National Register Nominations--Valuable Sources of Information

I started the Montana History and Heritage Listserv long before this blog, whose purpose is to save the information disseminated through the listserv for posterity.

The listserv is on hiatus for the summer, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to take some of the most informative of earlier listserv postings and repost them here. Below is one from November 2011.

Do you have your students engage in local history research? If so, you might want to look at one of the newest digital collections added to the Montana Memory Project,  Montana on the National Register of Historic Places. The collection can be found at http://mtmemory.org/cdm4/browse.php?CISOROOT=%2Fp103401coll12. (Or go to the Montana Memory home page, http://www.mtmemory.org/, choose “browse,” select “Montana on the National Register of Historic Places” from the drop down box on the upper left, then press “go.”)

Some background is probably in order. The National Register of Historic Places is the nation's official list of those cultural resources deemed worthy of preservation. To become listed in the National Register, properties or historic districts, which contain many properties (for example, the Deer Lodge Central Business Historic District) go through a very thorough review process. That means that to nominate a property, the person preparing the nomination has to gather a ton of historical, biographical, and architectural research.

That research is compiled in the nomination. Since the research is actually useful for lots of different purposes (not just for the purpose for which it was gathered) these nominations are incredibly valuable (and generally overlooked) sources of information about Montana’s communities and their development.

There are over 1,000 Montana properties/districts listed in the National Register—each one of which has a nomination (You can find a list of NR properties here: http://mhs.mt.gov/Shpo/NationalReg/NRMap.aspx.) Hard copies of the nominations reside at the State Historic Preservation Office and (often) in local community libraries, historical societies, or preservation offices. Now, for 89 National Register-listed properties or historic districts (including most of those that were nominated between 2006 and 2010), the NR nominations are also available online through the Montana Memory Project in the Montana on the National Register of Historic Places collection.

The nominations in Montana Memory are full text searchable—so, you can search the collection using people’s names, business names, or key words (e.g., Finnish).  The collection is organized alphabetically by property name (“Alice Creek Trail Historic District” through “Wold-Cue Barn”) but you can sort the nominations by county and town as well.

Mining NR nominations for historical information takes a little practice. The first couple of pages are specific to their purpose as National Register nominations. The good stuff is further down. Interested in architecture? Then you will want to read Section 7—but for most of you, the most useful section will likely be Section 8 (which is where the history is). (Note that the forms have a small space for these sections—you will need to dig further in for the continuation sheets, which is where the meat is.)

Take for example the Kero Farmstead in Carbon County. Section 8 of this nomination includes background on Crow occupation of this territory, Jacob Kero, who homesteaded the farm, the history of homesteading in the area, the history of the Finnish settlement in the area, and information about Finnish architecture. Section 9 includes an extensive bibliography.

If you’ve read this far, congratulations on making it through an extraordinarily long post. I hope it peaked your curiosity and you will spend some time browsing this important digital collection. If you like local history, you’ll be glad  you did.

Happy browsing.

Teaching with Objects

I found this short post on why teach with objects enlightening, and all the more reason to encourage folks to check out the Montana Historical Society’s Hands On History footlockers or footlockers from other museums. (Please note: It is NOT too early to reserve your footlockers for next year. Our most popular trunks go fast!)

I also know teachers who have successfully brought in their own historic objects—or had students bring something one from home. Among them is Renee Rasmussen. For details on how she conducted her family heirloom project, email mkohl@mt.gov.

Teacher and Student Scholarships to the Montana History Conference

The Montana Historical Society is pleased to announce that the Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation is again funding a number of scholarships for teachers and/or STUDENTS who want to attend the history conference. Last year a teacher at Butte High received scholarships to bring two of his students (both sophomores I believe) who were active in the Butte High History Club. It was really fun having young faces at the conference and they said they had a great time.


The deadline for applying for the Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation scholarships is August 30. We recognize this is an awkward deadline (August 30 is the first day of school in Helena, anyway)—so we encourage teachers to recruit students and put in their own applications before school gets out this summer. More information on the Washington Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation scholarship is available here: http://mhs.mt.gov/education/washingtonfoundation.asp 


The full conference program will be posted on our website by early June. Visit http://mhs.mt.gov/museum/historyconference2011.asp. 

