A Potential Community History Project

 Last spring, Billings Public Library launched a program to collect photos of Billings from the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. The library displayed those images and then partnered with the Montana History Portal to make some of the scanned photos available online. 

People were asked to complete a Creative Commons agreement (giving permission to share the photos), This step is critical! They were also asked to answer questions about each photo. (The questions below were taken directly from BPL’s description of the project):

Title: A short title describing what's shown or going on in the image.

Creator: Who took this photo? If it was not you, please name who did and your relation to this individual. Due to copyright concerns, ambiguous descriptions in this field may force us to disqualify the image for event display and upload to MHP.

Location: Please provide a physical street address if possible. If not, please describe where the image was taken with as much detail as possible.

Date: Month/day/year, or as close to the actual date as possible. Please refrain from using "circa" and provide at least the correct year the image was taken. 

Description: Here's your chance to describe what the image portrays in detail. Where is this taken? What landmark is shown? What event was this taken at? What is the significance of this image? If possible, include the names of people shown in image.

BPL did this with members of the general public, but I’m wondering if this could be a class project, in cooperation with your public library and the Montana History Portal. (Note: You'd need to include your local library, because you'll need their help editing the metadata into a form that will work for the Portal.)

I reached out to BPL archivist Joe Lanning, and he said he’d be happy to visit with folks who want to take something like this on. Just email him at lanningj@billingsmt.gov.

PS: Joe has also offered to help classes or individual students conducting research for National History Day projects. Learn more about NHD, a program for grades 6-12, here. 

True or False?

 “Spring plowing often begins in early March and fall plowing rarely ceases until November. The crop growing season for the central part of the state averages 144 days.”—Montana (1917)

“There is not another state in North America where a day’s work or a dollar spent in agricultural enterprise will bring such large returns and amid living conditions which are so uniquely delightful.”—Montana (1917)

"The Judith Basin has sufficient rainfall to insure good crops. The average precipitation per year for the past seven years was 17 inches."—The Great Judith Basin, Montana (1908)

It's one thing to read that railroads aggressively marketed Montana land along their lines as, in the words of Montana: Stories of the Land, "a golden opportunity for farmers." It's another thing entirely to actually read the brochures produced by the Great Northern Railway and the Milwaukee Road. 

Reading these brochures helps us understand why people came to Montana. Perhaps it also might encourage a little more media literacy amongst students today.

Consider having your students search the text for potential falsehoods. Then have them look for images that illustrate the falsehood and do research (either online or at your local historical society) to prove that the falsehood is, indeed, untrue. (About a decade ago, Corvallis teacher Phil Leonardi told me that he did this with his students, and I still think it's brilliant.)   

P.S. It wasn't just the railroads. Town boosters published their own pamphlets. Here are a few excerpts from a brochure published by the Ryegate newspaper: 

"The territory known as 'Ryegate Country' has been well-named 'Man’s Opportunity Land,' for nowhere, in the broad expanse of the continent is there better opportunity for those who desire to follow the avocation of farming.”—We Are Satisfied: Stock Raising, Grain, Dairy Products, Ryegate, Montana (circa 1914)

"The Ryegate Country lies in the fruit-growing belt."—We Are Satisfied

Hands-on History

 Have you ever ordered on of our hands-on history footlockers? If you have, you know that there's nothing like material culture (objects) to make history come alive.

We started our traveling footlocker program over twenty-five years ago, and now have twenty titles, each focused on a different topic or time period, and each filled with reproductions of clothing, tools, and everyday objects and maps, photographs, and documents. Every footlocker also includes a User Guide with historical narratives for educators and students, lesson plans (many of which do not require material from the footlockers), Amazing Montanan biographies, and information on standards alignment.

The footlocker program is a great way to enrich your classroom, but it's gotten very expensive for schools. We have historically provided the footlockers free of charge, while requiring the school to pay for shipping on to the next venue. Shipping fees used to average $30-$50 dollars. These days, teachers are telling us it can cost up to $70 to ship a trunk!

We don't want the program to become cost prohibitive, so we're changing our system. Instead of making the school responsible for shipping costs, schools will simply pay MTHS a flat $25 fee and MTHS will cover shipping.

We hope this provides some predictability and restores affordability to the program. 

Learn how to order a footlocker. 

Explore the list of titles and their User Guides.  

Questions? Contact Katie White at kwhite@mt.gov or 406-444-9553.

P.S. Having a hard time choosing which footlocker to bring into your classroom? I'm quite partial to Through a Child's Eyes: The Stewart Family in Turbulent Times, 1913-1921, which investigates life and politics, 1913-1921, through the lives of Montana Governor Samuel Stewart's three daughters.

P.P.S. The Montana Jewish Project is giving away book kits, just in time for the holidays. And unlike our footlockers, the Montana Jewish Project book kits are yours to keep. Here's more information on what's in it and how to order. 

