are due.  I DO NOT ACCEPT
EMAILED PAPERS, and late papers will be penalized a full letter grade for
each calendar day they are late.

LECTURE AND READING SCHEDULE:
As indicated in the schedule below, Mondays and Wednesdays are lecture
days and Fridays are reserved for discussion.  Each week’s reading
assignment must be completed by the beginning of class on Friday so
students are prepared to discuss the material in class.  All assignment
deadlines are indicated on the schedule.  Students are required to meet
these deadlines without further notification.

Each Friday I will post to the course web page a list of questions to
direct your reading for the following week.  Although these are not
assignments, you should be able to answer each question by the time we
discuss the readings on Fridays.


SECTION 1: THE 15TH AND 16TH CENTURIES

Week 1: Rethinking Colonial America
Monday, January 6: Introduction
Wednesday, January 8: Beyond Pilgrims and Puritans
Friday, January 10: Discussion
Required Readings:
·       Taylor, American Colonies, Introduction
·       Richter, Facing East, Prologue
·       Berlin, Many Thousands Gone, Introduction

Week 2: Old Worlds and New
Monday, January 13: The Indians’ Old World
Wednesday, January 15: Europe, Africa, and the 15th Century Atlantic
Friday, January 17: Discussion
Required Readings:
·       Taylor, American Colonies, Chapters 1-2
·       Alfred Crosby, “Columbian Voyages, the Columbian Exchange, and
their Historians,” in Reader
·       Christopher Columbus, “Journal,” in Reader
·       Michael de Cuneo, “The Second Voyage of Discovery, 1493-1496,” in
Reader

Week 3: First Encounters
Monday, January 20: NO CLASS, Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday
Wednesday, January 22: Understanding First Contacts
Friday, January 24: Discussion
Required Readings:
·       Richter, Facing East, Chapter 1
·       Peter Nabokov, “Native Views of History,” in Reader
·       “Micmac Oral Histories,” in Reader

Week 4: Aztecs and Conquistadores
Monday, January 27: Cortes and Montezuma
Wednesday, January 29: New Spain
Friday, January 31: Discussion (PAPER #1 DUE)
Required Reading:
·       Taylor, American Colonies, Chapter 3
·       Inga Clendinnen, “Fierce and Unnatural Cruelties,” in Reader
·       Cortes, “Second Letter,” in Reader

PAPER #1: PRIMARY DOCUMENT ANALYSIS
DUE FRIDAY, JANUARY 31 AT THE BEGINNING OF CLASS


SECTION 2: THE 17TH CENTURY

Week 5: The Spanish Frontier
Monday, February 3: Founding New Mexico
Wednesday, February 5: The Pueblo Revolt
Friday, February 7: Discussion
Required Reading:
·       Taylor, American Colonies, Chapter 4
·       Weber, “Pueblo Revolt,” in Reader
·       Don Antonio de Otermin, “Report of the Pueblo Revolt, 1680,” in
Reader

Week 6: New France and New Netherland
Monday, February 10: Founding New France and New Netherland
Wednesday, February 12: Native “Dependency” and the “Beaver Wars”
Friday, February 14: Discussion
Required Reading/Viewing:
·       Taylor, American Colonies, Chapters 5 and 12
·       Richter, Facing East, Chapter 2
·       “Jesuit Relations,” in Reader
·       Film, Black Robe

Week 7: The Chesapeake
Monday, February 17: NO CLASS, President’s Day Holiday
Wednesday, February 19: Founding Virginia—Tobacco, Indentured Servants,
and Slaves
Friday, February 21: Discussion
Required Reading:
·       Taylor, American Colonies, Chapters 6-7
·       Berlin, Many Thousands Gone, Section 1 Introduction, and Chapter 1
(15-46)
·       Lois G. Carr and Lorena S. Walsh, “The Planter’s Wife: The
Experience of White Women in Seventeenth-Century Maryland,” in Reader
·       “Servant Indenture Forms,” in Reader

Week 8: New England, Part I
Monday, February 24: Founding New England—A City on a Hill
Wednesday, February 26: Interpreting the Salem Witch Trials
Friday, February 28: Discussion
Required Reading:
·       Taylor, American Colonies, Chapter 8
·       Berlin, Many Thousands Gone, Chapter 2
·       Jane Kamensky, “Outspoken Women,” in Reader
·       “Salem Witchcraft Trials,” in Reader

Week 9: New England, Part II
Monday, March 3: The Pequot War
Wednesday, March 5: King Philip’s War (PAPER #2 DUE)
Friday, March 7: Discussion
Required Reading:
·       Taylor, American Colonies, Chapter 9
·       Richter, Facing East, Chapters 3-4
·       Virginia D. Anderson, “King Philip’s Herds,” in reader.

PAPER #2: COMPARATIVE HISTORICAL ANALYSIS
DUE WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5 AT THE BEGINNING OF CLASS


SECTION 3: THE 18TH CENTURY

Week 10: South Carolina
Monday, March 10: Caribbean Connections
Wednesday, March 12: Indian and African Slaveries
Friday, March 14: Discussion
Required Reading:
·       Taylor, American Colonies, Chapters 10-11
·       Gallay, “Contours of the Indian Slave Trade,” in Reader
·       Berlin, Many Thousands Gone, Chapter 3

Week 11: SPRING BREAK—NO CLASS (MARCH 17-21)

Week 12: 18th Century Slavery
Monday, March 24: Plantation Systems
Wednesday, March 26: Slave Communities and Experiences
Friday, March 28: Discussion
Required Reading/Viewing:
·       Berlin, Many Thousands Gone, Chapters 4-8
·       Film, Africans in America

Week 13: French America
Monday, March 31: New France
Wednesday, April 2: Louisiana (PAPER #3 DUE)
Friday, April 4: Discussion
Required Readings:
·       Taylor, American Colonies, Chapter 16
·       Richter, Facing East, Chapter 5
·       Peter Moogk, “Thieving Buggars and Stupid Sluts,” in Reader
·       Jennifer Spear, “Drinking, Dancing, and Disorder in Colonial
Louisiana,” in Reader

PAPER #3: HISTORIOGRAPHY
DUE WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3 AT THE BEGINNING OF CLASS

Week 14: The Great Awakening
Monday, April 7: What was the Great Awakening?
Wednesday, April 9: Comparing Awakenings: Puritan, Baptist, and Indian
Friday, April 11: Discussion
Required Reading:
·       Taylor, American Colonies, Chapter 15
·       Greg Dowd, “The Indians’ Great Awakening,” in Reader
·       Jonathan Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” in Reader

Week 15: The Battle for North America
Monday, April 14: World Wars and Indian Wars
Wednesday, April 16: Colonists’ Experiences—French and English
Friday, April 18: Discussion
Required Reading/Viewing:
·       Taylor, American Colonies, Chapter 18
·       Ian Steele, Betrayals, Chapters 1, and 3-6
·       Film, The Last of the Mohicans

Week 16: Legacies
Monday, April 21: Revolutions—Indian and Patriot
Wednesday, April 23: The Meanings of Colonial America


PAPER #4: TERM RESEARCH PAPER
DUE THURSDAY, MAY 1, 12:00 PM, HISTORY DEPARTMENT OFFICE

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 5 Nov 2002 13:31:14 -0800
Reply-To:     pkharo@earthlink.net
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         Peter Haro 
Subject:      Re: How to structure the Colonial North American Survey

Perhaps I'm stating the obvious but my greatest difficulty in teaching
colonial history and early America is the fact that most of our students are
the products of a video generation. Trying to make topics from this era
relevant to students raised on a steady diet of video images and who tend to
focus only on issues that pertain to their lives is challenging to say the
least. I have tried everything from focusing on the origins of slavery in the
colonies to the role of women during and after the American Revolution and
nothing seems to "fire them up", so to speak. Any suggestions as to topics
that you have found to be relevant and interesting would be appreciated.
Sincerely, Pete Haro.

On Tue, 5 Nov 2002 14:41:40 -0500 BRIDGETT WILLIAMS-SEARLE
 wrote:

> Sheila, Alan, and all...
>
> I have just started teaching Colonial North
> America and am feeling challenged
> to do so effectively, so it's nice to know that
> more senior professors are also struggling to
> interpret this capacious subject to their
> students. I suspect
> in my case that it's because the interpretive
> strengths of the field -- the
> diverse cast of characters, the multiple sorts
> of labor systems
> we present, the regional differences, the
> creation of an Atlantic world, the
> three-continent reach of the literature -- make
> it difficult for me to
> create a strong central narrative. With such a
> lot of
> interesting work from which to choose, it's
> hard to make some disciplined
> analytic choices and decide what story (or
> perhaps, whose story) to tell.
>
> I'm focusing this semester on the evolving
> political economy of race and sex in
> North America but I'm unsure whether my classes
> are really buying the story.
> I'm using monographs by Kathleen Brown, Jill
> Lepore, and Kirsten Fischer. The
> paper assignments are primary document driven.
> For example, I just assigned
>  a portion of the NLC's on-line Jesuit
> Relations so that students could engage
> in a longitudinal study of life in Iroquoia
> during the Beaver Wars. They
> were to choose a sub-focus such as material
> culture, gender ideology,
> warfare, or political economy, analyzing and
> explaining the changes and continuities
> they found. Sounded like a good idea, and maybe
> would have been
> for an upper-division class, but it was too
> challenging for my intro students.
>
> As is perhaps evident, I too focus a lot of my
> course on ethnohistory -- much
> to the frustration of some of my students, who
> feel that I'm not giving them
> the "real story." (I think they mean that the
> ratio of council fires to
> powdered wigs is out of whack, but I'm not
> sure.) How do other people persuade
> their students that teaching about American
> Indians as critical actors is not
> a perverse act of special pleading?
>
>
> Bridgett Williams-Searle
> Department of History and Political Science
> College of St. Rose
> Albany, NY
>
> This forum is sponsored by History
> Matters--please visit our Web site at
> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more
> resources for teaching U.S. History.
>

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 5 Nov 2002 16:33:25 -0500
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         David Robson 
Organization: John Carroll University
Subject:      Re: How to structure the Colonial North American Survey
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: multipart/alternative;
              boundary="Boundary_(ID_kL8HhN6qgHh4KxCWJUtYRQ)"

--Boundary_(ID_kL8HhN6qgHh4KxCWJUtYRQ)
Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit

Dear Forum Members . . .
    Having wrestled with the organization of a colonial North American course for a number of years, and never having been satisfied with what has resulted, I
have finally quit trying to create the perfect comprehensive offering.  Instead, in recognition both of the depth and quality of writing on early North America
and of the fact that I am easily bored, I have begun to offer "Topics in Colonial North America,"  which will probably change with every offering.  Taylor's
American Colonies  strikes me as both broadly informative and wonderfully readable (and so far my students agree) so it has become the core of the course with
changing themes built around it.  This year's theme is "migrants."  Everyone, including the Indians, migrated here from somewhere else, so we examine a variety
of migrants, either on their own or interacting with the first migrants.  We look at the English through Alison Games' Migration and the Origins of the English
Atlantic World, at the Spanish through Ramon Gutierrez, When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away, at Atlantic Creoles and Africans through Ira Berlin's Many
Thousands Gone, and at European-Indian interactions through James Axtell's Natives and Newcomers (which focuses principally on English and French
interaction).  Students are encouraged to explore other facets of migrant cultures and interactions through examination of articles, principally in the WMQ.
At the moment I supplement with a hodge-podge of documents and images.  I'm thinking of creating a systematic assemblage of those in the public domain scanned
into files so the appropriate materials can be accessed (and possibly reproduced) when desired.
    Even as this one plays out, other themes are dancing in my head.  Biographies are fun (and students like them); comparative lifestyles also offer
possibilities, as does a regional focus.
      Does anyone else organize by theme or topic?

David Robson
Professor
Department of History
John Carroll University

BRIDGETT WILLIAMS-SEARLE wrote:

> Sheila, Alan, and all...
>
> I have just started teaching Colonial North America and am feeling challenged
> to do so effectively, so it's nice to know that more senior professors are also struggling to interpret this capacious subject to their students. I suspect
> in my case that it's because the interpretive strengths of the field -- the
> diverse cast of characters, the multiple sorts of labor systems
> we present, the regional differences, the creation of an Atlantic world, the
> three-continent reach of the literature -- make it difficult for me to
> create a strong central narrative. With such a lot of
> interesting work from which to choose, it's hard to make some disciplined
> analytic choices and decide what story (or perhaps, whose story) to tell.
>
> I'm focusing this semester on the evolving political economy of race and sex in
> North America but I'm unsure whether my classes are really buying the story.
> I'm using monographs by Kathleen Brown, Jill Lepore, and Kirsten Fischer. The
> paper assignments are primary document driven. For example, I just assigned
>  a portion of the NLC's on-line Jesuit Relations so that students could engage
> in a longitudinal study of life in Iroquoia during the Beaver Wars. They
> were to choose a sub-focus such as material culture, gender ideology,
> warfare, or political economy, analyzing and explaining the changes and continuities
> they found. Sounded like a good idea, and maybe would have been
> for an upper-division class, but it was too challenging for my intro students.
>
> As is perhaps evident, I too focus a lot of my course on ethnohistory -- much
> to the frustration of some of my students, who feel that I'm not giving them
> the "real story." (I think they mean that the ratio of council fires to
> powdered wigs is out of whack, but I'm not sure.) How do other people persuade
> their students that teaching about American Indians as critical actors is not
> a perverse act of special pleading?
>
> Bridgett Williams-Searle
> Department of History and Political Science
> College of St. Rose
> Albany, NY
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

--Boundary_(ID_kL8HhN6qgHh4KxCWJUtYRQ)
Content-type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit



Dear Forum Members . . .

    Having wrestled with the organization of a colonial
North American course for a number of years, and never having been satisfied
with what has resulted, I have finally quit trying to create the perfect
comprehensive offering.  Instead, in recognition both of the depth
and quality of writing on early North America and of the fact that I am
easily bored, I have begun to offer "Topics in Colonial North America," 
which will probably change with every offering.  Taylor's 
American Colonies  strikes me as both broadly informative and
wonderfully readable (and so far my students agree) so it has become the
core of the course with changing themes built around it.  This year's
theme is "migrants."  Everyone, including the Indians, migrated here
from somewhere else, so we examine a variety of migrants, either on their
own or interacting with the first migrants.  We look at the English
through Alison Games' Migration and the Origins of the English Atlantic
World, at the Spanish through Ramon Gutierrez, When Jesus Came,
the Corn Mothers Went Away, at Atlantic Creoles and Africans through
Ira Berlin's Many Thousands Gone, and at European-Indian interactions
through James Axtell's Natives and Newcomers (which focuses principally
on English and French interaction).  Students are encouraged to explore
other facets of migrant cultures and interactions through examination of
articles, principally in the WMQ.  At the moment I supplement
with a hodge-podge of documents and images.  I'm thinking of creating
a systematic assemblage of those in the public domain scanned into files
so the appropriate materials can be accessed (and possibly reproduced)
when desired.

    Even as this one plays out, other themes are dancing
in my head.  Biographies are fun (and students like them); comparative
lifestyles also offer possibilities, as does a regional focus.

      Does anyone else organize by theme or
topic?
David Robson

Professor

Department of History

John Carroll University

 

BRIDGETT WILLIAMS-SEARLE wrote:
Sheila, Alan, and all...
I have just started teaching Colonial North America and am feeling challenged

to do so effectively, so it's nice to know that more senior professors
are also struggling to interpret this capacious subject to their students.
I suspect

in my case that it's because the interpretive strengths of the field
-- the

diverse cast of characters, the multiple sorts of labor systems

we present, the regional differences, the creation of an Atlantic world,
the

three-continent reach of the literature -- make it difficult for me
to

create a strong central narrative. With such a lot of

interesting work from which to choose, it's hard to make some disciplined

analytic choices and decide what story (or perhaps, whose story) to
tell.
I'm focusing this semester on the evolving political economy of race
and sex in

North America but I'm unsure whether my classes are really buying the
story.

I'm using monographs by Kathleen Brown, Jill Lepore, and Kirsten Fischer.
The

paper assignments are primary document driven. For example, I just
assigned

 a portion of the NLC's on-line Jesuit Relations so that students
could engage

in a longitudinal study of life in Iroquoia during the Beaver Wars.
They

were to choose a sub-focus such as material culture, gender ideology,

warfare, or political economy, analyzing and explaining the changes
and continuities

they found. Sounded like a good idea, and maybe would have been

for an upper-division class, but it was too challenging for my intro
students.
As is perhaps evident, I too focus a lot of my course on ethnohistory
-- much

to the frustration of some of my students, who feel that I'm not giving
them

the "real story." (I think they mean that the ratio of council fires
to

powdered wigs is out of whack, but I'm not sure.) How do other people
persuade

their students that teaching about American Indians as critical actors
is not

a perverse act of special pleading?
Bridgett Williams-Searle

Department of History and Political Science

College of St. Rose

Albany, NY
This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site
at http://historymatters.gmu.edu
for more resources for teaching U.S. History.


--Boundary_(ID_kL8HhN6qgHh4KxCWJUtYRQ)--

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 6 Nov 2002 08:43:33 -0800
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         Catherine Cardno 
Subject:      Re: How to structure the Colonial North American Survey
In-Reply-To:  <3DC83925.3ACBE7F7@jcu.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Dear All --

I'm just beginning the cycle of teaching colonial
American history, and what I decided to do for this
first run of it seems to be going well so far.  I've
been very lucky, however, and my students are
inquisitive and interested.  The course is upper
division, 45 students, and being taught at George
Washington University (in DC).

