As a form of review I often throw a couple dozen vocabulary words up on the board and ask students to write the words down in column one and in column two identify the word by the historical era it best belongs to. Students need to be able to explain to me, to the class, or to a partner why they wrote down the particular historical unit as their answer. Depending on the capabilities of the group or the needs of certain students I might also list all of the unit names we had discussed up to that point as a memory jogger.
For example, if I wrote the word Constitution on the board I would expect my students to correctly identify the historical unit as “Building a New Nation” while the vocabulary word potlatch would match up with “Native Americans.”

Let’s see how well you do…..the units are Native Americans, Exploration, Colonization, French and Indian War, American Revolution, and Forming a New Nation. The vocabulary words are circumnavigate, liberty, artisan, origin story, Ohio River Valley, and James Madison.

Commence to matching them up.

So, how did you match them up?

Here’s the best way….Native Americans/origin story, Exploration/circumnavigate, Colonization/artisan, French and Indian War/Ohio River Valley, American Revolution/liberty, James Madison/Forming a New Nation.

What about the word secession?

Which unit of history would it best go with?

The Civil War…right?

What if I changed the direction for the activity from which is the best unit to match the word up with to which historical period or unit is the earliest time period the word could fit?

If “that” was my direction then the Civil War would NOT be correct.

Nope….in fact the time period right after the American Revolution would be the correct historical time period.

Why?

Ever hear of the state of Franklin? Yep, it existed.

In April, 1784 the state of North Carolina gave the new United States government control of 29 million acres between the Mississippi River and the Allegheny Mountains (Appalachian) due to the extreme amount of debt the new nation found itself under.

This action, however, did not please many of the inhabitants of the area who did not want to suddenly find themselves as Spanish or French colonists should the Confederation government of the U.S. decide to sell the territory for debt relief. Apparently the legislature of North Carolina also became a bit wary as to what the national government would do with the land, so they took their offer off the table.

By August, 1784 the people living in this area had had it with the uncertainty of their fate. Were they citizens of North Carolina? Were they citizens of a new colony? The people declared they were free from North Carolina, and on May 16, 1785, a delegation asked the U.S. Congress for statehood. Their proposed name was Frankland.

Under the Articles of Confederation that governed this nation at the time a two-thirds majority of states had to vote in favor of statehood….they fell short with just seven states voting in favor.
Frankland’s leaders even opted to change the name to Franklin, after Benjamin Franklin, in hopes that members of the confederation congress would go for that, and the fact that the U.S. government did not officially declare them a state did not deter them.

A constitution was adopted, a government was seated at Greeneville, and John Sevier was elected governor. The “state”, however, could never support itself and since it was not officially recognized by the U.S. government, and because it ignored the fact that North Carolina controlled the territory, Franklin could not benefit from any military assistance.

North Carolina troops finally moved in when Franklin’s “government” refused to accept North Carolina’s offer to waive back taxes. One battle ensued at Colonel Tipton's farm in present day Johnson City, Tennessee.

After failing to garner a loan from Spain (which is ironic since so many citizens had not wanted to be beholden to the French or the Spanish), John Sevier finally turned himself into North Carolina authorities in February, 1788. His only punishment was to declare an oath of allegiance to North Carolina.

All differences between the state of North Carolina and the want-to-be state of Franklin were forgotten by the citizens of the territory when Native Americans began to heavily attack the white Franklin settlements in March, 1788. The citizens of Franklin were more than ready to declare they were in fact North Carolinians.

By 1790, the territory that had once claimed to be the state of Franklin was ceded by the government of North Carolina once more to the national government where it would become part of the Southwest Territory…..and would later become part of Tennessee where it remains today.

It’s not unusual for citizens to suddenly change the name of a proposed state or county to something that might be more favorable to those voting….see another article I wrote here.

Labels: Articles of Confederation, secession, State of Franklin

From my home to yours....Merry Christmas and Seasons Greetings.

Labels: Christmas

Today is an important date in World War II history….The website maintained by the
World War II Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge states:

The Battle of the Bulge which lasted from December 16, 1944 to January 25, 1945 was the largest land battle of World War II in which the United States participated. More than a million men fought in this battle including some 600,000 Germans, 500,000 Americans, and 55,000 British. The German military force consisted of two Armies with ten corps (equal to 29 divisions). While the American military force consisted of a total of three armies with six corps (equal to 31 divisions). At the conclusion of the battle the casualties were as follows: 81,000 U.S. with 19,000 killed, 1400 British with 200 killed, and 100,000 Germans killed, wounded or captured.

You can find more of my World War II postings here.

Other bloggers are participating in Wordless Wednesday today….you can find them here.

Labels: Battle of the Bulge, Wordless Wednesday, World War II

The White House has endured a few fires over the years, but one particular fire occurred during the Christmas season, and the Oval Office received some major damage.

