We had a week full of history! We started our week focused on the Underground Railroad. I had planned on reading the book, If you Traveled on the Underground Railroad, over the course of several days. The children liked it so much that they asked me to continue and we read it all in one session! That evening we had a good family dinner time discussion about the Underground Railroad as well as some of the people and events surrounding that time.

My daughter has been working diligently on completing her Freedom Seekers badge for American heritage Girls. This badge focuses on the Underground Railroad. She did a hymn study of Amazing Grace and learned about its writer, John Newton, who was a slave trader that later fought against slavery. She also read a biography about Harriet Tubman.

The children also had the opportunity to work with their father and build a nearly life size replica of a cannon that would have been appropriate to the time period. This replica will be used to teach other children about how cannons were used, loaded, and fired. They enjoyed the opportunity to build and are looking forward to using it next weekend to teach other children.

My son spent his project time this week researching Civil War rations from the perspective of both the Southern and Union Armies. He compiled a list of both and created a menu plan for dinner one night using the Southern rations since we live in a Southern state.

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We had the opportunity to travel to Fort Macon for a field trip this week as well. Fort Macon has a rich military history involving multiple wars but we focused on its part in the Civil War and the architecture this week. The children were able to tour the fort as well as look at some of the various exhibits. Fort Macon is North Carolina’s first state park and it is very well done. The historic site has a great collection of exhibits and information complementing the original masonry construction. They have displays showing rations, bunks, uniforms, artillery, and other artifacts from its time in use. The fort was actually used from the Civil War through World War II and is now a part of the North Carolina Park Service.

They also feature displays on ecology and conservation in the adjacent visitors center. We did not have time this week to enjoy those displays but they are a wonderful addition to the trip and all included at no cost. It is a comfortable day trip for us and we plan to go back later in the spring as we study other times when the fort was in use.

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There is so much happening during this time: people are recovering from a long and costly Civil War, railroads are expanding, inventions and big business are on the rise, the Panama Canal is dug, the Great San Francisco Earthquake, Steamboats, and the Statue of Liberty.

Growing up in Eastern North Carolina the Wright Brothers were an important part of our state history studies. I read the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk  so many times that the cover was falling off. My children had the opportunity to go visit the monument and visitors center in Kitty Hawk several years ago and really enjoyed it. They are looking forward to studying this aspect further. They have also enjoyed reading Suzanne Tate’s books including Helping the Wright Brothers.

In addition to studying the Wright Brothers we will spend some time studying various inventors and business men such as Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt and Thomas Edison. We will watch the History Channel documentary, Men Who Built America to get an understanding of some of these men and the effects their lives and businesses had on America. ( I do recommend previewing these to make sure they are appropriate for your family. Most of them are very good but we do skip the first one due to language and content.)

Food should be a fun topic this month. While finding actual recipes was a bit more difficult for this time period there were a lot of new companies and foods that were becoming popular. Including the invention of ‘Brad’s Drink’ that we know today as Pepsi. My plan is to work with the children in researching some of those new products and hold a tasting. We may also field trip to the Birthplace of Pepsi. I did find recipes for the Wright Brothers breakfast so that will probably make it onto the menu plan sometime in February as well.

We will learn about Teddy Roosevelt and listen to Theodore Roosevelt: An American Original. I want to at least touch on Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty as well as the Panama Canal. To add in some great literature of the time period will we read some of Mark Twain’s short stories, Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain (only .99 on kindle at the time of posting). We will also enjoy some of the Little House on the Prairie series during our reading time.

I’ve included a brief synopsis of this period in history below. I’d love to hear what your favorite resources are and what you want to learn more about in the comments. Don’t forget to check out the resource list for this month in the free resources library.

Reconstruction and Gilded Age (1866-1914)

1865 closed a brutal chapter in American History. At the dawn of the last third of the 19^th Century, Union forces still occupied much of the south. Despite Lincoln’s insistence that the southern states had no right to leave the Union, the former Confederate States were forced to apply for readmission, complete by 1870, to the United States.  Military governors oversaw the formation of new assemblies and congresses and stipulated that states accept the 13^th, 14^th, and 15^th amendments to earn readmission.

Death, destruction, and the scars of war persisted throughout America. America’s greatest maritime disaster occurred during a Prisoner of War Repatriation trip (Steamer Sultana).  The south was deeply segregated, racial divided, and often at odds with northern political influence. Rural working and living conditions were by many accounts very harsh. At the same time, railroads were pushing east and west, soon to meet at Promontory, UT (1869).