The class meets 2/week for 75 minutes and has about 45
students in it.  My lectures are designed to give the
students the structure of history -- the narrative, as
it were.  I chose my readings to problematize the
narrative and (this term) show students some
previously marginalized groups.  For this we're
reading
Berlin's _Many Thousands Gone_,
Carr, et. al. _Robert Cole's World_,
Lepore _In the Name of War_, and
Ulrich _Good Wives_.

I'm balancing the secondary works with Wendy Martin's
_Colonial American Travel Narratives_ (includes
Rowlandson, Knight, Byrd and Hamilton pieces) and
Daniel Williams _Pillars of Salt: an anthology of
early American Criminal Narratives_.

My lectures covered the different settlements of the
French, Spanish and English in the 17th century for
the first half of the course.  The second half of the
course is devoted to themes of the 18th century
(though I did begin with three lectures covering
regional differences: 18thc South/slavery, New
England, Middle Cols/immigration).  We're going to
move on to religious, intellectual, and political
similarities during the 18th century for the rest of
term.

I think the students found it a little odd to have
readings that didn't regurgitate lecture (and vice
versa) but I think they're enjoying themselves now.
We've been able to have discussions (15-20 min per
meeting) on the African American experience, Indians,
Gender, settlement, etc., and other interesting topics
that I haven't been lecturing on.  I give unannouced
pop quizzes, and so I'd say about 80% of the class has
done the reading on any given day (although that is
variable).  For the days where we've read a primary
piece we have extended discussions (small groups, then
large group presentations, and with Rowlandson we had
a debate with half the class defending the
English/Rowlandson's view of Indians, and the other
half defending the Indian's treatment of Rowlandson).

I don't know what my evaluations will be like at the
end of term, but the class seems to be progressing all
right at the moment.  The students seem to enjoy
reading 2 chapters of each book at a time, and we
finish one book before moving on to the next so
they've been able to really examine the themes and
issues addressed in each.

Catherine Cardno
PhD Candidate
Johns Hopkins University

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
HotJobs - Search new jobs daily now
http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 8 Nov 2002 16:00:26 -0800
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         Alan Taylor 
Subject:      Re: How to structure the Colonial North American Survey
In-Reply-To:  <20021106164333.42720.qmail@web40414.mail.yahoo.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Dear Colleagues,

I appreciate the several very thoughtful contributions which have raised
invaluable questions and proposed some intriguing solutions.

I'm envious of several of the syllabi that have the luxury of a 14-16 week
semester; I teach within the quarter system, which allows only 10 weeks,
which becomes ever more constraining as the field blossoms in new topical
and geographic directions.  I've mulled creating a 2nd colonial course, to
make the whole a 2-quarter sequence.  But I've never figured out a nice
dividing point, either topically or chronologically.  I've thought about
the first quarter as everything (including the pre-Columbian native world)
to 1700 (or 1660, or 1690), with the second course to deal with the rest at
least through to 1763 (longer for the west).  But any cut off by chronology
seems arbitrary and the conclusion lacks the drama of ending in 1763 with
the triumph of the British empire and the emergence of new issues that
would blow that empire apart.

I'd love to hear from the rest of you on this issue, if it seems relevant?

There's probably considerable range in the political attitudes of our
students especially toward how we include Indians in the story.  In
contrast to Bridget Williams-Searle's students, mine (Californians
overwhelmingly) err to the other extreme, romanticizing Indians as a
homogeneous set of environmentalists and as innocent lambs led to European
slaughter.  If obliged to choose, I guess I'd rather have that stereotype
than the older notion that INdians were primitive savages irrelevant to the
real story: the making of the United States as beacon to the world.

Some of you proposed ingenious paper assignments and then conceded that
they worked well with the more motivated and better-prepared students, but
not at all with the others.  I guess that's probably inevitable.  I wonder
if there is such a thing as an assignment that challenged all students and
yet was accessible and motivating to those not easily motivated.  Any
suggestions?


Best, Alan

At 08:43 AM 11/6/02 -0800, Catherine Cardno wrote:
>Dear All --
>
>I'm just beginning the cycle of teaching colonial
>American history, and what I decided to do for this
>first run of it seems to be going well so far.  I've
>been very lucky, however, and my students are
>inquisitive and interested.  The course is upper
>division, 45 students, and being taught at George
>Washington University (in DC).
>
>The class meets 2/week for 75 minutes and has about 45
>students in it.  My lectures are designed to give the
>students the structure of history -- the narrative, as
>it were.  I chose my readings to problematize the
>narrative and (this term) show students some
>previously marginalized groups.  For this we're
>reading
>Berlin's _Many Thousands Gone_,
>Carr, et. al. _Robert Cole's World_,
>Lepore _In the Name of War_, and
>Ulrich _Good Wives_.
>
>I'm balancing the secondary works with Wendy Martin's
>_Colonial American Travel Narratives_ (includes
>Rowlandson, Knight, Byrd and Hamilton pieces) and
>Daniel Williams _Pillars of Salt: an anthology of
>early American Criminal Narratives_.
>
>My lectures covered the different settlements of the
>French, Spanish and English in the 17th century for
>the first half of the course.  The second half of the
>course is devoted to themes of the 18th century
>(though I did begin with three lectures covering
>regional differences: 18thc South/slavery, New
>England, Middle Cols/immigration).  We're going to
>move on to religious, intellectual, and political
>similarities during the 18th century for the rest of
>term.
>
>I think the students found it a little odd to have
>readings that didn't regurgitate lecture (and vice
>versa) but I think they're enjoying themselves now.
>We've been able to have discussions (15-20 min per
>meeting) on the African American experience, Indians,
>Gender, settlement, etc., and other interesting topics
>that I haven't been lecturing on.  I give unannouced
>pop quizzes, and so I'd say about 80% of the class has
>done the reading on any given day (although that is
>variable).  For the days where we've read a primary
>piece we have extended discussions (small groups, then
>large group presentations, and with Rowlandson we had
>a debate with half the class defending the
>English/Rowlandson's view of Indians, and the other
>half defending the Indian's treatment of Rowlandson).
>
>I don't know what my evaluations will be like at the
>end of term, but the class seems to be progressing all
>right at the moment.  The students seem to enjoy
>reading 2 chapters of each book at a time, and we
>finish one book before moving on to the next so
>they've been able to really examine the themes and
>issues addressed in each.
>
>Catherine Cardno
>PhD Candidate
>Johns Hopkins University
>
>__________________________________________________
>Do you Yahoo!?
>HotJobs - Search new jobs daily now
>http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/
>
>This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>
>

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 8 Nov 2002 16:08:41 -0800
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         Alan Taylor 
Subject:      Re: How to structure the Colonial North American Survey
Comments: To: pkharo@earthlink.net
In-Reply-To:  
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Colleagues,

Peter Haro raises the issue of how to deal with students who are more
"literate" in images than in texts, which I'm sure we all struggle with.
One thing that I do, is to do a lot with slides and to linger over them and
to get them to read the details of the images (in elite portraits, what,
for example, are the subjects holding in their hands or what is the
backdrop and what does that indicate for their status and their
aspirations).  This is as an alternative to simply racing through slides
(as I used to do) and identifying each one briefly without attending to the
visual details within.  I've found that students become enthusiastic about
interpreting images, more so than texts.  But by doing a lot of this, and
then alternating it with group discussion of texts, I think there is a
carry over effect, and that they become more attentive to the nuances of
language.

What are your experiences in working with slides?

I also wonder to what degree we can work with films to reach our students.
Unfortunately, the list of films that offer some feeling of authenticity
about the colonial past are few and far between.  I've had some good luck
with "Black Robe".  Do the rest of you have any suggestions?

It's also possible to teach against the stereotypes of colonial America
contained in some films.  IN theory, it would even be possible to use some
of Demi Moore's "The Scarlet Letter" (the worst big-budget film that I've
ever seen) to expose our culture's myth-making about the colonial era.

I find that students are more responsive to documents if they're linked to
a film or to a historical novel, as it gives them an opportunity to see
what "really" happened in an episode that they first encounter in a genre
that strikes them as entertaining but potentially duplicitous.

Any nominations for useful films?  Or novels?

Best, Alan

At 01:31 PM 11/5/02 -0800, Peter Haro wrote:
>Perhaps I'm stating the obvious but my greatest difficulty in teaching
>colonial history and early America is the fact that most of our students are
>the products of a video generation. Trying to make topics from this era
>relevant to students raised on a steady diet of video images and who tend to
>focus only on issues that pertain to their lives is challenging to say the
>least. I have tried everything from focusing on the origins of slavery in the
>colonies to the role of women during and after the American Revolution and
>nothing seems to "fire them up", so to speak. Any suggestions as to topics
>that you have found to be relevant and interesting would be appreciated.
>Sincerely, Pete Haro.
>
>On Tue, 5 Nov 2002 14:41:40 -0500 BRIDGETT WILLIAMS-SEARLE
> wrote:
>
>> Sheila, Alan, and all...
>>
>> I have just started teaching Colonial North
>> America and am feeling challenged
>> to do so effectively, so it's nice to know that
>> more senior professors are also struggling to
>> interpret this capacious subject to their
>> students. I suspect
>> in my case that it's because the interpretive
>> strengths of the field -- the
>> diverse cast of characters, the multiple sorts
>> of labor systems
>> we present, the regional differences, the
>> creation of an Atlantic world, the
>> three-continent reach of the literature -- make
>> it difficult for me to
>> create a strong central narrative. With such a
>> lot of
>> interesting work from which to choose, it's
>> hard to make some disciplined
>> analytic choices and decide what story (or
>> perhaps, whose story) to tell.
>>
>> I'm focusing this semester on the evolving
>> political economy of race and sex in
>> North America but I'm unsure whether my classes
>> are really buying the story.
>> I'm using monographs by Kathleen Brown, Jill
>> Lepore, and Kirsten Fischer. The
>> paper assignments are primary document driven.
>> For example, I just assigned
>>  a portion of the NLC's on-line Jesuit
>> Relations so that students could engage
>> in a longitudinal study of life in Iroquoia
>> during the Beaver Wars. They
>> were to choose a sub-focus such as material
>> culture, gender ideology,
>> warfare, or political economy, analyzing and
>> explaining the changes and continuities
>> they found. Sounded like a good idea, and maybe
>> would have been
>> for an upper-division class, but it was too
>> challenging for my intro students.
>>
>> As is perhaps evident, I too focus a lot of my
>> course on ethnohistory -- much
>> to the frustration of some of my students, who
>> feel that I'm not giving them
>> the "real story." (I think they mean that the
>> ratio of council fires to
>> powdered wigs is out of whack, but I'm not
>> sure.) How do other people persuade
>> their students that teaching about American
>> Indians as critical actors is not
>> a perverse act of special pleading?
>>
>>
>> Bridgett Williams-Searle
>> Department of History and Political Science
>> College of St. Rose
>> Albany, NY
>>
>> This forum is sponsored by History
>> Matters--please visit our Web site at
>> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more
>> resources for teaching U.S. History.
>>
>
>This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>
>

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 8 Nov 2002 20:16:04 -0500
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         Ignacio Gallup-Diaz 
Subject:      Re: How to structure the Colonial North American Survey
In-Reply-To:  <3.0.3.32.20021108160841.00a4c600@mailbox.ucdavis.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Hello All,

I've been following the recent discussions with much interest.  I wanted
to throw two suggestions into the mix: the first is a film, and the second
a useful general text.

(1) A film that I think dramatizes for students the cultural distances
separating European and indigenous world-views in the sixteenth century is
_How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman_, directed by Nelson Pereira dos Santos
(1971).  Set in 16th century Brazil, the film slyly develops a narrative
that is familiar to "western" eyes and minds: the protagonist, a
Frenchman, is abandoned by "his" people and adopted by the indigenous
Tupi.  Over time he develops various relationships with the community, is
provided with a mate, and, he believes, successfully proves to the Tupi
his worth and value.  (This particular narrative arc echoes exemplars from
the Bible, Greco-Roman myths, and folk tales.)  However, at the close of
the film the Frenchman realizes that Tupi norms of acceptability,
integration, and redemption are those that really matter.

(2) In teaching the History of Three Worlds: The Atlantic World 1500-1800,
I have found Robin Blackburn, _The Making of New World Slavery: From the
Baroque to the Modern 1492-1800_, (Verso, 1997) to be a useful text that,
like Alan's, handles the Americas as a unified field of study and refrains
from prematurely walling regions off into proto-national units.

Best wishes,

Ignacio
______________
Ignacio Gallup-Diaz
Assistant Professor of History
Bryn Mawr College
101 North Merion Avenue
Bryn Mawr, PA 19010
610.526.5037
610.526.7475 (fax)


On Fri, 8 Nov 2002, Alan Taylor wrote:

> Colleagues,
>
> Peter Haro raises the issue of how to deal with students who are more
> "literate" in images than in texts, which I'm sure we all struggle with.
> One thing that I do, is to do a lot with slides and to linger over them and
> to get them to read the details of the images (in elite portraits, what,
> for example, are the subjects holding in their hands or what is the
> backdrop and what does that indicate for their status and their
> aspirations).  This is as an alternative to simply racing through slides
> (as I used to do) and identifying each one briefly without attending to the
> visual details within.  I've found that students become enthusiastic about
> interpreting images, more so than texts.  But by doing a lot of this, and
> then alternating it with group discussion of texts, I think there is a
> carry over effect, and that they become more attentive to the nuances of
> language.
>
> What are your experiences in working with slides?
>
> I also wonder to what degree we can work with films to reach our students.
> Unfortunately, the list of films that offer some feeling of authenticity
> about the colonial past are few and far between.  I've had some good luck
> with "Black Robe".  Do the rest of you have any suggestions?
>
> It's also possible to teach against the stereotypes of colonial America
> contained in some films.  IN theory, it would even be possible to use some
> of Demi Moore's "The Scarlet Letter" (the worst big-budget film that I've
> ever seen) to expose our culture's myth-making about the colonial era.
>
> I find that students are more responsive to documents if they're linked to
> a film or to a historical novel, as it gives them an opportunity to see
> what "really" happened in an episode that they first encounter in a genre
> that strikes them as entertaining but potentially duplicitous.
>
> Any nominations for useful films?  Or novels?
>
> Best, Alan

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 9 Nov 2002 07:06:22 -0500
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         Vivian Bruce Conger 
Subject:      Re: Slides and films
In-Reply-To:  <3.0.3.32.20021108160841.00a4c600@mailbox.ucdavis.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Hi everyone.  I teach early American history and women's history at Ithaca
College.  Right now I am teaching the colonial history course--only 4 weeks
left in the semester!  I have taught the colonial course before at a
previous school, but I always taught it as a seminar, not as a lecture
course.  Now I am "required" to teach it as a lecture course, and I'm
struggling to get those lectures together every week.  It feels like it did
when I first started teaching, but I love the material.  I have lots of
worries about the course, but right now I'll stick with the latest thread.

I was very much interested to hear Alan talk about using slides and the way
he uses them.  I agree that students respond well to the visual, and a
deeper reading of them is better than just using them to zip through images
(which is what I did when I showed slides I bought at Plimoth Plantation).
I use, for example, Thomas Cole's "Course of Empire" paintings in my survey
course to talk about ways Whigs critiqued the Age of Jackson--and we spend a
lot time looking at them and talking about what they see in them.  It works
well.  But I never thought about that for colonial history simply because it
really never dawned on me that there were slides we could use.  What slides
do you use?  Where did you get them?  I've seen scattered images in books,
but I've been unclear about how to get access to them since they seem to be
taken from various museums and historical societies.  The web has not proved
very successful in that regard.  How often do you bring in slides to
analyze?  I could imagine using them on a weekly basis.

As for films, I've used "Black Robe" with great success.  I've also shown
parts of "Three Sovereigns for Sarah" for witchcraft.  But beyond that, I'm
not sure what other films we have for colonial history.  When I taught the
colonial course as a seminar at a previous school, I started the semester
with the film "The Return of Martin Guerre" and then assigned them Davis's
The Return of Martin Guerre and the American Historical Review's forum on
The Return of Martin Guerre.  It set up issues of sources and interpretation
for this early period.  The students seemed to really like it, but I didn't
think it would work well in my current course.  Although I can't quite say
why, and now I wish I had used it again.  I'm looking forward to hearing
other films people use.

Vivian Bruce Conger



-----Original Message-----
From: History of Early Settlement in the U.S.
[mailto:EARLYSETTLEMENTFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU]On Behalf Of Alan
Taylor
Sent: Friday, November 08, 2002 7:09 PM
To: EARLYSETTLEMENTFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
Subject: Re: How to structure the Colonial North American Survey


Colleagues,

Peter Haro raises the issue of how to deal with students who are more
"literate" in images than in texts, which I'm sure we all struggle with.
One thing that I do, is to do a lot with slides and to linger over them and
to get them to read the details of the images (in elite portraits, what,
for example, are the subjects holding in their hands or what is the
backdrop and what does that indicate for their status and their
aspirations).  This is as an alternative to simply racing through slides
(as I used to do) and identifying each one briefly without attending to the
visual details within.  I've found that students become enthusiastic about
interpreting images, more so than texts.  But by doing a lot of this, and
then alternating it with group discussion of texts, I think there is a
carry over effect, and that they become more attentive to the nuances of
language.

What are your experiences in working with slides?

I also wonder to what degree we can work with films to reach our students.
Unfortunately, the list of films that offer some feeling of authenticity
about the colonial past are few and far between.  I've had some good luck
with "Black Robe".  Do the rest of you have any suggestions?

