USING DIGITIZED ARCHIVES AND

PRIMARY SOURCE DOCUMENTS IN

SOCIAL STUDIES CLASSES
Harley Walden & Dr. Lisa
Heaton

WHY DIGITZED ARCHIVES WITH

PRIMARY SOURCES?
First-hand accounts of:

peoples, places, events,

& ideas.
Wide array of historical

periods.
Required by Common

Core
Inter-disciplinary

Possibilities
Most are Free of cost!

IMPLICATIONS FOR COLLEGE

TEACHING
&
LEARNING
Benefits higher education faculty of
Social Studies & pre-service teacher
education faculty who prepare P-12
social studies teachers.

Students perceptions of the

discipline must change from a noun
(notes, books, tests) to a verb
(sculpting, acting, dissecting,
playing) (Cantu, 2009, p. 291).

There is a need for teachers and

professors to shed the isolationist
stereotypes of the ivory tower in
creating an environment where
digital technologies offer us the
opportunity to change this
perception, proposing instead a
vision of the scholar as part of an
engaged community of learners
occupying the nexus between the
preservation of archival texts and
the production of knowledge about
those texts (Norcia, 2008, p. 91).

UNLOCKING THE DIGITIZED

ARCHIVES
The Making of America

Project (Hanlon, 2005)

The Avalon Project

(Cantu, 2003)
The Elizabeth Murray

Project (Cleary &

Neumann, 2009)
I Remain: A Digital

Archive of Letters,
Manuscripts, and
Ephemera (Norcia, 2008)

THE MAKING OF AMERICA

PROJECT

Digital library of primary

sources in American social
history from the Antebellum
period through
Reconstruction.

THE AVALON PROJECT

The Avalon Project contains

digital documents relevant
to the fields of Law, History,
Economics, Politics,
Diplomacy and
Government.

THE ELIZABETH MURRAY PROJECT

Named after Elizabeth
Murray, who lived during
the American Revolution
and left behind numerous
records regarding politics,
war, music, fashion, and
popular scientific beliefs
(Cleary & Neumann, 2009).

I REMAIN: A DIGITAL ARCHIVE OF

LETTERS, MANUSCRIPTS, AND EPHEMERA
Contains information
spanning five centuries,
including seventeenthcentury letters from scientists
and philosophers, eighteenthcentury letters from figures in
the American Revolution,
nineteenth century letters
from writers around the
world. It also contains
correspondence from all the
Presidents through Richard
Nixon.

FINAL REFLECTIONS
Readily accessible for teachers

and students alike.

Most are free to the public,

although some do take financial

donations.

Work well in conjunction with

the new Common Core set of
standards.

Bring the past to life for

students in the modern

classroom, as they can read
journals, diaries, and see
paintings from people who
lived long ago.

QUESTIONS?

REFERENCES
Cantu, D. (2003). Using Web-Based Resources to confront pre-

service
social studies teachers' disinclination to primary
source document
integration. International Social Studies
Forum, 3(1), 291-296.
Cleary, P., & Neumann, D. (2009). The challenges of primary

sources,
History

collaboration, and the K-16 Elizabeth Murray Project.

Teacher, 43(1), 67-86.

Hanlon, C. (2005). History on the cheap: Using the online

archive to make historicists out of undergrads. Pedagogy, 5(1),

97-115.
Norcia, M. A. (2008). Out of the ivory tower endlessly rocking:

Collaborating across disciplines and professions to promote

student learning in the digital archive. Pedagogy, 8(1), 91114. doi: 10.1215/15314200-2007-026