A Taste of Indigenous Foods

 If you are interested in food (and who isn't?), consider attending A Taste of Indigenous Foods with Mariah Gladstone, Virtual Keynote and Cooking Class, Monday, November 20, from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

What are indigenous foods, where do we get them, and how do we prepare them? Many native North American foods, both cultivated and harvested, were removed from our diets through intentional colonial efforts. Mariah Gladstone is leading the way in a food movement that is revitalizing and incorporating these important foods into the contemporary diet. During her virtual lecture and cooking class, you will cook along with her as she prepares one of her original recipes and discusses the history of Indigenous foodways and the First Thanksgiving.

The week prior to the class, MTHS will send the ingredient list to all those who have registered so you can be ready to cook along with Mariah on the 20th. We will also send the link to the videoconference. I'll be offering one OPI Renewal Unit to those who attend and email me their reflections. 

Register for free here. 

Questions? Contact Laura Marsh, laura.marsh@mt.gov. 

P.S. Don't forget today's PD with Mike Jetty on Indian Education for All Resources from 4:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. Reply to this email for the link. 

Bringing Indigenous Voices into Your Classroom

 Last summer at our Teacher Leaders in Montana History Conference, Teacher Leader Dylan Huisken (Bonner), pointed out two things: 

1. It's essential to provide students an access to sources created by Native peoples (rather than just sources about Native peoples), and

2. Many non-Native teachers who don't live near a reservation struggle with finding ways to integrate Native voices into their classrooms. 

That led us to work together to create this Google Sheet, "Indigenous Primary Sources." This is not the most polished document I've ever distributed, but I hope it's useful. I've sorted it by Federal Indian Policy Periods, but you can save your own copy to sort by Tribal Nation or date.

Most, but not everything, listed here is a primary source, including videos, documents, and images. We've included sources to use with younger grades (for example, picture books created as part of the Indian Reading Series) as well as sources for older students. Some of the sources will work well for U.S. history or government (see, for example, the letter from the Seneca chiefs to George Washington and the essay by Anishinabe environmentalist Winona LaDuke).

Others are specific to Montana, For example, you'll find links to an interview with Apsáalooke hip hop artist and fancy dancer Supaman and to an 1865 letter from Séliš Chief Victor.

I hope you'll check out these resources and then let me know what you think.

• Do you have a source you think should be added? Send me the information!
• Is there a way to share this information that would be more useful to you? Let me know that too. 

P.S. Don't forget to register for our next Monday Meet-up, November 13, 2023, from 4:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. to learn from OPI IEFA specialist Mike Jetty as he shares Indian Education for All Resources.

Free Book Kits

The Montana Jewish Project is once again giving away book kits focusing on the anchor text, Christmas Menorahs: How a Town Fought Hate. The picture book is based on a 1993 episode in Billings. After members of a hate group threw a rock through a Jewish family's window during Hanukkah, the community organized in opposition. Over 10,000 Billings residents displayed pictures of menorahs in their windows as an expression of solidarity with their Jewish neighbors. The event sparked a larger movement called Not in Our Town.

We included the book and a lesson plan in our hands-on history footlocker Coming to Montana: Immigrants from Around the World. (Information on ordering the footlocker can be found here.) 

Billings social studies teacher Bruce Wendt had his students work with the Western Heritage Center to create an exhibit on the twentieth anniversary of the incident. You can read about the project here. That student-created exhibit is now a traveling exhibit that your school can borrow from the WHC. Contact Bruce Wendt for more information.  

The Montana Jewish Project adapted our lesson plan for their book kits, which also include a copy of the picture book, a menorah, and dreidels (special tops that Jewish children play with at Hanukkah). And unlike the MTHS footlocker, these kits are yours to keep. They did this last year too, and the teachers who got them loved them. 

• Preview the lesson plan. 
• Hear the book read on YouTube.
• Apply to receive one of these book kits here.
• Learn more about the Montana Jewish Project.

Native American Heritage Month

Here at the Montana Historical Society, every month is Native American Heritage Month, and I hope it is in your classroom and school as well! But it never hurts to shine an extra spotlight on resources for teaching about American Indians.

Our friends over at OPI put together this one pager with links to some of their most popular lessons: American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month - November 2023

You can find MTHS-created IEFA lessons on our web site as well as integrated into both our fourth-grade and middle-school curriculums. About a third of the lessons that accompany Montana: A History of Our Home deal with Indian culture and history, and Montana: Stories of the Land integrates Indian history into almost every chapter. 

P.S. Don't forget to register for our next Monday Meet-up, November 13, 2023, from 4:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. to learn from OPI IEFA specialist Mike Jetty as he shares Indian Education for All Resources.