It's also possible to teach against the stereotypes of colonial America
contained in some films.  IN theory, it would even be possible to use some
of Demi Moore's "The Scarlet Letter" (the worst big-budget film that I've
ever seen) to expose our culture's myth-making about the colonial era.

I find that students are more responsive to documents if they're linked to
a film or to a historical novel, as it gives them an opportunity to see
what "really" happened in an episode that they first encounter in a genre
that strikes them as entertaining but potentially duplicitous.

Any nominations for useful films?  Or novels?

Best, Alan

At 01:31 PM 11/5/02 -0800, Peter Haro wrote:
>Perhaps I'm stating the obvious but my greatest difficulty in teaching
>colonial history and early America is the fact that most of our students
are
>the products of a video generation. Trying to make topics from this era
>relevant to students raised on a steady diet of video images and who tend
to
>focus only on issues that pertain to their lives is challenging to say the
>least. I have tried everything from focusing on the origins of slavery in
the
>colonies to the role of women during and after the American Revolution and
>nothing seems to "fire them up", so to speak. Any suggestions as to topics
>that you have found to be relevant and interesting would be appreciated.
>Sincerely, Pete Haro.
>
>On Tue, 5 Nov 2002 14:41:40 -0500 BRIDGETT WILLIAMS-SEARLE
> wrote:
>
>> Sheila, Alan, and all...
>>
>> I have just started teaching Colonial North
>> America and am feeling challenged
>> to do so effectively, so it's nice to know that
>> more senior professors are also struggling to
>> interpret this capacious subject to their
>> students. I suspect
>> in my case that it's because the interpretive
>> strengths of the field -- the
>> diverse cast of characters, the multiple sorts
>> of labor systems
>> we present, the regional differences, the
>> creation of an Atlantic world, the
>> three-continent reach of the literature -- make
>> it difficult for me to
>> create a strong central narrative. With such a
>> lot of
>> interesting work from which to choose, it's
>> hard to make some disciplined
>> analytic choices and decide what story (or
>> perhaps, whose story) to tell.
>>
>> I'm focusing this semester on the evolving
>> political economy of race and sex in
>> North America but I'm unsure whether my classes
>> are really buying the story.
>> I'm using monographs by Kathleen Brown, Jill
>> Lepore, and Kirsten Fischer. The
>> paper assignments are primary document driven.
>> For example, I just assigned
>>  a portion of the NLC's on-line Jesuit
>> Relations so that students could engage
>> in a longitudinal study of life in Iroquoia
>> during the Beaver Wars. They
>> were to choose a sub-focus such as material
>> culture, gender ideology,
>> warfare, or political economy, analyzing and
>> explaining the changes and continuities
>> they found. Sounded like a good idea, and maybe
>> would have been
>> for an upper-division class, but it was too
>> challenging for my intro students.
>>
>> As is perhaps evident, I too focus a lot of my
>> course on ethnohistory -- much
>> to the frustration of some of my students, who
>> feel that I'm not giving them
>> the "real story." (I think they mean that the
>> ratio of council fires to
>> powdered wigs is out of whack, but I'm not
>> sure.) How do other people persuade
>> their students that teaching about American
>> Indians as critical actors is not
>> a perverse act of special pleading?
>>
>>
>> Bridgett Williams-Searle
>> Department of History and Political Science
>> College of St. Rose
>> Albany, NY
>>
>> This forum is sponsored by History
>> Matters--please visit our Web site at
>> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more
>> resources for teaching U.S. History.
>>
>
>This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>
>

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 9 Nov 2002 07:49:02 -0500
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         EGB 
Subject:      Teaching with Slides
In-Reply-To:  <3.0.3.32.20021108160841.00a4c600@mailbox.ucdavis.edu>
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=Windows-1252
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

Friends,

In response to Alan Taylor's question about teaching with slides: slides are
an integral element of my courses on European expansion, the American
Revolution, and New York City history, and their value in the classroom is
huge. But it isn't easy to mount an effective slide show. First you have to
build a collection of slides appropriate to your needs and interests, which
usually means photographing materials yourself (and thus a good 35 mm camera
with a close-focus lens, tripod, lights, etc.). Then you have to figure out
how to incorporate images into the day-to-day work of the class: how much
time, e.g., do you want to spend analyzing De Bry engravings or open-field
village plans -- and to what point? Next comes the basic mechanical stuff --
setting up the projector, rearranging chairs, getting the lights just right,
and managing everything so that you finish on time, with just the right
amount of discussion. Finally,  and perhaps most importantly, you must
contend with the fleeting nature of the show itself: no question that
students learn a lot from visual evidence, but  unless you make it available
to them outside of class, they have only moments to make notes and connect
what they see with what they read and hear.

That last issue is the one that has prompted me to digitize all my slides,
organize them as powerpoint shows on cd's (no more bulky trays!), and make
everything available to students online. Now, instead of setting up the
slide projector, I bring my laptop and LCD projector into class (well, the
projector isn't mine: these things are still awfully expensive). When we're
done with the show, students can then review the raw images at their leisure
on the course web site (sans notes or other descriptive material: they still
have to pay attention in class!) This often produces follow-up comments and
discussions. It also affords me the opportunity to build exam questions and
other writing assignments around particularly important images. Plus which,
I no longer need to make slides the old-fashioned way: now I just scan
images directly out of books (or download them from the web) and pop them
directly into the show. If your classroom is wired, you don't even need to
burn cd's -- put the show on your own website and run it from there. Duck
soup.

Edwin G. Burrows
Broeklundian Professor of History
Brooklyn College
Visiting Distinguished Professor of History
Hofstra University

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 9 Nov 2002 08:00:20 -0500
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         Fritz Umbach 
Subject:      Re: Slides and films
In-Reply-To:  
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Hello!  As for using films, I've discovered that the more I can integrate
the film with the readings and the assignments, the more the students
learn.  One splendid film and accompanying web resources for
assignments/research in this period is the film A Midwife's Tale and the
associated website http://www.dohistory.org/.

best,

Fritz


On Sat, 9 Nov 2002, Vivian Bruce Conger wrote:

> Hi everyone.  I teach early American history and women's history at Ithaca
> College.  Right now I am teaching the colonial history course--only 4 weeks
> left in the semester!  I have taught the colonial course before at a
> previous school, but I always taught it as a seminar, not as a lecture
> course.  Now I am "required" to teach it as a lecture course, and I'm
> struggling to get those lectures together every week.  It feels like it did
> when I first started teaching, but I love the material.  I have lots of
> worries about the course, but right now I'll stick with the latest thread.
>
> I was very much interested to hear Alan talk about using slides and the way
> he uses them.  I agree that students respond well to the visual, and a
> deeper reading of them is better than just using them to zip through images
> (which is what I did when I showed slides I bought at Plimoth Plantation).
> I use, for example, Thomas Cole's "Course of Empire" paintings in my survey
> course to talk about ways Whigs critiqued the Age of Jackson--and we spend a
> lot time looking at them and talking about what they see in them.  It works
> well.  But I never thought about that for colonial history simply because it
> really never dawned on me that there were slides we could use.  What slides
> do you use?  Where did you get them?  I've seen scattered images in books,
> but I've been unclear about how to get access to them since they seem to be
> taken from various museums and historical societies.  The web has not proved
> very successful in that regard.  How often do you bring in slides to
> analyze?  I could imagine using them on a weekly basis.
>
> As for films, I've used "Black Robe" with great success.  I've also shown
> parts of "Three Sovereigns for Sarah" for witchcraft.  But beyond that, I'm
> not sure what other films we have for colonial history.  When I taught the
> colonial course as a seminar at a previous school, I started the semester
> with the film "The Return of Martin Guerre" and then assigned them Davis's
> The Return of Martin Guerre and the American Historical Review's forum on
> The Return of Martin Guerre.  It set up issues of sources and interpretation
> for this early period.  The students seemed to really like it, but I didn't
> think it would work well in my current course.  Although I can't quite say
> why, and now I wish I had used it again.  I'm looking forward to hearing
> other films people use.
>
> Vivian Bruce Conger
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: History of Early Settlement in the U.S.
> [mailto:EARLYSETTLEMENTFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU]On Behalf Of Alan
> Taylor
> Sent: Friday, November 08, 2002 7:09 PM
> To: EARLYSETTLEMENTFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
> Subject: Re: How to structure the Colonial North American Survey
>
>
> Colleagues,
>
> Peter Haro raises the issue of how to deal with students who are more
> "literate" in images than in texts, which I'm sure we all struggle with.
> One thing that I do, is to do a lot with slides and to linger over them and
> to get them to read the details of the images (in elite portraits, what,
> for example, are the subjects holding in their hands or what is the
> backdrop and what does that indicate for their status and their
> aspirations).  This is as an alternative to simply racing through slides
> (as I used to do) and identifying each one briefly without attending to the
> visual details within.  I've found that students become enthusiastic about
> interpreting images, more so than texts.  But by doing a lot of this, and
> then alternating it with group discussion of texts, I think there is a
> carry over effect, and that they become more attentive to the nuances of
> language.
>
> What are your experiences in working with slides?
>
> I also wonder to what degree we can work with films to reach our students.
> Unfortunately, the list of films that offer some feeling of authenticity
> about the colonial past are few and far between.  I've had some good luck
> with "Black Robe".  Do the rest of you have any suggestions?
>
> It's also possible to teach against the stereotypes of colonial America
> contained in some films.  IN theory, it would even be possible to use some
> of Demi Moore's "The Scarlet Letter" (the worst big-budget film that I've
> ever seen) to expose our culture's myth-making about the colonial era.
>
> I find that students are more responsive to documents if they're linked to
> a film or to a historical novel, as it gives them an opportunity to see
> what "really" happened in an episode that they first encounter in a genre
> that strikes them as entertaining but potentially duplicitous.
>
> Any nominations for useful films?  Or novels?
>
> Best, Alan
>
> At 01:31 PM 11/5/02 -0800, Peter Haro wrote:
> >Perhaps I'm stating the obvious but my greatest difficulty in teaching
> >colonial history and early America is the fact that most of our students
> are
> >the products of a video generation. Trying to make topics from this era
> >relevant to students raised on a steady diet of video images and who tend
> to
> >focus only on issues that pertain to their lives is challenging to say the
> >least. I have tried everything from focusing on the origins of slavery in
> the
> >colonies to the role of women during and after the American Revolution and
> >nothing seems to "fire them up", so to speak. Any suggestions as to topics
> >that you have found to be relevant and interesting would be appreciated.
> >Sincerely, Pete Haro.
> >
> >On Tue, 5 Nov 2002 14:41:40 -0500 BRIDGETT WILLIAMS-SEARLE
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Sheila, Alan, and all...
> >>
> >> I have just started teaching Colonial North
> >> America and am feeling challenged
> >> to do so effectively, so it's nice to know that
> >> more senior professors are also struggling to
> >> interpret this capacious subject to their
> >> students. I suspect
> >> in my case that it's because the interpretive
> >> strengths of the field -- the
> >> diverse cast of characters, the multiple sorts
> >> of labor systems
> >> we present, the regional differences, the
> >> creation of an Atlantic world, the
> >> three-continent reach of the literature -- make
> >> it difficult for me to
> >> create a strong central narrative. With such a
> >> lot of
> >> interesting work from which to choose, it's
> >> hard to make some disciplined
> >> analytic choices and decide what story (or
> >> perhaps, whose story) to tell.
> >>
> >> I'm focusing this semester on the evolving
> >> political economy of race and sex in
> >> North America but I'm unsure whether my classes
> >> are really buying the story.
> >> I'm using monographs by Kathleen Brown, Jill
> >> Lepore, and Kirsten Fischer. The
> >> paper assignments are primary document driven.
> >> For example, I just assigned
> >>  a portion of the NLC's on-line Jesuit
> >> Relations so that students could engage
> >> in a longitudinal study of life in Iroquoia
> >> during the Beaver Wars. They
> >> were to choose a sub-focus such as material
> >> culture, gender ideology,
> >> warfare, or political economy, analyzing and
> >> explaining the changes and continuities
> >> they found. Sounded like a good idea, and maybe
> >> would have been
> >> for an upper-division class, but it was too
> >> challenging for my intro students.
> >>
> >> As is perhaps evident, I too focus a lot of my
> >> course on ethnohistory -- much
> >> to the frustration of some of my students, who
> >> feel that I'm not giving them
> >> the "real story." (I think they mean that the
> >> ratio of council fires to
> >> powdered wigs is out of whack, but I'm not
> >> sure.) How do other people persuade
> >> their students that teaching about American
> >> Indians as critical actors is not
> >> a perverse act of special pleading?
> >>
> >>
> >> Bridgett Williams-Searle
> >> Department of History and Political Science
> >> College of St. Rose
> >> Albany, NY
> >>
> >> This forum is sponsored by History
> >> Matters--please visit our Web site at
> >> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more
> >> resources for teaching U.S. History.
> >>
> >
> >This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
> >
> >
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 9 Nov 2002 08:11:05 -0500
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         RISA FAUSSETTE 
Subject:      Re: Slides and films
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

This has been a very rewarding exchange of information -- and thanks to all
who have participated.

In response to Vivian Bruce Conger's question on films for the colonial
period, I have used Africans in America with great success to teach on the
evolution of racial slavery. The section (on the second videocassette) on
the Great Awakening and the American Revolution (used in conjunction with
primary documents and secondary reading) is also very helpful and the
students really like it.

For images, if you have a smart classroom and can go online during your
lectures, go to "The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A
Visual Record" compiled by the University of Virginia at:


http://gropius.lib.virginia.edu/Slavery/

Risa Faussette



----- Original Message -----
From: "Vivian Bruce Conger" 
To: 
Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2002 7:06 AM
Subject: Re: Slides and films


> Hi everyone.  I teach early American history and women's history at Ithaca
> College.  Right now I am teaching the colonial history course--only 4
weeks
> left in the semester!  I have taught the colonial course before at a
> previous school, but I always taught it as a seminar, not as a lecture
> course.  Now I am "required" to teach it as a lecture course, and I'm
> struggling to get those lectures together every week.  It feels like it
did
> when I first started teaching, but I love the material.  I have lots of
> worries about the course, but right now I'll stick with the latest thread.
>
> I was very much interested to hear Alan talk about using slides and the
way
> he uses them.  I agree that students respond well to the visual, and a
> deeper reading of them is better than just using them to zip through
images
> (which is what I did when I showed slides I bought at Plimoth Plantation).
> I use, for example, Thomas Cole's "Course of Empire" paintings in my
survey
> course to talk about ways Whigs critiqued the Age of Jackson--and we spend
a
> lot time looking at them and talking about what they see in them.  It
works
> well.  But I never thought about that for colonial history simply because
it
> really never dawned on me that there were slides we could use.  What
slides
> do you use?  Where did you get them?  I've seen scattered images in books,
> but I've been unclear about how to get access to them since they seem to
be
> taken from various museums and historical societies.  The web has not
proved
> very successful in that regard.  How often do you bring in slides to
> analyze?  I could imagine using them on a weekly basis.
>
> As for films, I've used "Black Robe" with great success.  I've also shown
> parts of "Three Sovereigns for Sarah" for witchcraft.  But beyond that,
I'm
> not sure what other films we have for colonial history.  When I taught the
> colonial course as a seminar at a previous school, I started the semester
> with the film "The Return of Martin Guerre" and then assigned them Davis's
> The Return of Martin Guerre and the American Historical Review's forum on
> The Return of Martin Guerre.  It set up issues of sources and
interpretation
> for this early period.  The students seemed to really like it, but I
didn't
> think it would work well in my current course.  Although I can't quite say
> why, and now I wish I had used it again.  I'm looking forward to hearing
> other films people use.
>
> Vivian Bruce Conger
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: History of Early Settlement in the U.S.
> [mailto:EARLYSETTLEMENTFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU]On Behalf Of Alan
> Taylor
> Sent: Friday, November 08, 2002 7:09 PM
> To: EARLYSETTLEMENTFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
> Subject: Re: How to structure the Colonial North American Survey
>
>
> Colleagues,
>
> Peter Haro raises the issue of how to deal with students who are more
> "literate" in images than in texts, which I'm sure we all struggle with.
> One thing that I do, is to do a lot with slides and to linger over them an
d
> to get them to read the details of the images (in elite portraits, what,
> for example, are the subjects holding in their hands or what is the
> backdrop and what does that indicate for their status and their
> aspirations).  This is as an alternative to simply racing through slides
> (as I used to do) and identifying each one briefly without attending to
the
> visual details within.  I've found that students become enthusiastic about
> interpreting images, more so than texts.  But by doing a lot of this, and
> then alternating it with group discussion of texts, I think there is a
> carry over effect, and that they become more attentive to the nuances of
> language.
>
> What are your experiences in working with slides?
>
> I also wonder to what degree we can work with films to reach our students.
> Unfortunately, the list of films that offer some feeling of authenticity
> about the colonial past are few and far between.  I've had some good luck
> with "Black Robe".  Do the rest of you have any suggestions?
>
> It's also possible to teach against the stereotypes of colonial America
> contained in some films.  IN theory, it would even be possible to use some
> of Demi Moore's "The Scarlet Letter" (the worst big-budget film that I've
> ever seen) to expose our culture's myth-making about the colonial era.
>
> I find that students are more responsive to documents if they're linked to
> a film or to a historical novel, as it gives them an opportunity to see
> what "really" happened in an episode that they first encounter in a genre
> that strikes them as entertaining but potentially duplicitous.
>
> Any nominations for useful films?  Or novels?
>
> Best, Alan
>
> At 01:31 PM 11/5/02 -0800, Peter Haro wrote:
> >Perhaps I'm stating the obvious but my greatest difficulty in teaching
> >colonial history and early America is the fact that most of our students
> are
> >the products of a video generation. Trying to make topics from this era
> >relevant to students raised on a steady diet of video images and who tend
> to
> >focus only on issues that pertain to their lives is challenging to say
the
> >least. I have tried everything from focusing on the origins of slavery in
> the
> >colonies to the role of women during and after the American Revolution
and
> >nothing seems to "fire them up", so to speak. Any suggestions as to
topics
> >that you have found to be relevant and interesting would be appreciated.
> >Sincerely, Pete Haro.
> >
> >On Tue, 5 Nov 2002 14:41:40 -0500 BRIDGETT WILLIAMS-SEARLE
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Sheila, Alan, and all...
> >>
> >> I have just started teaching Colonial North
> >> America and am feeling challenged
> >> to do so effectively, so it's nice to know that
> >> more senior professors are also struggling to
> >> interpret this capacious subject to their
> >> students. I suspect
> >> in my case that it's because the interpretive
> >> strengths of the field -- the
> >> diverse cast of characters, the multiple sorts
> >> of labor systems
> >> we present, the regional differences, the
> >> creation of an Atlantic world, the
> >> three-continent reach of the literature -- make
> >> it difficult for me to
> >> create a strong central narrative. With such a
> >> lot of
> >> interesting work from which to choose, it's
> >> hard to make some disciplined
> >> analytic choices and decide what story (or
> >> perhaps, whose story) to tell.
> >>
> >> I'm focusing this semester on the evolving
> >> political economy of race and sex in
> >> North America but I'm unsure whether my classes
> >> are really buying the story.
> >> I'm using monographs by Kathleen Brown, Jill
> >> Lepore, and Kirsten Fischer. The
> >> paper assignments are primary document driven.
> >> For example, I just assigned
> >>  a portion of the NLC's on-line Jesuit
> >> Relations so that students could engage
> >> in a longitudinal study of life in Iroquoia
> >> during the Beaver Wars. They
> >> were to choose a sub-focus such as material
> >> culture, gender ideology,
> >> warfare, or political economy, analyzing and
> >> explaining the changes and continuities
> >> they found. Sounded like a good idea, and maybe
> >> would have been
> >> for an upper-division class, but it was too
> >> challenging for my intro students.
> >>
> >> As is perhaps evident, I too focus a lot of my
> >> course on ethnohistory -- much
> >> to the frustration of some of my students, who
> >> feel that I'm not giving them
> >> the "real story." (I think they mean that the
> >> ratio of council fires to
> >> powdered wigs is out of whack, but I'm not
> >> sure.) How do other people persuade
> >> their students that teaching about American
> >> Indians as critical actors is not
> >> a perverse act of special pleading?
> >>
> >>
> >> Bridgett Williams-Searle
> >> Department of History and Political Science
> >> College of St. Rose
> >> Albany, NY
> >>
> >> This forum is sponsored by History
> >> Matters--please visit our Web site at
> >> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more
> >> resources for teaching U.S. History.
> >>
> >
> >This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S.
History.
> >
> >
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S.
History.
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 9 Nov 2002 08:55:58 -0500
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         Vivian Bruce Conger 
Subject:      Re: Slides and films
In-Reply-To:  
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

