House Divided Project Provides 21st Century Tools for Teaching 19th Century History
Comments (0) This entry also appeared on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s blog.
As a history major at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA I was exposed to a lot of Civil War history. Located just north of the Mason-Dixon Line, Dickinson College was a hotbed of activity in the years leading up to and during the Civil War. The college was one of the few institutions of higher education in the country with a student body that was half-northern and half-southern. Two of its graduates also were two of the most powerful men in the country – President James Buchanan, class of 1809 and Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, class of 1795. To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, Dickinson College will host a series of events on April 15th and 16th to formally launch the House Divided Project, an innovative effort to provide 21st century tools for teaching 19th-century topics in America’s K-12 classrooms.
I worked on the House Divided Project for multiple summers during my college career, staying in Carlisle and immersing myself in the history of the Civil War both inside and outside of the classroom. From field trips to teacher workshops to endless hours in the archives, a huge part of my college experience involved the Civil War. The House Divided Project is an amazing resource for students, teachers, and history buffs alike. It offers a great example of what collaborative work can achieve and the creative ways in which historians can make the most of the web.
The project uses Dickinson College as a window and a starting point for a unique focus on the Civil War era. Faculty, staff and undergraduate students at Dickinson have been building and testing the House Divided Project for the last five years, creating nearly two dozen websites offering public domain historical content and free digital tools on a variety of subjects from the period 1840 to 1880. The project hopes to find in the stories of thousands of individuals a way to help illustrate how the Civil War came, why it was fought so bitterly, and ultimately how the nation survived.
At the center of the House Divided Project is a powerful database dubbed the “research engine,” which includes more than 10,000 historic images and hundreds of thousands of individual records connected together in an easy-to-use interface. The project aims to offer historical resources and documents for each day of the period from 1840 to 1880. You can visit March 17, 1860 for an example of the project’s vision.
There are a number of events surrounding the launch of the House Divided Project from April 15-16, many of which are free and open to the public. Events include a documentary film festival, a teacher workshop led by Project Director Matthew Pinsker (registration required), an “augmented reality” tour of Underground Railroad and Civil War sites using the latest tools in smart phone/computer tablet technology, and a speech by Yale University historian and author David Blight. You can learn more about these events on the launch page of the project.
I hope that you’ll check out the House Divided Project and let the staff know what you think! And if you’re free the weekend of April 15 and 16, this alumna wants to remind you that Carlisle is always beautiful in the spring.
