Chronicling America - Using Digitized Historic Newspapers

Using the Chronicling America site has been great fun. I discovered that the Weather Service has already celebrated 150 years. I learned how maps were made in previous years. I also learned that in 1888 dogs had to be licensed in Miles City, MT, my hometown. While talking to a friend about this site I learned that she has an original copy of the Daily Yellowstone Journal that once belonged to her mother-in-law. I hope your research uncovers equally interesting finds.

You can read historic Montana newspapers by going to the Montana Memory Project and linking to the Chronicling America Project. The Chronicling America Newspaper Project is a joint partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress National Digital Newspaper Program. The Library of Congress site has digitized newspapers from every state.

One way to access Montana newspapers is to go to the Montana Memory Project. Once there, scroll to the bottom of the page. You can then choose which papers and dates you want to search.

http://montanahistoricalsociety.org/research/MTMemoryProj.asp

There is also a link to the Chronicling America site. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/

This is a great place to jump in and explore. If you are like me this is also where you will start to get very frustrated. I would enter a search term and up would pop a number of newspapers. That was good. When I finished looking at the first one I tried to find the other potential newspapers. I couldn’t just click on the next one. That was bad.

I requested help from Martha at the MT Historical Society. She told me to open two windows in my browser and work back and forth. Great advise! Shortly after that she forwarded an email from the Library of Congress - they had just put their beta version online. Much easier to work with!

You can get your search results either as newspaper thumbnails or in list format. I used the list format and printed out the list. It made it easier for me to take notes and make comments about the newspapers as I searched. It gave me a thorough record of my searches.

List format

Thumbnail format

I also played with the browsing tool. Click on the browsing button. It brings up a calendar and a way to look at specific newspapers by date. You can search by state or individual paper. Under the column – browse issues is a calendar icon. You can click on the icon to fine tune your search by individual copies.

I would be interested in all comments after you peruse this site. Please let me know about problems you encounter. I would also like ideas for making this tutorial more meaningful. I enjoy reading all comments.

Browsing in the morgue: The best from Montana's early newspapers

Is There a Time Machine for Digital Natives?

Teaching Digital Natives About History

How do you teach history to digital natives?  My students are very visual, they are used to seeing videos and movies.  A few years ago I had left a typewriter out on the table.  My students came in and wanted to know about the unusual keyboard.  One asked, "Where's the monitor?"

How can we give them the background knowledge to understand different times.  One powerful technique is primary sources.  Teaching students how to analyze and understand them.  I can hear you say. "Great sound bite.  Where do we start?"

Three Resources for Primary Sources

1.  National Park Service Photo Collection

There are over 2,000 images taken by park service photographers, documenting architecture, Native American heritage, nature, transportation and scenic views.  This is a search able database, that brings in a visual element to learning. This site also has maps available for the viewer.

There are over 400 National Parks in the United States.  The National Parks Service has made teacher resources and curriculum materials available for using with students. Teaching With Historic Places is a great gem.  It uses parks listed in the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places.  It focuses on history, social studies, geography, civics, and other subjects.   There is even a template for developing your own lessons involving historic places. The National Park Service goals is to bring historic places into the classroom.

2.  Library of Congress

American Memory  You can look at webcasts, maps, newspapers, you can browse topics.

Library of Congress Online Catalog  This is where you can find their on line collection.

My Library of Congress  This is really the key to discovering the Library of Congress.  There are virtual tours.  Focus on collections, exhibitions, there is also a section directed at students and teachers.

Teachers  Primary Source Kits.  Classroom materials and professional development.  Information on how to look at primary sources and use them to teaches students how to analyze and examine, photos, documents, maps etc. They have developed themed resources and lesson plans.

3.  Repositories of Primary Sources

This is a database of over 5000 websites describing holdings of - manuscripts, archives, rare books, historical photos.  It is primarily used by research scholars.  Great resource for educators looking for background information.

Is that All There Is?

This is only the beginning.  As teachers we need to encourage our co-workers, our students and communities to preserve our local and family history.  Documenting the stories behind the photos are an incredible rich source of information.  For further ways to incorporate photos and history you might look at a previous post 

"Story Maps and the Digital Age".  Primary sources allow students to develop their own understanding of events, people, and ideas.