I think it matters how we all define "colonial history."  I think Midwife's
Tale is a fabulous film, both for the story of Martha Ballard and for the
story of Laurel Ulrich as a historian.  However, where I teach, the colonial
course goes up to 1763.  I also teach the age of the American Revolution
next semester (which at the moment is called "Late Colonies"--a name I hate
and will change as soon as I can).  I will use Midwife's Tale in that course
for sure.  Professor Fausett,  I will check out Africans in America.  We are
talking about that very theme right now.  Students just read Myne Owne
Ground (although I am not sure they got it and we are going over it again
Tuesday). And it would, if it is in our library, meet the suggestion of
Professor Umbach for the useful of integrating readings into film showing.
It is a great idea that I don't always follow.  The problem with our
classrooms is that historians don't have ready access to the smart
classrooms.  As technologically advanced as my rooms are is to have a VCR
(and a slide projector sometimes).  Rumor has it we will switch to machines
that will show both VCR and DVDs (the library refuses to buy videos any more
if they have avoid it).  If I had access to the web in the classroom, I
would be tickled pink!  I have been talking with my chair about the issue,
and hopefully I can speed the process along.

Thanks professor Burrows for your information on slides.  Phew!  That is
what makes it so difficult. I guess I'm just resisting out of laziness and
time pressures.  But I'll have to give in IF I want to pursue the use of
slides/images--and I do.

Vivian

-----Original Message-----
From: History of Early Settlement in the U.S.
[mailto:EARLYSETTLEMENTFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU]On Behalf Of RISA
FAUSSETTE
Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2002 8:11 AM
To: EARLYSETTLEMENTFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
Subject: Re: Slides and films


This has been a very rewarding exchange of information -- and thanks to all
who have participated.

In response to Vivian Bruce Conger's question on films for the colonial
period, I have used Africans in America with great success to teach on the
evolution of racial slavery. The section (on the second videocassette) on
the Great Awakening and the American Revolution (used in conjunction with
primary documents and secondary reading) is also very helpful and the
students really like it.

For images, if you have a smart classroom and can go online during your
lectures, go to "The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A
Visual Record" compiled by the University of Virginia at:


http://gropius.lib.virginia.edu/Slavery/

Risa Faussette



----- Original Message -----
From: "Vivian Bruce Conger" 
To: 
Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2002 7:06 AM
Subject: Re: Slides and films


> Hi everyone.  I teach early American history and women's history at Ithaca
> College.  Right now I am teaching the colonial history course--only 4
weeks
> left in the semester!  I have taught the colonial course before at a
> previous school, but I always taught it as a seminar, not as a lecture
> course.  Now I am "required" to teach it as a lecture course, and I'm
> struggling to get those lectures together every week.  It feels like it
did
> when I first started teaching, but I love the material.  I have lots of
> worries about the course, but right now I'll stick with the latest thread.
>
> I was very much interested to hear Alan talk about using slides and the
way
> he uses them.  I agree that students respond well to the visual, and a
> deeper reading of them is better than just using them to zip through
images
> (which is what I did when I showed slides I bought at Plimoth Plantation).
> I use, for example, Thomas Cole's "Course of Empire" paintings in my
survey
> course to talk about ways Whigs critiqued the Age of Jackson--and we spend
a
> lot time looking at them and talking about what they see in them.  It
works
> well.  But I never thought about that for colonial history simply because
it
> really never dawned on me that there were slides we could use.  What
slides
> do you use?  Where did you get them?  I've seen scattered images in books,
> but I've been unclear about how to get access to them since they seem to
be
> taken from various museums and historical societies.  The web has not
proved
> very successful in that regard.  How often do you bring in slides to
> analyze?  I could imagine using them on a weekly basis.
>
> As for films, I've used "Black Robe" with great success.  I've also shown
> parts of "Three Sovereigns for Sarah" for witchcraft.  But beyond that,
I'm
> not sure what other films we have for colonial history.  When I taught the
> colonial course as a seminar at a previous school, I started the semester
> with the film "The Return of Martin Guerre" and then assigned them Davis's
> The Return of Martin Guerre and the American Historical Review's forum on
> The Return of Martin Guerre.  It set up issues of sources and
interpretation
> for this early period.  The students seemed to really like it, but I
didn't
> think it would work well in my current course.  Although I can't quite say
> why, and now I wish I had used it again.  I'm looking forward to hearing
> other films people use.
>
> Vivian Bruce Conger
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: History of Early Settlement in the U.S.
> [mailto:EARLYSETTLEMENTFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU]On Behalf Of Alan
> Taylor
> Sent: Friday, November 08, 2002 7:09 PM
> To: EARLYSETTLEMENTFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
> Subject: Re: How to structure the Colonial North American Survey
>
>
> Colleagues,
>
> Peter Haro raises the issue of how to deal with students who are more
> "literate" in images than in texts, which I'm sure we all struggle with.
> One thing that I do, is to do a lot with slides and to linger over them an
d
> to get them to read the details of the images (in elite portraits, what,
> for example, are the subjects holding in their hands or what is the
> backdrop and what does that indicate for their status and their
> aspirations).  This is as an alternative to simply racing through slides
> (as I used to do) and identifying each one briefly without attending to
the
> visual details within.  I've found that students become enthusiastic about
> interpreting images, more so than texts.  But by doing a lot of this, and
> then alternating it with group discussion of texts, I think there is a
> carry over effect, and that they become more attentive to the nuances of
> language.
>
> What are your experiences in working with slides?
>
> I also wonder to what degree we can work with films to reach our students.
> Unfortunately, the list of films that offer some feeling of authenticity
> about the colonial past are few and far between.  I've had some good luck
> with "Black Robe".  Do the rest of you have any suggestions?
>
> It's also possible to teach against the stereotypes of colonial America
> contained in some films.  IN theory, it would even be possible to use some
> of Demi Moore's "The Scarlet Letter" (the worst big-budget film that I've
> ever seen) to expose our culture's myth-making about the colonial era.
>
> I find that students are more responsive to documents if they're linked to
> a film or to a historical novel, as it gives them an opportunity to see
> what "really" happened in an episode that they first encounter in a genre
> that strikes them as entertaining but potentially duplicitous.
>
> Any nominations for useful films?  Or novels?
>
> Best, Alan
>
> At 01:31 PM 11/5/02 -0800, Peter Haro wrote:
> >Perhaps I'm stating the obvious but my greatest difficulty in teaching
> >colonial history and early America is the fact that most of our students
> are
> >the products of a video generation. Trying to make topics from this era
> >relevant to students raised on a steady diet of video images and who tend
> to
> >focus only on issues that pertain to their lives is challenging to say
the
> >least. I have tried everything from focusing on the origins of slavery in
> the
> >colonies to the role of women during and after the American Revolution
and
> >nothing seems to "fire them up", so to speak. Any suggestions as to
topics
> >that you have found to be relevant and interesting would be appreciated.
> >Sincerely, Pete Haro.
> >
> >On Tue, 5 Nov 2002 14:41:40 -0500 BRIDGETT WILLIAMS-SEARLE
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Sheila, Alan, and all...
> >>
> >> I have just started teaching Colonial North
> >> America and am feeling challenged
> >> to do so effectively, so it's nice to know that
> >> more senior professors are also struggling to
> >> interpret this capacious subject to their
> >> students. I suspect
> >> in my case that it's because the interpretive
> >> strengths of the field -- the
> >> diverse cast of characters, the multiple sorts
> >> of labor systems
> >> we present, the regional differences, the
> >> creation of an Atlantic world, the
> >> three-continent reach of the literature -- make
> >> it difficult for me to
> >> create a strong central narrative. With such a
> >> lot of
> >> interesting work from which to choose, it's
> >> hard to make some disciplined
> >> analytic choices and decide what story (or
> >> perhaps, whose story) to tell.
> >>
> >> I'm focusing this semester on the evolving
> >> political economy of race and sex in
> >> North America but I'm unsure whether my classes
> >> are really buying the story.
> >> I'm using monographs by Kathleen Brown, Jill
> >> Lepore, and Kirsten Fischer. The
> >> paper assignments are primary document driven.
> >> For example, I just assigned
> >>  a portion of the NLC's on-line Jesuit
> >> Relations so that students could engage
> >> in a longitudinal study of life in Iroquoia
> >> during the Beaver Wars. They
> >> were to choose a sub-focus such as material
> >> culture, gender ideology,
> >> warfare, or political economy, analyzing and
> >> explaining the changes and continuities
> >> they found. Sounded like a good idea, and maybe
> >> would have been
> >> for an upper-division class, but it was too
> >> challenging for my intro students.
> >>
> >> As is perhaps evident, I too focus a lot of my
> >> course on ethnohistory -- much
> >> to the frustration of some of my students, who
> >> feel that I'm not giving them
> >> the "real story." (I think they mean that the
> >> ratio of council fires to
> >> powdered wigs is out of whack, but I'm not
> >> sure.) How do other people persuade
> >> their students that teaching about American
> >> Indians as critical actors is not
> >> a perverse act of special pleading?
> >>
> >>
> >> Bridgett Williams-Searle
> >> Department of History and Political Science
> >> College of St. Rose
> >> Albany, NY
> >>
> >> This forum is sponsored by History
> >> Matters--please visit our Web site at
> >> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more
> >> resources for teaching U.S. History.
> >>
> >
> >This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S.
History.
> >
> >
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S.
History.
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 9 Nov 2002 13:30:44 -0800
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         Brett Rushforth 
Subject:      films for early American course

Thanks to everyone for their wonderful suggestions.  To us novices in the
profession, these kinds of exchanges are especially helpful as we can
learn from years of experience without all of that experience being our
own.

I just thought I would add a couple of thoughts about films.  Last fall, I
taught the history of New France at McGill University, and I used video
clips and still images nearly every day in my lectures...with mixed
results.

The two most effective films I used in that context were Canada: A
People's History and Last of the Mohicans.

The former is a production of the CBC, and has some tricky copyright
restrictions, but is really a fabulous way to introduce many important
themes.  Even for those not keen on a lot of French content in their
courses, there are great scenes depicting, for example, the Schenectady
and Deerfield raids, the Seven Years' War, and the American Revolution
(from a wonderfully Canadian perspective).  In my next US survey, I plan
to show a revolution clip, which depicts an upstanding loyalist family
being attacked by a raging patriot mob, contrasted with a whiggish clip
from the Liberty! documentary.  Even the dimmest of students will be sure
to see the difference in interpretation.  For anyone interested in this
series, it can be purchased online at
http://history.cbc.ca/history/webdriver?
MIval=GENcont.html&series_id=4&episode_id=99&chapter_id=1&page_id=1&lang=E
I bought the DVD's, put them in my laptop, and switched from Power Point
to DVD with a simple ALT-TAB, which was especially important when I was
showing two or three minute clips in the middle of a lecture.  That method
streamlined the transition from lecture to film to discussion.

As for Last of the Mohicans, I assigned Ian Steele's _Betrayals_ with the
film, and we discussed the two together.  Once students became irritated
with all of the flawed history (one Micmac student of mine said that "his
people" came out looking like savages), I threw a sucker punch with a very
brief essay by Russell Means, which I handed out towards the end of the
discussion.  The little piece is called "Acting Against Racism in
Mohicans," and in it Means explains why he--a famed American Indian
Movement political activist--would embrace his role as Chingachgook.
Despite the essay's weaknesses, I think it left the students thinking
carefully about the ways we remember and portray Indians from the colonial
period, and the social and political consequences of those portrayals.
The essays I got from students on the book were pretty good.  For anyone
interested in the Means piece, it is online (for now) at
http://users.efni.com/~kristy/means.htm


Thanks again to everyone,
Brett Rushforth

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 10 Nov 2002 13:29:26 -0500
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         KAREN NEEDLES 
Subject:      Re: Slides and films
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Vivian, films that I would suggest using for colonial period

Witchcraft
The Crucible
Three Sovereigns for Sarah

Early Colonial
The Scarlett Letter - film by PBS not the Demi Moore version to accompany
the novel

American Revolution
1776
The Howards of Virginia
Story of a Patriot - from Colonial Williamsburg
A More Perfect Union - Can be purchased in Philadelphia
Founding Fathers - A & E
Founding Brothers - A & E
American Revolution - History Channel or A & E

As to primary sources: Have you searched for items at the Library of
Congress American Memory website, located at http://memory.loc.gov
Over 7 million primary and secondary sources have been digitized and placed
online to compliment your curriculum.
Also, the National Archives has resources. Not everything is digitized and
you may want to think about visiting and scanning documents held there.
Their website is http://www.archives.gov . Take a look at the Exhibit Hall
and the Digital Classroom.
I worked for four years as an educational specialist with both the Archives
and the LOC.  If you have any questions please feel free to ask.
I now have started my own business and will be doing freelance research and
workshops for educators, incorporating primary sources from the LOC and
Archives.  I have one of my projects up online.
Karen Needles
Documents on Wheels
current email address is http://abolitionists.net/Nathaniel_Gordon/index.htm
soon to be http://www.documentsonwheels.com




----- Original Message -----
From: "Vivian Bruce Conger" 
To: 
Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2002 7:06 AM
Subject: Re: Slides and films


