A trip to our state archives

My son and I had a fascinating morning at the North Carolina State Archives Friday. He was there to do research for his National History Day project on World War I. This was a new experience for us both and we loved digging through the primary sources to be found there.

First you have to search through a finding aid. We looked through a volume on their military collections and a volume on private collections. Our first selection was a private collection of a college professor, Dr. Daniel Hill. It was mostly letters. As we read through, we began to form a picture of parts of this man's life. It turned out that the letters relating to WWI were about his son who was initially rejected because of his physical size. As we continued to dig further, we saw the trail of his father writing to people he knew and persons of influence to find a place for his son in the war effort. It did not lead to information pertinent to my son's project, but we certainly enjoyed the discoveries we made.

We did eventually find several items that he wanted photocopied or scanned including a booklet on the specific activities of two units in the war and two aerial maps of France. He will need to turn to the internet to look for other primary resources for his project but I look forward to future trips to the archive.

Speaking of kindness...

I love the old cliche What goes around comes around. Cliches that get old usually do so by having a large nugget of truth at their center. I was the recipient of a generous act of kindness this week. A nice man up in the state of Washington needed to divest himself of a large number of inherited books. Among them were 12 by Jacob Abbott. He found my blog and called me to see if I wanted them for the cost of postage. Wow! They are lovely and in fine condition and of a binding that I had not previously held in my hands. I wish I could include a pic but my camera is on the blink.

Thank you Mr. Herb Munson!!! May a generous act of kindness come around your way.

A random act of kindness...

Bloggers Unite challenge for today is to blog an act of kindness. I want to spotlight one of my daughters. Yesterday, we drove over an hour to see a performance of the Nutcracker. We arrived an hour early because the seating was general and we wanted to snag some good seats.

We did - the center of the center down front. Perfect! We settled down to wait another 45 minutes. About 5 minutes before curtain time, the announcer proclaims that this is the first sold out performance ever for this small town college performing arts center. Wonderful! However, some more senior citizens have arrived and the only seats left are in the balcony - would anyone be willing to give up their floor seats?

While I debated, and remembered the hour drive and early arrival, my daughter turned to me and said "We can go up to the balcony, Mommy."

"Are you sure?" I ask, still contemplating the "sacrifice."

"Yes."

Heavy sigh...checking to make sure there are still seniors waiting...OKAY!

We ended up in the nose bleed section only one row from the ceiling. But we had a great time and easy hearts. An act of kindness returns much to the giver.

History in the making...

Election years always press home to me that each day we are living, we are watching history being made. What will folks say about us 10 years, 100 years, 1000 years from now?

For those of you who are homeschooling and of a conservative bent, check out Homeschoolers Heart Huckabee. Great learning activities on government and opportunities (if desired) to support a presidential campaign from the grass roots level.

If Huckabee isn't your cup of Joe, I bet a quick search will find similar websites for the candidate of your choice. It can be exhilarating to have an active hand in making history happen.

National History Day - Get Involved!

I just learned about a drive to get students involved in real history study disguised as a contest. The tagline at National History Day reads It's Not just a Day, It's an Experience! In this event, the contest is downplayed in favor of the process and the learning which suits me just fine.

The initial information came through a local homeschool list and I immediately got excited about it. I have bribed my history loving son into doing a project by promising it would also count for part of his english credit this year since there is a 500 word process paper involved. Advanced homeschool mom tactics in action.

My son's project will naturally include some aspect of military history which won't be difficult to fit into this year's theme of Conflict and Compromise in History. He is already scheming to use this as an excuse to build a diorama of trench warfare in WWI.

You can get involved as a student, a parent or a teacher so check it out! It is open to all students, public, private or homeschooled, in grades 6-12. You can get more information from your state coordinator. Projects can be started by teams or individuals and the final presentation can be in a variety of forms as shown in this introductory video.

In Their Own Words: George, John, and Abe

Sometimes the best ideas are the simplest. Like these new resources I found at Rob Shearer's blog, Contending With the Culture. Imagine learning about George Washington, John Adams and Abraham Lincoln completely from their own words! Along with some photographs, prints, and artifacts. I can't wait to see these books with my own eyes. In the meantime, look at what Rob has to say about them...

57th History Carnival

Jinkers! My post on "Peter the Great...Right Brained Learner?" was selected to be in the 57th History Carnival over at the Official Osprey Publishing Blog. Here is what they say about themselves:

Osprey Publishing is an illustrated military history publisher, and we see our blog as a place for interested people to come together and talk military history – about anything and everything to do with it. We love it and we know you do too.

I am really jazzed to have my post included - even if they did put it in the evolution section - smile. The first entry in the carnival is from their own blog but very interesting...Why Study Military History? I am not going to duplicate the whole carnival - just want you to get a taste of the entries to pique your appetite. I am still browsing through the selections myself!