clair057

This article begins ….”For nearly 150 years, the story of the Hunley’s attack on the USS Housatonic has been Civil War legend. And it has been wrong.” Oops. Well, correcting myths, legends and poor history has been habit around here, so let’s dive in. In this case it isn’t so much intentionally reporting incorrect history or revising history to make it more interesting –it’s just that we didn’t have all the pieces of the puzzle.   As new pieces are scrutinized from the wreckage we have to adjust the story.... even if it’s been part of the story for over a hundred years. In this case eyewitness accounts at the time of the attack have been debunked because a piece of the Confederate submarine’s torpedo was found to be attached to its spar. This means the Hunley was much closer to the blast –within 20 feet.   You can read the whole thing here .   So far, the part of the romantic part of the story regarding Queenie’s coin has NOT been debunked, and for that I’m very glad. ...

Over the last couple of years I’ve immersed myself into a personal local history project involving researching and writing about the history of my home…..Douglas County, Georgia.   What started as a weekly column here at Douglasville Patch morphed into a blog called Every Now and Then located here .   I’ve learned several interesting things along the way, met some great people, and kept myself rather busy meeting a self-imposed Monday deadline each and every week……something I’m trying to get back to doing around here at History Is Elementary as well. One of the things I’ve tried to do in many of my postings is to connect local history to the larger picture of what was happening in Georgia   and in the United States at the same time. For example, recently I wrote about a couple who moved to Douglasville, Georgia in 1887.   Now in and of itself that’s NOT so remarkable, but the fact that the couple was from Chicago, Illinois caught my interest. Later as I began t...

Pursuing one’s goals…..a worthy pursuit, right? Hard work and determination….giving each and every move careful consideration…..making a plan……following the steps….changing course when necessary…… Yes, all of these are strategies to pursue one’s goals, but all too often we get tired of the time it takes to reach our goals.   That’s when short-cuts come into play. Take the following words. They represent a short cut…… “The most direct path would be to leave the Oregon route, about two hundred miles east of Fort Hall; thence bearing west south-west, to the Salt Lake; and thence continuing down to the bay of San Francisco.” It was with those few words the George Donner party made the fateful decision to take a short-cut they found highlighted in the book The Emigrants’ Guide to Oregon and California.   The book was written by Lansford Hastings and even though he never met any member of the Donner party, and even though Hastings didn’t exactly promote the short-cut he is for...

Presidential quotes have always held my interest. I think they have a valid place in the classroom. Taken out of context they can appear as a random mish-mash of who the man happened to be, but when you do a little digging the quotations help students to gain a little more insight into the man and the historical era in question. For example, take these three quotations attributed to President Woodrow Wilson..... --- The government, which was designed for the people, have got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy. --- I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow. --- A conservative is a man who just sits and thinks, mostly sits. It doesn't matter if I agree with the sentiments or not. What's important is allowing students to dig, make connections and to discover for themselves the context of the quote. I think the process is even more powerful when studen...

Most colleges and universities provide their students with opportunities to take courses online. Unfortunately, online classes still suffer a bad reputation due to many myths that simply don't hold water. The following Info graphic takes a hard look at online education... Via: GetARealDegree.Com

I went to see the movie Lincoln last weekend. I loved it! I’m looking forward to seeing it again…and again. The movie covers the time period from January, 1865 to April 9 at the end of the war and five days later when President Lincoln was assassinated. Spielberg had already begun to develop the idea of a movie concerning Lincoln, but after attending a luncheon for historians where he met and spoke with Doris Kerns Goodwin he decided to base his project on her book, Team of Rivals , however, the scope of the book…..the scope of Lincoln’s presidency is too large and complex a subject to digest into a movie format. Spielberg had to decide what to focus on, and I’m pleased he decided to focus on the struggle to end the war and most importantly the wheeling and dealing that was necessary to get the 13 th amendment passed. Here are 13 little tidbits regarding the movie…. 1.Spielberg and his team spent over twelve years researching the movie.   The attention to detail far outweighs ot...

Look at this picture.   Observe it very carefully.  You can click on the pictures to isolate them and make them a little larger Yes, you see soldiers proceeding up a street, but notice that you are actually looking at two images…..one from World War II and another from more contemporary times of the same location. A historical mix…of sorts. Think about the impact this could have on students of history.   Think about the connections that students could make between historical content and their surroundings. These pictures are the work of historical expert Jo Teeuwisse from Amsterdam.   This article from the Daily Mail states she began superimposing images from different time periods of the same location after finding 300 old negatives at a flea market in her home city depicting familiar places in a very different context. Here is a second example of her work....... Like Miss Teeuwisse I think this process of making war scenes or any historical image have meaning by l...