> Hi everyone.  I teach early American history and women's history at Ithaca
> College.  Right now I am teaching the colonial history course--only 4
weeks
> left in the semester!  I have taught the colonial course before at a
> previous school, but I always taught it as a seminar, not as a lecture
> course.  Now I am "required" to teach it as a lecture course, and I'm
> struggling to get those lectures together every week.  It feels like it
did
> when I first started teaching, but I love the material.  I have lots of
> worries about the course, but right now I'll stick with the latest thread.
>
> I was very much interested to hear Alan talk about using slides and the
way
> he uses them.  I agree that students respond well to the visual, and a
> deeper reading of them is better than just using them to zip through
images
> (which is what I did when I showed slides I bought at Plimoth Plantation).
> I use, for example, Thomas Cole's "Course of Empire" paintings in my
survey
> course to talk about ways Whigs critiqued the Age of Jackson--and we spend
a
> lot time looking at them and talking about what they see in them.  It
works
> well.  But I never thought about that for colonial history simply because
it
> really never dawned on me that there were slides we could use.  What
slides
> do you use?  Where did you get them?  I've seen scattered images in books,
> but I've been unclear about how to get access to them since they seem to
be
> taken from various museums and historical societies.  The web has not
proved
> very successful in that regard.  How often do you bring in slides to
> analyze?  I could imagine using them on a weekly basis.
>
> As for films, I've used "Black Robe" with great success.  I've also shown
> parts of "Three Sovereigns for Sarah" for witchcraft.  But beyond that,
I'm
> not sure what other films we have for colonial history.  When I taught the
> colonial course as a seminar at a previous school, I started the semester
> with the film "The Return of Martin Guerre" and then assigned them Davis's
> The Return of Martin Guerre and the American Historical Review's forum on
> The Return of Martin Guerre.  It set up issues of sources and
interpretation
> for this early period.  The students seemed to really like it, but I
didn't
> think it would work well in my current course.  Although I can't quite say
> why, and now I wish I had used it again.  I'm looking forward to hearing
> other films people use.
>
> Vivian Bruce Conger
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: History of Early Settlement in the U.S.
> [mailto:EARLYSETTLEMENTFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU]On Behalf Of Alan
> Taylor
> Sent: Friday, November 08, 2002 7:09 PM
> To: EARLYSETTLEMENTFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
> Subject: Re: How to structure the Colonial North American Survey
>
>
> Colleagues,
>
> Peter Haro raises the issue of how to deal with students who are more
> "literate" in images than in texts, which I'm sure we all struggle with.
> One thing that I do, is to do a lot with slides and to linger over them
and
> to get them to read the details of the images (in elite portraits, what,
> for example, are the subjects holding in their hands or what is the
> backdrop and what does that indicate for their status and their
> aspirations).  This is as an alternative to simply racing through slides
> (as I used to do) and identifying each one briefly without attending to
the
> visual details within.  I've found that students become enthusiastic about
> interpreting images, more so than texts.  But by doing a lot of this, and
> then alternating it with group discussion of texts, I think there is a
> carry over effect, and that they become more attentive to the nuances of
> language.
>
> What are your experiences in working with slides?
>
> I also wonder to what degree we can work with films to reach our students.
> Unfortunately, the list of films that offer some feeling of authenticity
> about the colonial past are few and far between.  I've had some good luck
> with "Black Robe".  Do the rest of you have any suggestions?
>
> It's also possible to teach against the stereotypes of colonial America
> contained in some films.  IN theory, it would even be possible to use some
> of Demi Moore's "The Scarlet Letter" (the worst big-budget film that I've
> ever seen) to expose our culture's myth-making about the colonial era.
>
> I find that students are more responsive to documents if they're linked to
> a film or to a historical novel, as it gives them an opportunity to see
> what "really" happened in an episode that they first encounter in a genre
> that strikes them as entertaining but potentially duplicitous.
>
> Any nominations for useful films?  Or novels?
>
> Best, Alan
>
> At 01:31 PM 11/5/02 -0800, Peter Haro wrote:
> >Perhaps I'm stating the obvious but my greatest difficulty in teaching
> >colonial history and early America is the fact that most of our students
> are
> >the products of a video generation. Trying to make topics from this era
> >relevant to students raised on a steady diet of video images and who tend
> to
> >focus only on issues that pertain to their lives is challenging to say
the
> >least. I have tried everything from focusing on the origins of slavery in
> the
> >colonies to the role of women during and after the American Revolution
and
> >nothing seems to "fire them up", so to speak. Any suggestions as to
topics
> >that you have found to be relevant and interesting would be appreciated.
> >Sincerely, Pete Haro.
> >
> >On Tue, 5 Nov 2002 14:41:40 -0500 BRIDGETT WILLIAMS-SEARLE
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Sheila, Alan, and all...
> >>
> >> I have just started teaching Colonial North
> >> America and am feeling challenged
> >> to do so effectively, so it's nice to know that
> >> more senior professors are also struggling to
> >> interpret this capacious subject to their
> >> students. I suspect
> >> in my case that it's because the interpretive
> >> strengths of the field -- the
> >> diverse cast of characters, the multiple sorts
> >> of labor systems
> >> we present, the regional differences, the
> >> creation of an Atlantic world, the
> >> three-continent reach of the literature -- make
> >> it difficult for me to
> >> create a strong central narrative. With such a
> >> lot of
> >> interesting work from which to choose, it's
> >> hard to make some disciplined
> >> analytic choices and decide what story (or
> >> perhaps, whose story) to tell.
> >>
> >> I'm focusing this semester on the evolving
> >> political economy of race and sex in
> >> North America but I'm unsure whether my classes
> >> are really buying the story.
> >> I'm using monographs by Kathleen Brown, Jill
> >> Lepore, and Kirsten Fischer. The
> >> paper assignments are primary document driven.
> >> For example, I just assigned
> >>  a portion of the NLC's on-line Jesuit
> >> Relations so that students could engage
> >> in a longitudinal study of life in Iroquoia
> >> during the Beaver Wars. They
> >> were to choose a sub-focus such as material
> >> culture, gender ideology,
> >> warfare, or political economy, analyzing and
> >> explaining the changes and continuities
> >> they found. Sounded like a good idea, and maybe
> >> would have been
> >> for an upper-division class, but it was too
> >> challenging for my intro students.
> >>
> >> As is perhaps evident, I too focus a lot of my
> >> course on ethnohistory -- much
> >> to the frustration of some of my students, who
> >> feel that I'm not giving them
> >> the "real story." (I think they mean that the
> >> ratio of council fires to
> >> powdered wigs is out of whack, but I'm not
> >> sure.) How do other people persuade
> >> their students that teaching about American
> >> Indians as critical actors is not
> >> a perverse act of special pleading?
> >>
> >>
> >> Bridgett Williams-Searle
> >> Department of History and Political Science
> >> College of St. Rose
> >> Albany, NY
> >>
> >> This forum is sponsored by History
> >> Matters--please visit our Web site at
> >> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more
> >> resources for teaching U.S. History.
> >>
> >
> >This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S.
History.
> >
> >
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S.
History.
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 11 Nov 2002 09:09:02 -0500
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         Tom Clemens 
Subject:      Re: Teaching with Slides
In-Reply-To:  
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

As an alternative to using slides, and/or converting them to Power Point
images, there are several vendors who sell video disks, the big LP
album-sized disks that contain as many as 2,500 pictures.  While you lose
the ability to have exactly the slide you like, the flexibility to call
them up with a hand-held wireless infrared scanner and have them appear on
a large TV screen is great.  I find it helps students to learn when visual
reinforcement is used.  I don't know of any specific to Early Settlement,
but my standard American History disk has 269 images from Olmec and Mayan
artifacts to William Penn landing at Newcastle.  The technology is easy,
scan, point, and click, and not terribly expensive.


Tom Clemens, D.A.
Professor of History
Hagerstown Community College

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 12 Nov 2002 10:35:16 -0500
Reply-To:     mapman@hfx.andara.com
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         "Dr. Iain C. Taylor" 
Organization: Halifax, NS
Subject:      Re: EARLYSETTLEMENTFORUM Digest - 9 Nov 2002 to 10 Nov 2002
              (#2002-6)
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type=54455854;
              x-mac-creator=4D4F5353
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

I am greatly enjoying this forum and though not a teacher of history (I'm an urban and settlement historical geographer) could I mention one aspect
that ought not to be forgotten?  Namely that the American War of Independence / Revolution was as much a civil war as that between the States later.  I
have read that estimates of as many as a third of the population supported the Crown and up to a half of the population were against the war.  There
were too, many Black Loyalists who established free settlements in the Maritimes and Upper Canada.

There is a wealth of Loyalist and 1812 war material in books and films that would support teaching "from the side of the losers who lost everything"
and who set up an alternative North American polity as a result.  Most accessible for introductory level students is the multi-part CBC History of
Canada series and the work of Pierre Berton and the TV series based on his books.

iain taylor
Halifax, Nova Scotia



Automatic digest processor wrote:

> There is one message totalling 260 lines in this issue.
>
> Topics of the day:
>
>   1. Slides and films
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Date:    Sun, 10 Nov 2002 13:29:26 -0500
> From:    KAREN NEEDLES 
> Subject: Re: Slides and films
>
> Vivian, films that I would suggest using for colonial period
>
> Witchcraft
> The Crucible
> Three Sovereigns for Sarah
>
> Early Colonial
> The Scarlett Letter - film by PBS not the Demi Moore version to accompany
> the novel
>
> American Revolution
> 1776
> The Howards of Virginia
> Story of a Patriot - from Colonial Williamsburg
> A More Perfect Union - Can be purchased in Philadelphia
> Founding Fathers - A & E
> Founding Brothers - A & E
> American Revolution - History Channel or A & E
>
> As to primary sources: Have you searched for items at the Library of
> Congress American Memory website, located at http://memory.loc.gov
> Over 7 million primary and secondary sources have been digitized and placed
> online to compliment your curriculum.
> Also, the National Archives has resources. Not everything is digitized and
> you may want to think about visiting and scanning documents held there.
> Their website is http://www.archives.gov . Take a look at the Exhibit Hall
> and the Digital Classroom.
> I worked for four years as an educational specialist with both the Archives
> and the LOC.  If you have any questions please feel free to ask.
> I now have started my own business and will be doing freelance research and
> workshops for educators, incorporating primary sources from the LOC and
> Archives.  I have one of my projects up online.
> Karen Needles
> Documents on Wheels
> current email address is http://abolitionists.net/Nathaniel_Gordon/index.htm
> soon to be http://www.documentsonwheels.com
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Vivian Bruce Conger" 
> To: 
> Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2002 7:06 AM
> Subject: Re: Slides and films
>
> > Hi everyone.  I teach early American history and women's history at Ithaca
> > College.  Right now I am teaching the colonial history course--only 4
> weeks
> > left in the semester!  I have taught the colonial course before at a
> > previous school, but I always taught it as a seminar, not as a lecture
> > course.  Now I am "required" to teach it as a lecture course, and I'm
> > struggling to get those lectures together every week.  It feels like it
> did
> > when I first started teaching, but I love the material.  I have lots of
> > worries about the course, but right now I'll stick with the latest thread.
> >
> > I was very much interested to hear Alan talk about using slides and the
> way
> > he uses them.  I agree that students respond well to the visual, and a
> > deeper reading of them is better than just using them to zip through
> images
> > (which is what I did when I showed slides I bought at Plimoth Plantation).
> > I use, for example, Thomas Cole's "Course of Empire" paintings in my
> survey
> > course to talk about ways Whigs critiqued the Age of Jackson--and we spend
> a
> > lot time looking at them and talking about what they see in them.  It
> works
> > well.  But I never thought about that for colonial history simply because
> it
> > really never dawned on me that there were slides we could use.  What
> slides
> > do you use?  Where did you get them?  I've seen scattered images in books,
> > but I've been unclear about how to get access to them since they seem to
> be
> > taken from various museums and historical societies.  The web has not
> proved
> > very successful in that regard.  How often do you bring in slides to
> > analyze?  I could imagine using them on a weekly basis.
> >
> > As for films, I've used "Black Robe" with great success.  I've also shown
> > parts of "Three Sovereigns for Sarah" for witchcraft.  But beyond that,
> I'm
> > not sure what other films we have for colonial history.  When I taught the
> > colonial course as a seminar at a previous school, I started the semester
> > with the film "The Return of Martin Guerre" and then assigned them Davis's
> > The Return of Martin Guerre and the American Historical Review's forum on
> > The Return of Martin Guerre.  It set up issues of sources and
> interpretation
> > for this early period.  The students seemed to really like it, but I
> didn't
> > think it would work well in my current course.  Although I can't quite say
> > why, and now I wish I had used it again.  I'm looking forward to hearing
> > other films people use.
> >
> > Vivian Bruce Conger
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: History of Early Settlement in the U.S.
> > [mailto:EARLYSETTLEMENTFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU]On Behalf Of Alan
> > Taylor
> > Sent: Friday, November 08, 2002 7:09 PM
> > To: EARLYSETTLEMENTFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
> > Subject: Re: How to structure the Colonial North American Survey
> >
> >
> > Colleagues,
> >
> > Peter Haro raises the issue of how to deal with students who are more
> > "literate" in images than in texts, which I'm sure we all struggle with.
> > One thing that I do, is to do a lot with slides and to linger over them
> and
> > to get them to read the details of the images (in elite portraits, what,
> > for example, are the subjects holding in their hands or what is the
> > backdrop and what does that indicate for their status and their
> > aspirations).  This is as an alternative to simply racing through slides
> > (as I used to do) and identifying each one briefly without attending to
> the
> > visual details within.  I've found that students become enthusiastic about
> > interpreting images, more so than texts.  But by doing a lot of this, and
> > then alternating it with group discussion of texts, I think there is a
> > carry over effect, and that they become more attentive to the nuances of
> > language.
> >
> > What are your experiences in working with slides?
> >
> > I also wonder to what degree we can work with films to reach our students.
> > Unfortunately, the list of films that offer some feeling of authenticity
> > about the colonial past are few and far between.  I've had some good luck
> > with "Black Robe".  Do the rest of you have any suggestions?
> >
> > It's also possible to teach against the stereotypes of colonial America
> > contained in some films.  IN theory, it would even be possible to use some
> > of Demi Moore's "The Scarlet Letter" (the worst big-budget film that I've
> > ever seen) to expose our culture's myth-making about the colonial era.
> >
> > I find that students are more responsive to documents if they're linked to
> > a film or to a historical novel, as it gives them an opportunity to see
> > what "really" happened in an episode that they first encounter in a genre
> > that strikes them as entertaining but potentially duplicitous.
> >
> > Any nominations for useful films?  Or novels?
> >
> > Best, Alan
> >
> > At 01:31 PM 11/5/02 -0800, Peter Haro wrote:
> > >Perhaps I'm stating the obvious but my greatest difficulty in teaching
> > >colonial history and early America is the fact that most of our students
> > are
> > >the products of a video generation. Trying to make topics from this era
> > >relevant to students raised on a steady diet of video images and who tend
> > to
> > >focus only on issues that pertain to their lives is challenging to say
> the
> > >least. I have tried everything from focusing on the origins of slavery in
> > the
> > >colonies to the role of women during and after the American Revolution
> and
> > >nothing seems to "fire them up", so to speak. Any suggestions as to
> topics
> > >that you have found to be relevant and interesting would be appreciated.
> > >Sincerely, Pete Haro.
> > >
> > >On Tue, 5 Nov 2002 14:41:40 -0500 BRIDGETT WILLIAMS-SEARLE
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > >> Sheila, Alan, and all...
> > >>
> > >> I have just started teaching Colonial North
> > >> America and am feeling challenged
> > >> to do so effectively, so it's nice to know that
> > >> more senior professors are also struggling to
> > >> interpret this capacious subject to their
> > >> students. I suspect
> > >> in my case that it's because the interpretive
> > >> strengths of the field -- the
> > >> diverse cast of characters, the multiple sorts
> > >> of labor systems
> > >> we present, the regional differences, the
> > >> creation of an Atlantic world, the
> > >> three-continent reach of the literature -- make
> > >> it difficult for me to
> > >> create a strong central narrative. With such a
> > >> lot of
> > >> interesting work from which to choose, it's
> > >> hard to make some disciplined
> > >> analytic choices and decide what story (or
> > >> perhaps, whose story) to tell.
> > >>
> > >> I'm focusing this semester on the evolving
> > >> political economy of race and sex in
> > >> North America but I'm unsure whether my classes
> > >> are really buying the story.
> > >> I'm using monographs by Kathleen Brown, Jill
> > >> Lepore, and Kirsten Fischer. The
> > >> paper assignments are primary document driven.
> > >> For example, I just assigned
> > >>  a portion of the NLC's on-line Jesuit
> > >> Relations so that students could engage
> > >> in a longitudinal study of life in Iroquoia
> > >> during the Beaver Wars. They
> > >> were to choose a sub-focus such as material
> > >> culture, gender ideology,
> > >> warfare, or political economy, analyzing and
> > >> explaining the changes and continuities
> > >> they found. Sounded like a good idea, and maybe
> > >> would have been
> > >> for an upper-division class, but it was too
> > >> challenging for my intro students.
> > >>
> > >> As is perhaps evident, I too focus a lot of my
> > >> course on ethnohistory -- much
> > >> to the frustration of some of my students, who
> > >> feel that I'm not giving them
> > >> the "real story." (I think they mean that the
> > >> ratio of council fires to
> > >> powdered wigs is out of whack, but I'm not
> > >> sure.) How do other people persuade
> > >> their students that teaching about American
> > >> Indians as critical actors is not
> > >> a perverse act of special pleading?
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Bridgett Williams-Searle
> > >> Department of History and Political Science
> > >> College of St. Rose
> > >> Albany, NY
> > >>
> > >> This forum is sponsored by History
> > >> Matters--please visit our Web site at
> > >> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more
> > >> resources for teaching U.S. History.
> > >>
> > >
> > >This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
> > http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S.
> History.
> > >
> > >
> >
> > This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
> > http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S.
> History.
> >
> > This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of EARLYSETTLEMENTFORUM Digest - 9 Nov 2002 to 10 Nov 2002 (#2002-6)
> ************************************************************************

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 12 Nov 2002 12:19:59 -0500
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         "Edward J. Gallagher" 
Subject:      Re: films for early American course
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

The recent posts about films lead me to suggest that forum members might want to take a look at the Reel American History project by students at
Lehigh.  There are projects on several films about early America ("1492: Conquest of Paradise" would be a good one to explore), and the "Note to
Teachers" suggests several ways you and your students might contribute to the project.

http://www.Lehigh.EDU/~ineng/ReelAmericanHistory

Ed Gallagher

--

Edward J. Gallagher
http://www.lehigh.edu/~ejg1/ejg1.html

Society of Early Americanists' Teaching Page
http://www.lehigh.edu/~ejg1/topics.html

Reel American History
http://www.Lehigh.EDU/ReelAmericanHistory

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 12 Nov 2002 12:20:25 -0600
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         Paddy Swiney 
Subject:      Re: films for early American course
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

I have used excerpts from "Blackrobe" to demonstrate the culture clash
between the Europeans and the Indians.  There are several marvelous scenes
from both points of view.  pds

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 12 Nov 2002 13:27:50 -0500
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         John Gardner 
Subject:      films, slides
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

I always recommend "Sweet Liberty" both for its humor and for what it
rightly has to say about Hollywood History.  When I saw "The Patriot," I
thought it was the film they were making in "Sweet Liberty."
John Gardner
Delaware State University

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 13 Nov 2002 10:08:34 -0800
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         Alan Taylor 
Subject:      Re: Slides and films
In-Reply-To:  
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Colleagues,

There's a considerable amount of images available for colonial history,
especially for native peoples, who fascinated colonial artists far more
than their own people.  I'm fortunate to be at a university that provides
good tech support for making slides: so I simply have to bring them books
with images that I want and they make the slides (provided I request no
more than 10% of the images per book, in order to cover their copyright
concerns).  This has saved me from the hassle of making my own, which Edwin
Burrows describes, but also from figuring out, as he has, how to use laptop
projection, which is clearly the wave of the future.