America completed its ‘Manifest Destiny’ and settled the entire continent, accepting the lower 48 states by 1912 and claiming or purchasing territories in Hawaii (1894) and Alaska (1867).  Rail soon linked all major cities stimulating a great migration.  Farming, once Thomas Jefferson’s ‘noble occupation,’ comprised 58% of the population in 1860, by 1910 only 30% still farmed.  America became an industrialized nation, textiles, factories, trains, steel, steam ships, great naval ships, electricity, communications, and consumer goods soon became norm.

Fueled by rapid industrial growth and emerging technologies industrial titans earned huge fortunes. They provided transportations (Vanderbilt), oil (Rockefeller), steel (Carnegie), financial reform (J.P. Morgan), electronics (Edison/Telsa), and soon automobiles (Ford).  These captains of industry provided unprecedented access to goods and services. For this, and their creativity, energy, and abilities, they created a new class of ultra wealthy in the United States. Rockefeller and Carnegie went back and forth throughout their careers, each holding the title of world’s richest man for periods. At his death in 1937, John Rockefeller held 1.5% of America’s wealth (more than four times that of Bill Gates).  The wealth represented by these families stood in stark contrast to the working class, often employed by the same firms. Fueled by public outrage at the wealth divide, governments passed the 40-hour workweek, health and safety standards, anti-trust legislation, and child labor restrictions. Eventually the national standard of living would creep upward, greatly expanding the middle class.

America emerged on the world stage as a burgeoning super power, defeating the Spanish in Cuba and the Philippians (1898), sailing the Great White naval fleet around the world (1907), and developing industrialization and technologies at an unprecedented rate. But global war, on a scale not before seen, was on the horizon.

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When you sign up for our free resource library you will get a link and password to the library, we are adding to the library each month with new items. You will also get a bi-weekly newsletter email to keep you up to date on what we have going on.

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This post may contain affiliate or referral links. As always I will never recommend a product that I don’t believe in and you will never be charged more for purchasing through our links. It does help pay for the costs associated with the blog.

This was our first real week back to school and history from the holidays. The break was nice but we (or at least I) were ready to be back in our routine. We started off history with a field trip to one of our state historic sites, the CSS Neuse, a confederate ironclad that was salvaged from the river in the 1960s. If you live nearby, I highly recommend this trip. It was very informative, fun, and affordable.

We started the time there with three demonstration stations. At one station, they learned about spinning wheels and weaving, at one station Civil War medicine, and at the third they were able to learn all about local battles and how railroads and ports played an important role in the war.

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One thing the children found really interesting about the Civil War medicine presentation was that the basic surgeical tools used then are remarkably similar to some of the tools still in use today. However, modern medical techniques greatly increase battlefield survivability. More importantly, the understanding and control of infection is vastly better today and makes a huge difference in survival rates.

After the demonstrations, the children each received a scavenger hunt to help guide them through the museum and learn more about the CSS Neuse and the Civil War. This was a fun way to learn in a more self-guided manner. The remains of the ship are preserved in the museum and really neat to see. They also have a full size replica that is across the street and helps people get a better idea of what it would have looked like during the war. There was information about the ship itself, various battles, life during the war and other relevant topics presented on display boards with artifacts, models, and videos.

Once they completed the scavenger hunt, they had a chance to work on a small weaving project using a cardboard loom. It was a great way to finish up the trip and leave them wanting to learn more. We are hoping to go back and a spend a day learning more about the fiber arts aspect of the time period, an unexpected bonus for what was intended as a military history trip.

This was a great way to kick start our studies and a field trip I highly recommend to those in this area. If you are not local they have some resources on the website you can use to get more information virtually and there are other great Civil War historic sites listed on the National Parks website or many of the websites for various states.

Next week we are working on a timeline of the Civil War and learning more about some of the battles. The children will work together to complete the free printable timeline project found here. Then they will each choose a battle, or campaign,  to learn more about and present to the family. To help them with their research I have found several sites that have good information. The National Parks Service and this Ducksters timeline which is geared more towards children. In addition we may use the World Book online resources that are included with our Schoolhouse Teachers membership.

What Civil War field trips have you enjoyed? Please let us know in the comments. Don’t forget we have a list of Civil War resources in the free resource library.

When you sign up for our free resource library you will get a link and password to the library, we are adding to the library each month with new items. You will also get a bi-weekly newsletter email to keep you up to date on what we have going on.

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This post may contain affiliate or referral links. As always I will never recommend a product that I don’t believe in and you will never be charged more for purchasing through our links. It does help pay for the costs associated with the blog.