Maps and Pictures for History Teachers - Part III

I have been scanning old pictures from history books, and throwing in pictures I've taken at historic sites or in museums. Feel free to use any of these you can in your classrooms.

 

I'm retired; might as well help out the young educators. None of these are now under copyright.

When you are discussing the environment, a good picture sometimes helps.
A lake near the top of Tioga Pass, leading into Yosemite National Park.

A fanciful depiction - since there were no casualties during this fight. 

Lee at Appomattox. I'd ask students to discuss how is men must have felt.

General Thomas (right) at Chickamauga.
James A. Garfield (left), later president, had ridden through heavy fire
to tell him most of the Union line had crumbled, but urged him to hold.

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Most of my African American students didn't know what the Confederate flag
really meant.

A good map to show students how Lee and Jackson destroyed Hooker.

Football gear in 1920. (I'm afraid you might get rude comment about "b,"
before students would realize it's a nose guard.

San Francisco nearly emptied out - gold seekers heading for the diggings.
Stories about finding gold in 1849, or even gold coins in your back yard in tin cans, as one California couple did in 2014, always sparked interest.

Story of the backyard find.

We often had a good discussion about the difference between the "law" and "justice."

Lincoln: using the back of a shovel to work out math problems.

Historians still rank Buchanan as our worst president.
I guess I'd dare a teacher today to
ask students who they think the worst president ever would be.

My students had very little idea of how the draft works.
It made for an interesting discussion.

Farragut at Mobile Bay.
I don't know if anyone cares about him anymore.

Plus, if it's not on a standardized test....

April 1865 - Lee's starving troops can no longer continue the fight.
Soldier at left is picking berries.

There was great enthusiasm at the start of the war to enlist.
That concept was interesting to my classes.

People never change. Lazy guards in 1690 built snowmen
and hoped no one would get close enough to notice.
The French and Indians weren't fooled.

Swedes in America - who even remembers???

The Dutch settlers introduced "koekjes" to America.
Plus donuts!
Can your students figure out that the first word is our "cookies?"

What were the folks in the canoes thinking?

Exploring was a dangerous business for all kinds of reasons.
My classes did like to discuss the reasons they might want to go exploring today.

I met Rick Arnett riding across the USA in 2011. He was trying to get over a divorce, and said he hoped to do 10,000 miles and write a book about his travels.
He said he sometimes got up to 70 mph on the long downhill passes.
I told him I always lost my nerve around 45 mph.

If your students have never seen Nevada - a lot of it looks like this.
Picture taken along Highway 50, billed "The Loneliest Highway in America."

Of course, my students appreciated this picture from my ride across the USA.
Somewhere in New York.

One of the joys of adventure: a sunrise over my camp in Utah.

I told every student I ever had they should drive across the USA at least once in their lives.
Laura B. came back years later and told me she took my advice.
The Oxbow Bend in Grand Teton National Park.

Tioga Pass takes you into Yosemite National Park, from the Nevada size.
For scale, there's a white dot on the road, above my handlebars.
That's one of those large mobile campers.

Spanish soldiers turn the war dogs loose.