Good sources of images for colonial America include:

Paul Hulton, America in 1585: The Complete Drawings of John White

Stefan Lorant, The New World: The First Pictures of America [De Bry
engravings of Jacques Le Moyne's Florida watercolors]

Massachusetts Historical Society, Witness to America's Past.

Art history books including those on the portraits of John Singleton Copley.

I also haunt used bookstores and look for the various Time-Life and
American Heritage books on Indians and exploration, colonial and
revolutionary America.  See also Thomas Fleming's companion book to the
documentary series Liberty!  These books are cheaply had at used bookstores
and can be mined for images.

The last set of books do tend to use a lot of 19th century romantic
paintings as uncritical representations of the colonial or revolutionary
past, so the images are often best used to get students to analyze the
subsequent process of romanticization.  They get into it once you remind
them that these are not photographs of a transparent "reality."

Best, Alan

At 07:06 AM 11/9/02 -0500, you wrote:
>Hi everyone.  I teach early American history and women's history at Ithaca
>College.  Right now I am teaching the colonial history course--only 4 weeks
>left in the semester!  I have taught the colonial course before at a
>previous school, but I always taught it as a seminar, not as a lecture
>course.  Now I am "required" to teach it as a lecture course, and I'm
>struggling to get those lectures together every week.  It feels like it did
>when I first started teaching, but I love the material.  I have lots of
>worries about the course, but right now I'll stick with the latest thread.
>
>I was very much interested to hear Alan talk about using slides and the way
>he uses them.  I agree that students respond well to the visual, and a
>deeper reading of them is better than just using them to zip through images
>(which is what I did when I showed slides I bought at Plimoth Plantation).
>I use, for example, Thomas Cole's "Course of Empire" paintings in my survey
>course to talk about ways Whigs critiqued the Age of Jackson--and we spend a
>lot time looking at them and talking about what they see in them.  It works
>well.  But I never thought about that for colonial history simply because it
>really never dawned on me that there were slides we could use.  What slides
>do you use?  Where did you get them?  I've seen scattered images in books,
>but I've been unclear about how to get access to them since they seem to be
>taken from various museums and historical societies.  The web has not proved
>very successful in that regard.  How often do you bring in slides to
>analyze?  I could imagine using them on a weekly basis.
>
>As for films, I've used "Black Robe" with great success.  I've also shown
>parts of "Three Sovereigns for Sarah" for witchcraft.  But beyond that, I'm
>not sure what other films we have for colonial history.  When I taught the
>colonial course as a seminar at a previous school, I started the semester
>with the film "The Return of Martin Guerre" and then assigned them Davis's
>The Return of Martin Guerre and the American Historical Review's forum on
>The Return of Martin Guerre.  It set up issues of sources and interpretation
>for this early period.  The students seemed to really like it, but I didn't
>think it would work well in my current course.  Although I can't quite say
>why, and now I wish I had used it again.  I'm looking forward to hearing
>other films people use.
>
>Vivian Bruce Conger
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: History of Early Settlement in the U.S.
>[mailto:EARLYSETTLEMENTFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU]On Behalf Of Alan
>Taylor
>Sent: Friday, November 08, 2002 7:09 PM
>To: EARLYSETTLEMENTFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
>Subject: Re: How to structure the Colonial North American Survey
>
>
>Colleagues,
>
>Peter Haro raises the issue of how to deal with students who are more
>"literate" in images than in texts, which I'm sure we all struggle with.
>One thing that I do, is to do a lot with slides and to linger over them and
>to get them to read the details of the images (in elite portraits, what,
>for example, are the subjects holding in their hands or what is the
>backdrop and what does that indicate for their status and their
>aspirations).  This is as an alternative to simply racing through slides
>(as I used to do) and identifying each one briefly without attending to the
>visual details within.  I've found that students become enthusiastic about
>interpreting images, more so than texts.  But by doing a lot of this, and
>then alternating it with group discussion of texts, I think there is a
>carry over effect, and that they become more attentive to the nuances of
>language.
>
>What are your experiences in working with slides?
>
>I also wonder to what degree we can work with films to reach our students.
>Unfortunately, the list of films that offer some feeling of authenticity
>about the colonial past are few and far between.  I've had some good luck
>with "Black Robe".  Do the rest of you have any suggestions?
>
>It's also possible to teach against the stereotypes of colonial America
>contained in some films.  IN theory, it would even be possible to use some
>of Demi Moore's "The Scarlet Letter" (the worst big-budget film that I've
>ever seen) to expose our culture's myth-making about the colonial era.
>
>I find that students are more responsive to documents if they're linked to
>a film or to a historical novel, as it gives them an opportunity to see
>what "really" happened in an episode that they first encounter in a genre
>that strikes them as entertaining but potentially duplicitous.
>
>Any nominations for useful films?  Or novels?
>
>Best, Alan
>
>At 01:31 PM 11/5/02 -0800, Peter Haro wrote:
>>Perhaps I'm stating the obvious but my greatest difficulty in teaching
>>colonial history and early America is the fact that most of our students
>are
>>the products of a video generation. Trying to make topics from this era
>>relevant to students raised on a steady diet of video images and who tend
>to
>>focus only on issues that pertain to their lives is challenging to say the
>>least. I have tried everything from focusing on the origins of slavery in
>the
>>colonies to the role of women during and after the American Revolution and
>>nothing seems to "fire them up", so to speak. Any suggestions as to topics
>>that you have found to be relevant and interesting would be appreciated.
>>Sincerely, Pete Haro.
>>
>>On Tue, 5 Nov 2002 14:41:40 -0500 BRIDGETT WILLIAMS-SEARLE
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Sheila, Alan, and all...
>>>
>>> I have just started teaching Colonial North
>>> America and am feeling challenged
>>> to do so effectively, so it's nice to know that
>>> more senior professors are also struggling to
>>> interpret this capacious subject to their
>>> students. I suspect
>>> in my case that it's because the interpretive
>>> strengths of the field -- the
>>> diverse cast of characters, the multiple sorts
>>> of labor systems
>>> we present, the regional differences, the
>>> creation of an Atlantic world, the
>>> three-continent reach of the literature -- make
>>> it difficult for me to
>>> create a strong central narrative. With such a
>>> lot of
>>> interesting work from which to choose, it's
>>> hard to make some disciplined
>>> analytic choices and decide what story (or
>>> perhaps, whose story) to tell.
>>>
>>> I'm focusing this semester on the evolving
>>> political economy of race and sex in
>>> North America but I'm unsure whether my classes
>>> are really buying the story.
>>> I'm using monographs by Kathleen Brown, Jill
>>> Lepore, and Kirsten Fischer. The
>>> paper assignments are primary document driven.
>>> For example, I just assigned
>>>  a portion of the NLC's on-line Jesuit
>>> Relations so that students could engage
>>> in a longitudinal study of life in Iroquoia
>>> during the Beaver Wars. They
>>> were to choose a sub-focus such as material
>>> culture, gender ideology,
>>> warfare, or political economy, analyzing and
>>> explaining the changes and continuities
>>> they found. Sounded like a good idea, and maybe
>>> would have been
>>> for an upper-division class, but it was too
>>> challenging for my intro students.
>>>
>>> As is perhaps evident, I too focus a lot of my
>>> course on ethnohistory -- much
>>> to the frustration of some of my students, who
>>> feel that I'm not giving them
>>> the "real story." (I think they mean that the
>>> ratio of council fires to
>>> powdered wigs is out of whack, but I'm not
>>> sure.) How do other people persuade
>>> their students that teaching about American
>>> Indians as critical actors is not
>>> a perverse act of special pleading?
>>>
>>>
>>> Bridgett Williams-Searle
>>> Department of History and Political Science
>>> College of St. Rose
>>> Albany, NY
>>>
>>> This forum is sponsored by History
>>> Matters--please visit our Web site at
>>> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more
>>> resources for teaching U.S. History.
>>>
>>
>>This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
>http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>>
>>
>
>This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
>http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>
>This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>
>

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=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 13 Nov 2002 10:10:45 -0800
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         Alan Taylor 
Subject:      Re: Slides and films
In-Reply-To:  
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Fritz, et al,

I heartily endorse Fritz's suggestion and should have mentioned the film
and the site earlier (having been a consultant on the film), but it is
about the early national period and so might not fit courses limited to the
colonial era.  Best, Alan

At 08:00 AM 11/9/02 -0500, you wrote:
>Hello!  As for using films, I've discovered that the more I can integrate
>the film with the readings and the assignments, the more the students
>learn.  One splendid film and accompanying web resources for
>assignments/research in this period is the film A Midwife's Tale and the
>associated website http://www.dohistory.org/.
>
>best,
>
>Fritz
>
>
>On Sat, 9 Nov 2002, Vivian Bruce Conger wrote:
>
>> Hi everyone.  I teach early American history and women's history at Ithaca
>> College.  Right now I am teaching the colonial history course--only 4 weeks
>> left in the semester!  I have taught the colonial course before at a
>> previous school, but I always taught it as a seminar, not as a lecture
>> course.  Now I am "required" to teach it as a lecture course, and I'm
>> struggling to get those lectures together every week.  It feels like it did
>> when I first started teaching, but I love the material.  I have lots of
>> worries about the course, but right now I'll stick with the latest thread.
>>
>> I was very much interested to hear Alan talk about using slides and the way
>> he uses them.  I agree that students respond well to the visual, and a
>> deeper reading of them is better than just using them to zip through images
>> (which is what I did when I showed slides I bought at Plimoth Plantation).
>> I use, for example, Thomas Cole's "Course of Empire" paintings in my survey
>> course to talk about ways Whigs critiqued the Age of Jackson--and we
spend a
>> lot time looking at them and talking about what they see in them.  It works
>> well.  But I never thought about that for colonial history simply
because it
>> really never dawned on me that there were slides we could use.  What slides
>> do you use?  Where did you get them?  I've seen scattered images in books,
>> but I've been unclear about how to get access to them since they seem to be
>> taken from various museums and historical societies.  The web has not
proved
>> very successful in that regard.  How often do you bring in slides to
>> analyze?  I could imagine using them on a weekly basis.
>>
>> As for films, I've used "Black Robe" with great success.  I've also shown
>> parts of "Three Sovereigns for Sarah" for witchcraft.  But beyond that, I'm
>> not sure what other films we have for colonial history.  When I taught the
>> colonial course as a seminar at a previous school, I started the semester
>> with the film "The Return of Martin Guerre" and then assigned them Davis's
>> The Return of Martin Guerre and the American Historical Review's forum on
>> The Return of Martin Guerre.  It set up issues of sources and
interpretation
>> for this early period.  The students seemed to really like it, but I didn't
>> think it would work well in my current course.  Although I can't quite say
>> why, and now I wish I had used it again.  I'm looking forward to hearing
>> other films people use.
>>
>> Vivian Bruce Conger
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: History of Early Settlement in the U.S.
>> [mailto:EARLYSETTLEMENTFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU]On Behalf Of Alan
>> Taylor
>> Sent: Friday, November 08, 2002 7:09 PM
>> To: EARLYSETTLEMENTFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
>> Subject: Re: How to structure the Colonial North American Survey
>>
>>
>> Colleagues,
>>
>> Peter Haro raises the issue of how to deal with students who are more
>> "literate" in images than in texts, which I'm sure we all struggle with.
>> One thing that I do, is to do a lot with slides and to linger over them and
>> to get them to read the details of the images (in elite portraits, what,
>> for example, are the subjects holding in their hands or what is the
>> backdrop and what does that indicate for their status and their
>> aspirations).  This is as an alternative to simply racing through slides
>> (as I used to do) and identifying each one briefly without attending to the
>> visual details within.  I've found that students become enthusiastic about
>> interpreting images, more so than texts.  But by doing a lot of this, and
>> then alternating it with group discussion of texts, I think there is a
>> carry over effect, and that they become more attentive to the nuances of
>> language.
>>
>> What are your experiences in working with slides?
>>
>> I also wonder to what degree we can work with films to reach our students.
>> Unfortunately, the list of films that offer some feeling of authenticity
>> about the colonial past are few and far between.  I've had some good luck
>> with "Black Robe".  Do the rest of you have any suggestions?
>>
>> It's also possible to teach against the stereotypes of colonial America
>> contained in some films.  IN theory, it would even be possible to use some
>> of Demi Moore's "The Scarlet Letter" (the worst big-budget film that I've
>> ever seen) to expose our culture's myth-making about the colonial era.
>>
>> I find that students are more responsive to documents if they're linked to
>> a film or to a historical novel, as it gives them an opportunity to see
>> what "really" happened in an episode that they first encounter in a genre
>> that strikes them as entertaining but potentially duplicitous.
>>
>> Any nominations for useful films?  Or novels?
>>
>> Best, Alan
>>
>> At 01:31 PM 11/5/02 -0800, Peter Haro wrote:
>> >Perhaps I'm stating the obvious but my greatest difficulty in teaching
>> >colonial history and early America is the fact that most of our students
>> are
>> >the products of a video generation. Trying to make topics from this era
>> >relevant to students raised on a steady diet of video images and who tend
>> to
>> >focus only on issues that pertain to their lives is challenging to say the
>> >least. I have tried everything from focusing on the origins of slavery in
>> the
>> >colonies to the role of women during and after the American Revolution and
>> >nothing seems to "fire them up", so to speak. Any suggestions as to topics
>> >that you have found to be relevant and interesting would be appreciated.
>> >Sincerely, Pete Haro.
>> >
>> >On Tue, 5 Nov 2002 14:41:40 -0500 BRIDGETT WILLIAMS-SEARLE
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> >> Sheila, Alan, and all...
>> >>
>> >> I have just started teaching Colonial North
>> >> America and am feeling challenged
>> >> to do so effectively, so it's nice to know that
>> >> more senior professors are also struggling to
>> >> interpret this capacious subject to their
>> >> students. I suspect
>> >> in my case that it's because the interpretive
>> >> strengths of the field -- the
>> >> diverse cast of characters, the multiple sorts
>> >> of labor systems
>> >> we present, the regional differences, the
>> >> creation of an Atlantic world, the
>> >> three-continent reach of the literature -- make
>> >> it difficult for me to
>> >> create a strong central narrative. With such a
>> >> lot of
>> >> interesting work from which to choose, it's
>> >> hard to make some disciplined
>> >> analytic choices and decide what story (or
>> >> perhaps, whose story) to tell.
>> >>
>> >> I'm focusing this semester on the evolving
>> >> political economy of race and sex in
>> >> North America but I'm unsure whether my classes
>> >> are really buying the story.
>> >> I'm using monographs by Kathleen Brown, Jill
>> >> Lepore, and Kirsten Fischer. The
>> >> paper assignments are primary document driven.
>> >> For example, I just assigned
>> >>  a portion of the NLC's on-line Jesuit
>> >> Relations so that students could engage
>> >> in a longitudinal study of life in Iroquoia
>> >> during the Beaver Wars. They
>> >> were to choose a sub-focus such as material
>> >> culture, gender ideology,
>> >> warfare, or political economy, analyzing and
>> >> explaining the changes and continuities
>> >> they found. Sounded like a good idea, and maybe
>> >> would have been
>> >> for an upper-division class, but it was too
>> >> challenging for my intro students.
>> >>
>> >> As is perhaps evident, I too focus a lot of my
>> >> course on ethnohistory -- much
>> >> to the frustration of some of my students, who
>> >> feel that I'm not giving them
>> >> the "real story." (I think they mean that the
>> >> ratio of council fires to
>> >> powdered wigs is out of whack, but I'm not
>> >> sure.) How do other people persuade
>> >> their students that teaching about American
>> >> Indians as critical actors is not
>> >> a perverse act of special pleading?
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Bridgett Williams-Searle
>> >> Department of History and Political Science
>> >> College of St. Rose
>> >> Albany, NY
>> >>
>> >> This forum is sponsored by History
>> >> Matters--please visit our Web site at
>> >> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more
>> >> resources for teaching U.S. History.
>> >>
>> >
>> >This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
>> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>> >
>> >
>>
>> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
>> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>>
>> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>>
>
>This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>
>

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 13 Nov 2002 10:24:48 -0800
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         "Joshua.A.Piker-1" 
Subject:      films
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

Folks;

For the last two semesters, I've started my "Colonial America" class off with the John Sales' film "Lone Star."  I do so for three reasons.  In the first place, because the film is set in1990s Texas, it is something the students feel comfortable discussing.  I don't get any of the "Well, I don't know anything about this period, but I think...." responses.  Secondly, and more to the point, the movie fits very well with the multi-ethnic themes that are at the center of this course.  It's not just that it shows Hispanic-, Anglo-, and African-American characters (with just a hint of Native America thrown in for good measure) living together in a single town ("Frontera"!), but also that the movie depicts the ways these peoples' histories intersect in the most intimate of ways.  "Lone Star," I wind up telling my students, is the outcome of the complicated meeting of worlds that was colonial America.  Finally, I like to use "Lone Star" to talk about the process of investigating the past.
  This issue, in fact, seems to me to be at the center of the movie.  Minor characters in the movie are constantly debating how past events should or should not be discussed.  More importantly, though, all three of the central characters (Sam, Pilar, Delmar) are forced to confront the fact that their basic assumptions about their loved ones' histories are wrong (to one degree or another).  I hope my students will see that the past continues to surface in our lives in a variety of surprising ways and that we need to approach history with a degree of humility.  What we know is partial and flawed.  People in the past were every bit as complicated and multi-faceted as people in the present.

