Teaching
History Online
Number
50: 8th September, 2002
Introduction
1.
Victorian
Child Criminals
2.
U.S.
Biographies Project
3.
Lynching
in the United States
4.
Greatest
Military Leaders
5.
Franklin
D. Roosevelt Presidential Library
6.
Diary
of Nella Last
7.
National
Archives of Scotland
8.
The
Unquiet Western Front
9.
A Well-Known
Excellence
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
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in future editions of Teaching
History Online. In this way we hope to create a community
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John Simkin
spartacus@pavilion.co.uk
Victorian
Child Criminals: Young people have always got into trouble with
the law. What changes over time is how society deals with its young
offenders. Before
Victorian times no distinction was made between criminals of any age.
Accordingly, young children could be sent to an adult prison. There
are records of children aged 12 being hanged. The Victorians were
very worried about crime and its causes. Reformers were asking questions
about how young people who had broken the law ought to be treated.
They could see that locking children up with adult criminals was hardly
likely to make them lead honest lives in the future. On the other
hand, they believed firmly in stiff punishments. This Public Record
Office website looks at the cases of two child criminals, Elizabeth
Roberts and George Page.
US
Biographies Project: In May of 1997, the US Biographies project
was organized by Jeff Murphy, using the established KY Biographies
Project as a model. State coordinators were then sought to set up
their own state project. So far there are projects taking place in
Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois,
Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts,
Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon,
Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington,
West Virginia and Wisconsin. If you wish to volunteer to assist in
entering or editing biographies for a particular state, please contact
Deb Murray, the US Biographies project coordinator.
Lynching
in the United States: In 1930 Dr. Arthur Raper
was commissioned to produce a report on lynching. He discovered that
3,724 people had been lynched in the United States between 1889 and
1930. Over four-fifths of these victims were black but white trade
union activists were also targeted by lynch mobs. As Dr. Raper pointed
out: "Of the tens of thousands of lynchers and onlookers, only
49 were indicted and only 4 have been sentenced."
In
1935 attempts were made to persuade Franklin D. Roosevelt to support
a Anti-Lynching bill that had been introduced into Congress. However,
Roosevelt refused to speak out in favour of the bill that would punish
sheriffs who failed to protect their prisoners from lynch mobs. He
argued that the white voters in the South would never forgive him
if he supported the bill and he would therefore never win another
election.
This website provides a history of lynching in the United States and
includes details of the Michael Donald case that resulted in Henry
Hayes being executed on 6th June, 1997. It was the first time a white
man had been executed for a crime against an African American since
1913.
Greatest
Military Leaders: This website provides biographies of the most
influential military leaders of all time. This includes biographies
of George Washington, Napoleon, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan,
Julius Ceasar, Gustavus Adolphus, Francisco Pizarro, Hernando Cortés,
Cyrus the Great, Simon Bolivar, William the Conqueror, Frederick the
Great, Attila the Hun, George Marshall, Dwight Eisenhower, Oliver
Cromwell, Sun Tzu, Hannibal, Eugene of Savoy, Horatio Nelson, Vo Nguyen
Giap, Scipio Africanus, John Pershing and the Duke of Wellington.
Franklin
D. Roosevelt Presidential Library: This website proudly quotes
Franklin D. Roosevelt's comments on 27th September, 1938, that "the
real safeguard of democracy is education". The Franklin D. Roosevelt
Presidential Library and Museum Educational Program website includes
biographies of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt, a Roosevelt
Timeline, Online Documents and Photographs, a Research Guide and Puzzles
and Activities.
Diary
of Nella Last: In September 1939, Nella Last began a diary which
was to continue for nearly thirty years. She was a volunteer with
the Mass Observation Archive that was set up in 1937 by Charles Madge
and Tom Harrisson. They wanted to record the views of the British
people and recruited volunteers to either observe British Life or
diarists to keep a day to day account of their lives. Nella Last was
a housewife and married to a shop-fitter and joiner. Their younger
son, Cliff, was in the Army whilst the elder son, Arthur, was a tax
inspector and therefore exempted from conscription. The Lasts lived
in Barrow-on-Furness which was a shipbuilding town. During the Blitz,
it became a target for German bombing. This BBC website provides extracts
from Last's diary that includes the events during the war, the bombing
of Barrow, the effect on the women left behind and Nella's strongly
held opinions about the past and the future.
National
Archives of Scotland: Based in Edinburgh, NAS has one of the most
varied collection of archives in the British isles. It is the main
archive for sources of the history of Scotland as a separate kingdom,
her role in the British isles and the links between Scotland and many
other countries over the centuries. The NAS holds records spanning
the 12th to the 21st centuries, touching on virtually every aspect
of Scottish life. The NAS is the repository for the public and legal
records of Scotland but also holds many local and private archives.
Book
Section
ISBN 0 521 80995 9
|
Brian Bond argues that Britain's outstanding military achievement
in the First World War has been eclipsed by literary myths.
This book shows how myths have become deeply rooted, particularly
in the inter-war period, in the 1960s when the war was rediscovered,
and in the 1990s. This book follows the intense controversy
from 1918 to the present, and concludes that historians are
at last permitting the First World War to be placed in proper
perspective.
Author:
Brian Bond
Publisher:
Cambridge
Price:
£17.50
|
ISBN 0 224 06009 0
|
Denis Falvey fought at many of the major actions in Egypt,
Greece, Crete, North Africa, Sicily, the D-Day beaches, across
France and Belgium and into Germany. His account of his war
is not only informative but controversial. It is also likely
to be among the last published accounts of military action
in the 2nd World War by a surviving soldier. Anyone seeking
a real understanding of what it was like to fight on foreign
fields in the 1939-45 conflict will gain much from this insightful
work.
Author:
Denis Falvey
Publisher:
Brassey's
Price:
£20.00
|
