Teaching
History Online
Number
108: 19th October, 2003
Introduction
1.
Earl
of Clare
2.
Trenches
on the Web
3.
BBC
History interactive: World War One
4.
Art
and the First World War
5.
American
Slave Narratives
6.
The
American Experience: Vietnam on Line
7. Power,
Politics and Protest
8. The
Emancipation of Women: 1750-1920
9. A
War in Words
Introduction
Spartacus Educational
publishes Teaching
History Online every week. The newsletter includes news, reviews
of websites and articles on using ICT in the history classroom. Members
of the mailing list are
invited to submit information for inclusion in future editions of
Teaching
History Online. In this way we hope to create a community
of people involved in using the Internet to teach history. Currently
there are 30,600 subscribers to the newsletter.
John Simkin
spartacus@pavilion.co.uk
Earl
of Clare: Richard FitzGilbert, the 1st Earl of Clare, arrived
in England with William the Conqueror in 1066. As a reward for his
contribution to the Norman victory, Richard was granted 179 manors
in England. The next 200 years was a profitable time for the Clare
family. By the 13th century, the Clare family was the second most
powerful family in England . However, this all came to an end when
Gilbert de Clare, the 10th Earl of Clare, was killed at Bannockburn
on 24th June, 1314. Gilbert, who was only 23 years old, did not have
any children and so his death brought an end to the male line of the
Clare family and the family estates were divided between his three
sisters. The resources on this website enable students to examine
the influence that one family had on Norman England.
Trenches
on the Web: Trenches on the Web is an evolving project being developed
by Mike Lavorone in the USA. New material is being added all the time
and this reflects the concerns and interests of the people who use
the site and are willing to send information to the webmaster. Lavorone
describes himself as the trench-keeper ("a history technician,
not a historian, recording these events with the tools currently available").
Students can explore a wide variety of themes and topics. It is also
possible to look at certain issues in great detail. The range and
display of statistics in this website is especially impressive. The
visitor is never allowed to forget the human tragedy of this conflict
and heart-rendering photographs appear next to the tables and graphs
on the screen.
BBC
History interactive: World War One: This BAFTA award-winning BBC
History interactive website offers the chance to explore the human
face of the First World War. Discover what life was like in the trenches
and on the Home Front through dramatizations of original diaries,
letters and photographs through interactive movies. Leading academics
such as Gary Sheffield, Joanna Bourke and Stephen Badsey answer the
key questions: why did the First World War start? Were the men really
lions led by donkeys? And, ultimately, what was the impact on society?
You can explore original documents and take a virtual tour of a 3-D
trench system, whilst animated maps of the Western Front highlight
the movements of the armies and the key battles.
Art
and the First World War:
This is an excellent website devoted to the art produced during the
First World War. Created to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the
Armistice, the database includes 54 artists and images of 100 pictures
from museums in London, Paris, Berlin, Bonn, Vienna, Caen and Verdun.
All the exhibits includes background details of the work and a brief
biography of the artist. The paintings are listed under seven different
categories: War Declared, Fighting Men, Age of Artillery, The Battlefield,
Total War, Suffering and Death.
American
Slave Narratives: From 1936 to 1938, over 2,300 former slaves
from across the American South were interviewed by writers and journalists
under the aegis of the Works Progress Administration. Their narratives
are a splendid resource for understanding the lives of America's four
million slaves. This website provides an opportunity to read a sample
of these narratives and to see some of the photographs taken at the
time of the interviews.
The
American Experience: Vietnam on Line:
This beautifully designed website provides the most comprehensive
account of the Vietnam War on the Internet. The website was produced
by the US Public Broadcasting Service to accompany their award-winning
television series: Vietnam: A Television History.
The website includes an interactive time-line of the war, basic statistics,
maps, a glossary of terms and acronyms, texts of key U.S. government
war documents, weapons used during the war and forty-two biographical
portraits of key personalities in the war, including six from North
Vietnam and a bibliography for further study. The website also contains
Reflections on War, a collection of twelve first-hand accounts of
the conflict and transcripts of all the television programmes.
Power,
Politics and Protest: Produced by the Public Record Office this
website explores the political changes that took place in Britain
during the 19th century. It contains nine different investigations
that tell the story of the political history of Britain between 1800
and 1914 (Radicals, Luddites, Captain Swing, Peterloo, Great Reform
Act, the Chartists, Reform After 1850, White Slavery and the Suffragettes).
The sources in these investigations have been chosen to highlight
the role of important individuals, the broad pattern of changes and
the different causes of those changes.
The
Emancipation of Women: 1750-1920:
A comprehensive encyclopaedia of how British women got the vote. Each
entry contains a narrative, illustrations and primary sources. The
text within each entry is hypertexted to other relevant pages in the
encyclopedia. In this way it is possible to research individual people
and events in great detail. The sources are also hypertexted so the
student is able to find out about the writer, artist, newspaper, organization,
etc., that produced the material. So far there are sections on: omen
in the 19th Century (Schooling, Marriage,
Industrial Work, Careers
& Professions, University
Education, Birth Control), Pressure Groups, Strategy and Tactics and
Parliamentary Reform Acts.
Book
Section
A
War in Words:
This tremendous book tells the story of the First World War through
the diaries and letters of its combatants, eyewitnesses and victims.
Powerful individual stories are interwoven to form an extraordinary
narrative that follows the chronology of the war, in words written
on the battlefield and on leave, under occupation and in prison. The
book starts with the testimony of Vaso Cubrilovic, one of Archduke
Franz Ferdinand's assassins. Each chapter focuses on one important
episodes of the war told from opposite sides of the conflict. Thirteen
different nationalities are represented in this excellent book. (Svetlana
Palmer & Sarah Wallis, A War in Words, ISBN 0 7432 4831 7, £14.99)
Available
from Amazon Books (order below)