Also, I love the movie.

Josh Piker
U. of Oklahoma

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 13 Nov 2002 10:36:57 -0800
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         Alan Taylor 
Subject:      Re: Slides and films
In-Reply-To:  <02a901c288e7$1aae5210$6401a8c0@knowledg0l9e1s>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Colleagues,

If you use the Colonial Williamsburg "Story of a Patriot" you get the plus
of seeing Jack Lord (Hawaii Five-O) as a Virginia revolutionary.  The irony
is that he was cast before his TV breakthrough and his casting was meant to
have an unfamiliar face in the role of the patriot.

You can also get students to pay close attention by alerting them that in
one scene they can catch an inadvertant glimpse of a CW tour bus in the
background and an airplane in another and a reference to a distinguished
colonial historian (Thad Tate) in a third (Thad was a consultant for the
film).

The Pequot museum at Foxwoods in Connecticut has a wonderful introductory
film on the Pequot war: very high production values and gripping story
telling.  Perhaps this could be procured from them.

Best, Alan

At 01:29 PM 11/10/02 -0500, KAREN NEEDLES wrote:
>Vivian, films that I would suggest using for colonial period
>
>Witchcraft
>The Crucible
>Three Sovereigns for Sarah
>
>Early Colonial
>The Scarlett Letter - film by PBS not the Demi Moore version to accompany
>the novel
>
>American Revolution
>1776
>The Howards of Virginia
>Story of a Patriot - from Colonial Williamsburg
>A More Perfect Union - Can be purchased in Philadelphia
>Founding Fathers - A & E
>Founding Brothers - A & E
>American Revolution - History Channel or A & E
>
>As to primary sources: Have you searched for items at the Library of
>Congress American Memory website, located at http://memory.loc.gov
>Over 7 million primary and secondary sources have been digitized and placed
>online to compliment your curriculum.
>Also, the National Archives has resources. Not everything is digitized and
>you may want to think about visiting and scanning documents held there.
>Their website is http://www.archives.gov . Take a look at the Exhibit Hall
>and the Digital Classroom.
>I worked for four years as an educational specialist with both the Archives
>and the LOC.  If you have any questions please feel free to ask.
>I now have started my own business and will be doing freelance research and
>workshops for educators, incorporating primary sources from the LOC and
>Archives.  I have one of my projects up online.
>Karen Needles
>Documents on Wheels
>current email address is http://abolitionists.net/Nathaniel_Gordon/index.htm
>soon to be http://www.documentsonwheels.com
>
>
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Vivian Bruce Conger" 
>To: 
>Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2002 7:06 AM
>Subject: Re: Slides and films
>
>
>> Hi everyone.  I teach early American history and women's history at Ithaca
>> College.  Right now I am teaching the colonial history course--only 4
>weeks
>> left in the semester!  I have taught the colonial course before at a
>> previous school, but I always taught it as a seminar, not as a lecture
>> course.  Now I am "required" to teach it as a lecture course, and I'm
>> struggling to get those lectures together every week.  It feels like it
>did
>> when I first started teaching, but I love the material.  I have lots of
>> worries about the course, but right now I'll stick with the latest thread.
>>
>> I was very much interested to hear Alan talk about using slides and the
>way
>> he uses them.  I agree that students respond well to the visual, and a
>> deeper reading of them is better than just using them to zip through
>images
>> (which is what I did when I showed slides I bought at Plimoth Plantation).
>> I use, for example, Thomas Cole's "Course of Empire" paintings in my
>survey
>> course to talk about ways Whigs critiqued the Age of Jackson--and we spend
>a
>> lot time looking at them and talking about what they see in them.  It
>works
>> well.  But I never thought about that for colonial history simply because
>it
>> really never dawned on me that there were slides we could use.  What
>slides
>> do you use?  Where did you get them?  I've seen scattered images in books,
>> but I've been unclear about how to get access to them since they seem to
>be
>> taken from various museums and historical societies.  The web has not
>proved
>> very successful in that regard.  How often do you bring in slides to
>> analyze?  I could imagine using them on a weekly basis.
>>
>> As for films, I've used "Black Robe" with great success.  I've also shown
>> parts of "Three Sovereigns for Sarah" for witchcraft.  But beyond that,
>I'm
>> not sure what other films we have for colonial history.  When I taught the
>> colonial course as a seminar at a previous school, I started the semester
>> with the film "The Return of Martin Guerre" and then assigned them Davis's
>> The Return of Martin Guerre and the American Historical Review's forum on
>> The Return of Martin Guerre.  It set up issues of sources and
>interpretation
>> for this early period.  The students seemed to really like it, but I
>didn't
>> think it would work well in my current course.  Although I can't quite say
>> why, and now I wish I had used it again.  I'm looking forward to hearing
>> other films people use.
>>
>> Vivian Bruce Conger
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: History of Early Settlement in the U.S.
>> [mailto:EARLYSETTLEMENTFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU]On Behalf Of Alan
>> Taylor
>> Sent: Friday, November 08, 2002 7:09 PM
>> To: EARLYSETTLEMENTFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
>> Subject: Re: How to structure the Colonial North American Survey
>>
>>
>> Colleagues,
>>
>> Peter Haro raises the issue of how to deal with students who are more
>> "literate" in images than in texts, which I'm sure we all struggle with.
>> One thing that I do, is to do a lot with slides and to linger over them
>and
>> to get them to read the details of the images (in elite portraits, what,
>> for example, are the subjects holding in their hands or what is the
>> backdrop and what does that indicate for their status and their
>> aspirations).  This is as an alternative to simply racing through slides
>> (as I used to do) and identifying each one briefly without attending to
>the
>> visual details within.  I've found that students become enthusiastic about
>> interpreting images, more so than texts.  But by doing a lot of this, and
>> then alternating it with group discussion of texts, I think there is a
>> carry over effect, and that they become more attentive to the nuances of
>> language.
>>
>> What are your experiences in working with slides?
>>
>> I also wonder to what degree we can work with films to reach our students.
>> Unfortunately, the list of films that offer some feeling of authenticity
>> about the colonial past are few and far between.  I've had some good luck
>> with "Black Robe".  Do the rest of you have any suggestions?
>>
>> It's also possible to teach against the stereotypes of colonial America
>> contained in some films.  IN theory, it would even be possible to use some
>> of Demi Moore's "The Scarlet Letter" (the worst big-budget film that I've
>> ever seen) to expose our culture's myth-making about the colonial era.
>>
>> I find that students are more responsive to documents if they're linked to
>> a film or to a historical novel, as it gives them an opportunity to see
>> what "really" happened in an episode that they first encounter in a genre
>> that strikes them as entertaining but potentially duplicitous.
>>
>> Any nominations for useful films?  Or novels?
>>
>> Best, Alan
>>
>> At 01:31 PM 11/5/02 -0800, Peter Haro wrote:
>> >Perhaps I'm stating the obvious but my greatest difficulty in teaching
>> >colonial history and early America is the fact that most of our students
>> are
>> >the products of a video generation. Trying to make topics from this era
>> >relevant to students raised on a steady diet of video images and who tend
>> to
>> >focus only on issues that pertain to their lives is challenging to say
>the
>> >least. I have tried everything from focusing on the origins of slavery in
>> the
>> >colonies to the role of women during and after the American Revolution
>and
>> >nothing seems to "fire them up", so to speak. Any suggestions as to
>topics
>> >that you have found to be relevant and interesting would be appreciated.
>> >Sincerely, Pete Haro.
>> >
>> >On Tue, 5 Nov 2002 14:41:40 -0500 BRIDGETT WILLIAMS-SEARLE
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> >> Sheila, Alan, and all...
>> >>
>> >> I have just started teaching Colonial North
>> >> America and am feeling challenged
>> >> to do so effectively, so it's nice to know that
>> >> more senior professors are also struggling to
>> >> interpret this capacious subject to their
>> >> students. I suspect
>> >> in my case that it's because the interpretive
>> >> strengths of the field -- the
>> >> diverse cast of characters, the multiple sorts
>> >> of labor systems
>> >> we present, the regional differences, the
>> >> creation of an Atlantic world, the
>> >> three-continent reach of the literature -- make
>> >> it difficult for me to
>> >> create a strong central narrative. With such a
>> >> lot of
>> >> interesting work from which to choose, it's
>> >> hard to make some disciplined
>> >> analytic choices and decide what story (or
>> >> perhaps, whose story) to tell.
>> >>
>> >> I'm focusing this semester on the evolving
>> >> political economy of race and sex in
>> >> North America but I'm unsure whether my classes
>> >> are really buying the story.
>> >> I'm using monographs by Kathleen Brown, Jill
>> >> Lepore, and Kirsten Fischer. The
>> >> paper assignments are primary document driven.
>> >> For example, I just assigned
>> >>  a portion of the NLC's on-line Jesuit
>> >> Relations so that students could engage
>> >> in a longitudinal study of life in Iroquoia
>> >> during the Beaver Wars. They
>> >> were to choose a sub-focus such as material
>> >> culture, gender ideology,
>> >> warfare, or political economy, analyzing and
>> >> explaining the changes and continuities
>> >> they found. Sounded like a good idea, and maybe
>> >> would have been
>> >> for an upper-division class, but it was too
>> >> challenging for my intro students.
>> >>
>> >> As is perhaps evident, I too focus a lot of my
>> >> course on ethnohistory -- much
>> >> to the frustration of some of my students, who
>> >> feel that I'm not giving them
>> >> the "real story." (I think they mean that the
>> >> ratio of council fires to
>> >> powdered wigs is out of whack, but I'm not
>> >> sure.) How do other people persuade
>> >> their students that teaching about American
>> >> Indians as critical actors is not
>> >> a perverse act of special pleading?
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Bridgett Williams-Searle
>> >> Department of History and Political Science
>> >> College of St. Rose
>> >> Albany, NY
>> >>
>> >> This forum is sponsored by History
>> >> Matters--please visit our Web site at
>> >> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more
>> >> resources for teaching U.S. History.
>> >>
>> >
>> >This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
>> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S.
>History.
>> >
>> >
>>
>> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
>> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S.
>History.
>>
>> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
>http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>
>This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>
>

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 13 Nov 2002 10:40:16 -0800
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         Alan Taylor 
Subject:      Re: films for early American course
In-Reply-To:  <200211092130.gA9LUib14006@quincy.ucdavis.edu>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Colleagues,

As a source for slides, I should also mention Lester Cappon's Atlas of
Early American History, which has wonderful maps worth lingering over,
especially as students need a stronger sense of spatial relationships and
of the more powerful ways that the environment limited and slowed movement
in the colonial era than in their own.

Best, Alan

At 01:30 PM 11/9/02 -0800, Brett Rushforth wrote:
>Thanks to everyone for their wonderful suggestions.  To us novices in the
>profession, these kinds of exchanges are especially helpful as we can
>learn from years of experience without all of that experience being our
>own.
>
>I just thought I would add a couple of thoughts about films.  Last fall, I
>taught the history of New France at McGill University, and I used video
>clips and still images nearly every day in my lectures...with mixed
>results.
>
>The two most effective films I used in that context were Canada: A
>People's History and Last of the Mohicans.
>
>The former is a production of the CBC, and has some tricky copyright
>restrictions, but is really a fabulous way to introduce many important
>themes.  Even for those not keen on a lot of French content in their
>courses, there are great scenes depicting, for example, the Schenectady
>and Deerfield raids, the Seven Years' War, and the American Revolution
>(from a wonderfully Canadian perspective).  In my next US survey, I plan
>to show a revolution clip, which depicts an upstanding loyalist family
>being attacked by a raging patriot mob, contrasted with a whiggish clip
>from the Liberty! documentary.  Even the dimmest of students will be sure
>to see the difference in interpretation.  For anyone interested in this
>series, it can be purchased online at
>http://history.cbc.ca/history/webdriver?
>MIval=GENcont.html&series_id=4&episode_id=99&chapter_id=1&page_id=1&lang=E
>I bought the DVD's, put them in my laptop, and switched from Power Point
>to DVD with a simple ALT-TAB, which was especially important when I was
>showing two or three minute clips in the middle of a lecture.  That method
>streamlined the transition from lecture to film to discussion.
>
>As for Last of the Mohicans, I assigned Ian Steele's _Betrayals_ with the
>film, and we discussed the two together.  Once students became irritated
>with all of the flawed history (one Micmac student of mine said that "his
>people" came out looking like savages), I threw a sucker punch with a very
>brief essay by Russell Means, which I handed out towards the end of the
>discussion.  The little piece is called "Acting Against Racism in
>Mohicans," and in it Means explains why he--a famed American Indian
>Movement political activist--would embrace his role as Chingachgook.
>Despite the essay's weaknesses, I think it left the students thinking
>carefully about the ways we remember and portray Indians from the colonial
>period, and the social and political consequences of those portrayals.
>The essays I got from students on the book were pretty good.  For anyone
>interested in the Means piece, it is online (for now) at
>http://users.efni.com/~kristy/means.htm
>
>
>Thanks again to everyone,
>Brett Rushforth
>
>This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>
>

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 13 Nov 2002 14:12:18 -0500
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         "Jaffee, David" 
Subject:      Re: films for early American course
In-Reply-To:  <3.0.3.32.20021113104016.02274cc0@mailbox.ucdavis.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Alan and other colleagues,

I've greatly enjoyed the conversation and wanted to pass some sources
along before we moved on from the "visual."  I would point folks towards
the ever increasing number of digital resources for using historical
maps as a source for student inquiry.  While I still rely heavily on my
own slide collection or newer scanned resources, there is a lot already
online for us to use.  LC's American Memory is the obvious place to
start with the Discovery and Exploration collection
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/dsxphome.html  While the overall
archive is quite extensive for the 15th to 17th centuries- there are
18th and 19th century maps of the continent as well. The website also
contains exhibitions on the 1562 Map of America by Diego Gutierrez, for
example, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/gutierrz.html .

There are many other university collections online such as the
University of Georgia Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library site
http://www.libs.uga.edu/darchive/hargrett/maps/maps.html  Plus
collectors such as David Rumsey have put their collections online.
Rumsey uses a quite stunning image presentation software Luna -
http://www.davidrumsey.com/ that will be the standard for AMICO, the new
emerging Art Museum Image Consortium that will make museums' visual
collections available - by subscription.

I've also found the John White and Theodor De Bry paintings and
engravings at the Virtual Jamestown
http://www.iath.virginia.edu/vcdh/jamestown/images/white_debry_html/intr
oduction.html  The site puts up the two sets of images side by side as
well as provided the text from Paul Hulton and David Beers Quinn's The
American Drawings of John White 1577-1590.

David Jaffee
CCNY


-----Original Message-----
From: History of Early Settlement in the U.S.
[mailto:EARLYSETTLEMENTFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU] On Behalf Of Alan
Taylor
Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2002 1:40 PM
To: EARLYSETTLEMENTFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
Subject: Re: films for early American course


Colleagues,

As a source for slides, I should also mention Lester Cappon's Atlas of
Early American History, which has wonderful maps worth lingering over,
especially as students need a stronger sense of spatial relationships
and of the more powerful ways that the environment limited and slowed
movement in the colonial era than in their own.

Best, Alan

At 01:30 PM 11/9/02 -0800, Brett Rushforth wrote:
>Thanks to everyone for their wonderful suggestions.  To us novices in
>the profession, these kinds of exchanges are especially helpful as we
>can learn from years of experience without all of that experience being

>our own.
>
>I just thought I would add a couple of thoughts about films.  Last
>fall, I taught the history of New France at McGill University, and I
>used video clips and still images nearly every day in my
>lectures...with mixed results.
>
>The two most effective films I used in that context were Canada: A
>People's History and Last of the Mohicans.
>
>The former is a production of the CBC, and has some tricky copyright
>restrictions, but is really a fabulous way to introduce many important
>themes.  Even for those not keen on a lot of French content in their
>courses, there are great scenes depicting, for example, the Schenectady

>and Deerfield raids, the Seven Years' War, and the American Revolution
>(from a wonderfully Canadian perspective).  In my next US survey, I
>plan to show a revolution clip, which depicts an upstanding loyalist
>family being attacked by a raging patriot mob, contrasted with a
>whiggish clip from the Liberty! documentary.  Even the dimmest of
>students will be sure to see the difference in interpretation.  For
>anyone interested in this series, it can be purchased online at
>http://history.cbc.ca/history/webdriver?
>MIval=GENcont.html&series_id=4&episode_id=99&chapter_id=1&page_id=1&lan
>g=E
>I bought the DVD's, put them in my laptop, and switched from Power
Point
>to DVD with a simple ALT-TAB, which was especially important when I was
>showing two or three minute clips in the middle of a lecture.  That
method
>streamlined the transition from lecture to film to discussion.
>
>As for Last of the Mohicans, I assigned Ian Steele's _Betrayals_ with
>the film, and we discussed the two together.  Once students became
>irritated with all of the flawed history (one Micmac student of mine
>said that "his people" came out looking like savages), I threw a sucker

>punch with a very brief essay by Russell Means, which I handed out
>towards the end of the discussion.  The little piece is called "Acting
>Against Racism in Mohicans," and in it Means explains why he--a famed
>American Indian Movement political activist--would embrace his role as
>Chingachgook. Despite the essay's weaknesses, I think it left the
>students thinking carefully about the ways we remember and portray
>Indians from the colonial period, and the social and political
>consequences of those portrayals. The essays I got from students on the

>book were pretty good.  For anyone interested in the Means piece, it is

>online (for now) at http://users.efni.com/~kristy/means.htm
>
>
>Thanks again to everyone,
>Brett Rushforth
>
>This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site
>at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S.
History.
>
>

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S.
History.