See my most recent post…Up on the Rooftop...Hoover Watched over at American Presidents Blog.

Labels: American Presidents, Herbert Hoover, White House

I recently finished reading Towers of Gold: How One Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California by Frances Dinkelspiel, and I have to say I’m a bit jealous. Isaias Hellman is the great-great grandfather of Ms. Dinkelspiel. It’s not just anyone who can claim ancestory to a man who almost single-handedly birthed the state of California. While I’ll admit that it took many, many people to birth the great state of California….Isaias Hellman’s contributions cannot be denied.

The book is well written. It kept my interest with stagecoach robberies, an assassination attempt, bank runs, the 1906 earthquake, and is the final product of eight years of research during which Ms. Dinkelspiel poured over more than 50,000 archival documents.

Isaias Hellman isn’t just an American who should be taught about in a course including California history, but he should be included in courses that include early immigration, growth of the west, growth of early cities and towns, Jewish contributions to the making of America, and 19th century financial American History.

So, just who was Isaias Hellman? Well, you really need to read the book for a clear picture, but here are a few facts:

1. Isaias Hellman was a Jewish immigrant from Reckendorf, Bavaria. He immigrated to Los Angeles in 1859, a few years after California being admitted to the Union.

2. In fact, at the time Hellman reached California the U.S. territory was still heavily entrenched in Mexican culture…..Pueblo type buildings and the rules of Spanish society were the norm.

3. Today, Hellman is thought to be one of the greatest Pacific Coast financiers during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Library Journal advises [Hellman] is attributed with stabilizing the financial panic of 1893 in Los Angeles by stacking $500,000 worth of gold coins on the counter of the Farmers and Merchants Bank in plain public view, hence the title of [Ms. Dinkelspiel’s] book.

4. He founded one of the territory’s first banks which later became the Farmer’s and Merchant’s Bank. Ms. Dinkelspiel advises at the height of his power in the early 20th century, he controlled more than $100 million in capital and served as president of 14 other banks.

5. Because of his financial backing Hellman was instrumental in developing at least seven other industries that shaped California: transportation, oil, electricity, land development, water, wine, and education.

6. He controlled the California wine industry for almost twenty years, and helped develop the famous Pacific Electric red cars that crisscrossed the Los Angeles region. Hellman was also involved in agriculture raising oranges, walnuts, and lemons at Rosemeade…the Hellman Ranch.

7. Hellman was the president of the first synogogue in Los Angeles.

8. He was very involved in the founding of the University of Southern California by donating land the college sits on today, and he served as Regent for many years for the University of California.

9. Following a move to San Francisco, Hellman opened Union Trust Company, the first trust company in California. He also was involved with the Nevada Bank which later became Wells Fargo Bank.

10. During tough times it was Hellman that kept Californians moving ahead. Following the 1906 earthquake Hellman ran the Wells Fargo Bank out of home when the building that housed the bank was damaged.

11. Sugar Pine Point State Park at Lake Tahoe was originally a Hellman home before it was donated to the state.

12. San Francisco Magazine states visionary financier Isaias Hellman was the Warren Buffet and Alan Greenspan of early California rolled into one. He arrived in Los Angeles as a practically penniless, 16-year-old German Jew when there were only 300 other Europeans in town. Three decades later, he controlled much of the booming city’s capital, land, and public works….Hellman starred in so many aspects of the state’s phoenixlike rise between the Civil War and the Depression that he became our Zelig, only with a really thick portfolio.

13. The San Francisco Gate states the book is a carefully researched and superbly written memoir…Dinkelspiel’s biography not only brings to life the transformation of California into the state with the strongest economy in the nation, and the outside personalities that forged it, but rescues from the proverbial dustbin of history the remarkable life and achievements of a man whose energy, creativity, resourcefulness and love for his adopted country had been all but forgotten.

If you are looking for a great biography to read then I suggest you give Towers of Gold a try.

Other bloggers are posting their 13 lists today as well. You can locate them here.

Labels: California, Gilded Age, Great Books, Immigration, Isaias Hellman

You cannot research Pearl Harbor…..you cannot teach Pearl Harbor….you cannot “know” Pearl Harbor without having read Pearl Harbor: The Story of the Secret War by George Morgenstern published in 1947. James J. Martin in the Journal of Historical Review calls Morgenstern’s book the best, despite a formidable volume of subsequent writing by many others on the subject…and is probably the most widely commented upon book every produced by the World War Two Revisionist impulse in this country…Mr. Martin further states everyone writing on the subject of Pearl Harbor has either consciously or unconciously followed the “scenario” first laid down by George Morgenstern.

Labels: Lesson Ideas, Pearl Harbor, Personal, Teaching Strategies, World War II

Labels: American Presidents, Christmas, White House, Wordless Wednesday