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 13 Nov 2002 12:42:56 -0700
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         John Allen 
Subject:      Early American Maps
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: multipart/alternative;
              boundary="Boundary_(ID_miHh1sguaLZkHUh23TmhGw)"

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

--Boundary_(ID_miHh1sguaLZkHUh23TmhGw)
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

Alan and others,



I'm delighted to see my merry historical colleagues using maps. For
those of us in geography, maps are as much text as are written
documents. In addition to the excellent sites where maps are available
for viewing and downloading mentioned in David Jaffee's recent posting,
I would include the map display from the Alderman Library of the
University of Virginia:
http://www.lib.virginia.edu/speccol/exhibits/lewis_clark/home.html.



While the display focuses on Lewis and Clark, most of the maps have much
wider interest and appeal.



Happy hunting!



John



Dr. John L. Allen

Professor and Chair

Department of Geography

University of Wyoming

PO Box 3371

Laramie, WY 82071-3371

Ph: (307) 766-2836 or 3311

Fax: (307) 766-3294




--Boundary_(ID_miHh1sguaLZkHUh23TmhGw)
Content-type: text/html; charset=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable















Alan and others,

 

I’m delighted to see my merry historical =
colleagues
using maps. For those of us in geography, maps are as much text as are =
written
documents. In addition to the excellent sites where maps are available =
for
viewing and downloading mentioned in David Jaffee’s recent =
posting, I
would include the map display from the Alderman Library of the =
University of Virginia: http://www.lib.virginia.edu/speccol/exhibits/lewis_clark/home.html=
.

 

While the display focuses on Lewis and Clark, most of =
the
maps have much wider interest and appeal.

 

Happy hunting!

 

John 

 

Dr. John L. Allen

Professor and Chair

Department of Geography

University of Wyoming

PO Box 3371

Laramie, WY 82071-3371

Ph: (307) 766-2836 or 3311

Fax: (307) 766-3294

 






=00=

--Boundary_(ID_miHh1sguaLZkHUh23TmhGw)--

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 13 Nov 2002 12:34:55 -0800
Reply-To:     pkharo@earthlink.net
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         Peter Haro 
Subject:      Re: Slides and films

Colleagues: As long as we are on the topic of film and the American
Revolution, what did people think of The Patriot with Mel Gibson? Do you think
that there are portions of the film that might spark interest in differnet
issues in early America? I frequently deride the movie in front of my students
but, like it or not, this is a reference point for many of them in terms of
understanding early America and the Revolution. Any thoughts? Pete Haro.

On Wed, 13 Nov 2002 10:36:57 -0800 Alan Taylor  wrote:

> Colleagues,
>
> If you use the Colonial Williamsburg "Story of
> a Patriot" you get the plus
> of seeing Jack Lord (Hawaii Five-O) as a
> Virginia revolutionary.  The irony
> is that he was cast before his TV breakthrough
> and his casting was meant to
> have an unfamiliar face in the role of the
> patriot.
>
> You can also get students to pay close
> attention by alerting them that in
> one scene they can catch an inadvertant glimpse
> of a CW tour bus in the
> background and an airplane in another and a
> reference to a distinguished
> colonial historian (Thad Tate) in a third (Thad
> was a consultant for the
> film).
>
> The Pequot museum at Foxwoods in Connecticut
> has a wonderful introductory
> film on the Pequot war: very high production
> values and gripping story
> telling.  Perhaps this could be procured from
> them.
>
> Best, Alan
>
> At 01:29 PM 11/10/02 -0500, KAREN NEEDLES
> wrote:
> >Vivian, films that I would suggest using for
> colonial period
> >
> >Witchcraft
> >The Crucible
> >Three Sovereigns for Sarah
> >
> >Early Colonial
> >The Scarlett Letter - film by PBS not the Demi
> Moore version to accompany
> >the novel
> >
> >American Revolution
> >1776
> >The Howards of Virginia
> >Story of a Patriot - from Colonial
> Williamsburg
> >A More Perfect Union - Can be purchased in
> Philadelphia
> >Founding Fathers - A & E
> >Founding Brothers - A & E
> >American Revolution - History Channel or A & E
> >
> >As to primary sources: Have you searched for
> items at the Library of
> >Congress American Memory website, located at
> http://memory.loc.gov
> >Over 7 million primary and secondary sources
> have been digitized and placed
> >online to compliment your curriculum.
> >Also, the National Archives has resources. Not
> everything is digitized and
> >you may want to think about visiting and
> scanning documents held there.
> >Their website is http://www.archives.gov .
> Take a look at the Exhibit Hall
> >and the Digital Classroom.
> >I worked for four years as an educational
> specialist with both the Archives
> >and the LOC.  If you have any questions please
> feel free to ask.
> >I now have started my own business and will be
> doing freelance research and
> >workshops for educators, incorporating primary
> sources from the LOC and
> >Archives.  I have one of my projects up
> online.
> >Karen Needles
> >Documents on Wheels
> >current email address is
> http://abolitionists.net/Nathaniel_Gordon/index.htm
> >soon to be http://www.documentsonwheels.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: "Vivian Bruce Conger"
> >To:
> >Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2002 7:06 AM
> >Subject: Re: Slides and films
> >
> >
> >> Hi everyone.  I teach early American history
> and women's history at Ithaca
> >> College.  Right now I am teaching the
> colonial history course--only 4
> >weeks
> >> left in the semester!  I have taught the
> colonial course before at a
> >> previous school, but I always taught it as a
> seminar, not as a lecture
> >> course.  Now I am "required" to teach it as
> a lecture course, and I'm
> >> struggling to get those lectures together
> every week.  It feels like it
> >did
> >> when I first started teaching, but I love
> the material.  I have lots of
> >> worries about the course, but right now I'll
> stick with the latest thread.
> >>
> >> I was very much interested to hear Alan talk
> about using slides and the
> >way
> >> he uses them.  I agree that students respond
> well to the visual, and a
> >> deeper reading of them is better than just
> using them to zip through
> >images
> >> (which is what I did when I showed slides I
> bought at Plimoth Plantation).
> >> I use, for example, Thomas Cole's "Course of
> Empire" paintings in my
> >survey
> >> course to talk about ways Whigs critiqued
> the Age of Jackson--and we spend
> >a
> >> lot time looking at them and talking about
> what they see in them.  It
> >works
> >> well.  But I never thought about that for
> colonial history simply because
> >it
> >> really never dawned on me that there were
> slides we could use.  What
> >slides
> >> do you use?  Where did you get them?  I've
> seen scattered images in books,
> >> but I've been unclear about how to get
> access to them since they seem to
> >be
> >> taken from various museums and historical
> societies.  The web has not
> >proved
> >> very successful in that regard.  How often
> do you bring in slides to
> >> analyze?  I could imagine using them on a
> weekly basis.
> >>
> >> As for films, I've used "Black Robe" with
> great success.  I've also shown
> >> parts of "Three Sovereigns for Sarah" for
> witchcraft.  But beyond that,
> >I'm
> >> not sure what other films we have for
> colonial history.  When I taught the
> >> colonial course as a seminar at a previous
> school, I started the semester
> >> with the film "The Return of Martin Guerre"
> and then assigned them Davis's
> >> The Return of Martin Guerre and the American
> Historical Review's forum on
> >> The Return of Martin Guerre.  It set up
> issues of sources and
> >interpretation
> >> for this early period.  The students seemed
> to really like it, but I
> >didn't
> >> think it would work well in my current
> course.  Although I can't quite say
> >> why, and now I wish I had used it again.
> I'm looking forward to hearing
> >> other films people use.
> >>
> >> Vivian Bruce Conger
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: History of Early Settlement in the
> U.S.
> >>
> [mailto:EARLYSETTLEMENTFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU]On
> Behalf Of Alan
> >> Taylor
> >> Sent: Friday, November 08, 2002 7:09 PM
> >> To:
> EARLYSETTLEMENTFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
> >> Subject: Re: How to structure the Colonial
> North American Survey
> >>
> >>
> >> Colleagues,
> >>
> >> Peter Haro raises the issue of how to deal
> with students who are more
> >> "literate" in images than in texts, which
> I'm sure we all struggle with.
> >> One thing that I do, is to do a lot with
> slides and to linger over them
> >and
> >> to get them to read the details of the
> images (in elite portraits, what,
> >> for example, are the subjects holding in
> their hands or what is the
> >> backdrop and what does that indicate for
> their status and their
> >> aspirations).  This is as an alternative to
> simply racing through slides
> >> (as I used to do) and identifying each one
> briefly without attending to
> >the
> >> visual details within.  I've found that
> students become enthusiastic about
> >> interpreting images, more so than texts.
> But by doing a lot of this, and
> >> then alternating it with group discussion of
> texts, I think there is a
> >> carry over effect, and that they become more
> attentive to the nuances of
> >> language.
> >>
> >> What are your experiences in working with
> slides?
> >>
> >> I also wonder to what degree we can work
> with films to reach our students.
> >> Unfortunately, the list of films that offer
> some feeling of authenticity
> >> about the colonial past are few and far
> between.  I've had some good luck
> >> with "Black Robe".  Do the rest of you have
> any suggestions?
> >>
> >> It's also possible to teach against the
> stereotypes of colonial America
> >> contained in some films.  IN theory, it
> would even be possible to use some
> >> of Demi Moore's "The Scarlet Letter" (the
> worst big-budget film that I've
> >> ever seen) to expose our culture's
> myth-making about the colonial era.
> >>
> >> I find that students are more responsive to
> documents if they're linked to
> >> a film or to a historical novel, as it gives
> them an opportunity to see
> >> what "really" happened in an episode that
> they first encounter in a genre
> >> that strikes them as entertaining but
> potentially duplicitous.
> >>
> >> Any nominations for useful films?  Or
> novels?
> >>
> >> Best, Alan
> >>
> >> At 01:31 PM 11/5/02 -0800, Peter Haro wrote:
> >> >Perhaps I'm stating the obvious but my
> greatest difficulty in teaching
> >> >colonial history and early America is the
> fact that most of our students
> >> are
> >> >the products of a video generation. Trying
> to make topics from this era
> >> >relevant to students raised on a steady
> diet of video images and who tend
> >> to
> >> >focus only on issues that pertain to their
> lives is challenging to say
> >the
> >> >least. I have tried everything from
> focusing on the origins of slavery in
> >> the
> >> >colonies to the role of women during and
> after the American Revolution
> >and
> >> >nothing seems to "fire them up", so to
> speak. Any suggestions as to
> >topics
> >> >that you have found to be relevant and
> interesting would be appreciated.
> >> >Sincerely, Pete Haro.
> >> >
> >> >On Tue, 5 Nov 2002 14:41:40 -0500 BRIDGETT
> WILLIAMS-SEARLE
> >> > wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> Sheila, Alan, and all...
> >> >>
> >> >> I have just started teaching Colonial
> North
> >> >> America and am feeling challenged
> >> >> to do so effectively, so it's nice to
> know that
> >> >> more senior professors are also
> struggling to
> >> >> interpret this capacious subject to their
> >> >> students. I suspect
> >> >> in my case that it's because the
> interpretive
> >> >> strengths of the field -- the
> >> >> diverse cast of characters, the multiple
> sorts
> >> >> of labor systems
> >> >> we present, the regional differences, the
> >> >> creation of an Atlantic world, the
> >> >> three-continent reach of the literature
> -- make
> >> >> it difficult for me to
> >> >> create a strong central narrative. With
> such a
> >> >> lot of
> >> >> interesting work from which to choose,
> it's
> >> >> hard to make some disciplined
> >> >> analytic choices and decide what story
> (or
> >> >> perhaps, whose story) to tell.
> >> >>
> >> >> I'm focusing this semester on the
> evolving
> >> >> political economy of race and sex in
> >> >> North America but I'm unsure whether my
> classes
> >> >> are really buying the story.
> >> >> I'm using monographs by Kathleen Brown,
> Jill
> >> >> Lepore, and Kirsten Fischer. The
> >> >> paper assignments are primary document
> driven.
> >> >> For example, I just assigned
> >> >>  a portion of the NLC's on-line Jesuit
> >> >> Relations so that students could engage
> >> >> in a longitudinal study of life in
> Iroquoia
> >> >> during the Beaver Wars. They
> >> >> were to choose a sub-focus such as
> material
> >> >> culture, gender ideology,
> >> >> warfare, or political economy, analyzing
> and
> >> >> explaining the changes and continuities
> >> >> they found. Sounded like a good idea, and
> maybe
> >> >> would have been
> >> >> for an upper-division class, but it was
> too
> >> >> challenging for my intro students.
> >> >>
> >> >> As is perhaps evident, I too focus a lot
> of my
> >> >> course on ethnohistory -- much
> >> >> to the frustration of some of my
> students, who
> >> >> feel that I'm not giving them
> >> >> the "real story." (I think they mean that
> the
> >> >> ratio of council fires to
> >> >> powdered wigs is out of whack, but I'm
> not
> >> >> sure.) How do other people persuade
> >> >> their students that teaching about
> American
> >> >> Indians as critical actors is not
> >> >> a perverse act of special pleading?
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> Bridgett Williams-Searle
> >> >> Department of History and Political
> Science
> >> >> College of St. Rose
> >> >> Albany, NY
> >> >>
> >> >> This forum is sponsored by History
> >> >> Matters--please visit our Web site at
> >> >> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more
> >> >> resources for teaching U.S. History.
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> >This forum is sponsored by History
> Matters--please visit our Web site at
> >> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more
> resources for teaching U.S.
> >History.
> >> >
> >> >
> >>
> >> This forum is sponsored by History
> Matters--please visit our Web site at
> >> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more
> resources for teaching U.S.
> >History.
> >>
> >> This forum is sponsored by History
> Matters--please visit our Web site at
> >http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more
> resources for teaching U.S. History.
> >
> >This forum is sponsored by History
> Matters--please visit our Web site at
> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more
> resources for teaching U.S. History.
> >
> >
>
> This forum is sponsored by History
> Matters--please visit our Web site at
> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more
> resources for teaching U.S. History.
>

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 13 Nov 2002 19:37:52 -0500
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         Vivian Bruce Conger 
Subject:      Main ideas in colonial history
In-Reply-To:  <3.0.3.32.20021113103657.0226edf0@mailbox.ucdavis.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Alan and all participants:

I am absolutely loving this discussion and I will hate to see it come to an
end.

I was wondering what everyone thinks are the MOST important
ideas/issues/topics that we MUST cover in a colonial history course.
Perhaps looking too eagerly to the end of the semester, but I have been
wondering if my students got what they should have gotten from this course.
But then, I am not sure what that magical formula is.

I'm eagerly awaiting your responses.

Vivian Bruce Conger
Ithaca College

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 13 Nov 2002 19:48:13 -0500
Reply-To:     "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
Sender:       "History of Early Settlement in the U.S."
              
From:         KAREN NEEDLES 
Subject:      Re: Early American Maps
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
              boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0470_01C28B4D.9A362EA0"

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------=_NextPart_000_0470_01C28B4D.9A362EA0
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        charset="iso-8859-1"
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I would also like to point you to the Library of Congress's American =
Memory collections at http://memory.loc.gov
They have an excellent map collection online.  They now have over 8 =
million historical documents in the way of motion picture, sound =
recordings, maps, documents, photographs to supplement your curriculum.
Karen Needles
  ----- Original Message -----=20
  From: John Allen=20
  To: EARLYSETTLEMENTFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU=20
  Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2002 2:42 PM
  Subject: Early American Maps


  Alan and others,



  I'm delighted to see my merry historical colleagues using maps. For =
those of us in geography, maps are as much text as are written =
documents. In addition to the excellent sites where maps are available =
for viewing and downloading mentioned in David Jaffee's recent posting, =
I would include the map display from the Alderman Library of the =
University of Virginia: =
http://www.lib.virginia.edu/speccol/exhibits/lewis_clark/home.html.



  While the display focuses on Lewis and Clark, most of the maps have =
much wider interest and appeal.



  Happy hunting!



  John=20



  Dr. John L. Allen

  Professor and Chair

  Department of Geography

  University of Wyoming

  PO Box 3371

  Laramie, WY 82071-3371

  Ph: (307) 766-2836 or 3311

  Fax: (307) 766-3294



------=_NextPart_000_0470_01C28B4D.9A362EA0
Content-Type: text/html;
        charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable








I would also like to point you to the =
Library of=20
Congress's American Memory collections at http://memory.loc.gov
They have an excellent map collection =
online. =20
They now have over 8 million historical documents in the way of motion =
picture,=20
sound recordings, maps, documents, photographs to supplement your=20
curriculum.
Karen Needles

  
----- Original Message ----- 
  From:=20
  John =
Allen