Making Sense of Documents and Scholars in Action

I just stumbled on History Matters “Making Sense of Evidence" Page. The page contains a series of links designed to help students and teachers make effective use of primary sources. It is organized into two sections:

• “Making Sense of Documents” provide strategies for analyzing online primary materials, with interactive exercises and a guide to traditional and online sources.
• “Scholars in Action” segments show how scholars puzzle out the meaning of different kinds of primary sources, allowing you to try to make sense of a document yourself then providing audio clips in which leading scholars interpret the document and discuss strategies for overall analysis.

Because there was so much interest in the emails I sent out over the last year on using photographs as historical sources, I looked specifically at the links involving photo analysis, “Making Sense of Documentary Photography” and “Scholars in Action: Analyzing Photographs.” Both are nicely interactive, asking users to participate by answering questions or otherwise engage with the material before learning what the experts say.

In Making Sense of Documentary Photography, historian James Curtis offers a brief history of documentary photography, examples of what questions to ask when examining a documentary photograph, and an annotated bibliography and list of online resources for documentary photography.

“Scholars in Action: Analyzing Photographs” presents historian Frank Goodyear’s interpretation of an 1850s daguerreotype of Niagara Falls. I couldn’t get the sound to work, but I could read the transcripts—which I found insightful but maybe less enjoyable than hearing the actual interview.

Teaching with Primary Sources Workshop

If you are a Montana 6-12 grade teacher, I hope you will consider applying for “Teaching with Primary Sources: War, Resistance and the Montana Experience.” Participants will receive a travel stipend and scholarship to attend the Montana History Conference, No Ordinary Time: War, Resistance, and the Montana Experience,  in Missoula, September 22-24, 2011, including the Thursday Educator’s Workshop (full description below) and the Friday and Saturday sessions and fieldtrips. (OPI Renewal Credits available).

Educator’s Workshop, Thursday, 8:30-4:30 (lunch provided). Many teachers successfully use primary sources to engage and excite students about history, teach media literacy, and introduce the art of historical research.  The Montana Historical Society is making it easy for Montana educators to harness the power of primary sources in their classrooms. In keeping with the conference theme, the workshop will focus on war and resistance, from the Indian Wars through the Gulf War. Participants will learn where to find and how to analyze primary sources relating Montanans’ experience during wartime, including material on the Library of Congress’s American Memory and Veterans Oral History Project websites, the Montana Historical Society’s website, and the Montana Memory Project website. Hands-on activities will offer participants opportunities to hone their primary source analysis skills. Participants will also learn about educational technologies (like Glogster and Animoto) and programs (like Teaching with Primary Sources and National History Day) that make it easier to integrate primary sources into the classroom. Presenters will include Martha Kohl, historical specialist at the Montana Historical Society, Dr. Tom Rust, co-director of Montana National History Day, and Peggy O’Neill-Jones, director of Teaching with Primary Sources-Colorado.

Participants will also receive a travel scholarship to attend the Montana History Day Competition in Helena, April 2012. (OPI Renewal Credits available). For schools that need it, money will be available to pay for substitutes. In exchange, participants will be asked to share what they have learned with teachers or students at their schools.

Applications are due May 15, 2011. More information and forms here: http://mhs.mt.gov/education/TPS.asp. Or feel free to contact me with questions: mkohl@mt.gov.

Mountain West Voices and Headwater News

I just discovered Mountain West Voices—a radio program that uses compelling human stories from the intermountain west to explore the complex history, culture, present and future of this extraordinary place. Broadcast on Montana Public Radio, the short features are also available via the web, where they are accompanied by images, transcripts, and notes in a section called “Reporter’s Notebook.” In the most recent episode, reporter Clay Scott travels to Montana's Fort Belknap Indian Reservation for a ceremony honoring two airmen returning from a tour in the Middle East.

You can find it here: http://mountainwestvoices.org/Default.aspx.

I learned about Mountain West Voices from Headwaters News, which is simply the best aggregator of information on contemporary western topics, from wolf wars to water rights to tribal issues. You can check out the content and subscribe (for FREE) here: http://www.headwatersnews.org/.

Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History School Affiliate program

The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History supports “the study and love of American history through a wide range of programs and resources for students, teachers, scholars, and history enthusiasts.” By all accounts, its programs and materials are first rate—their focus is national, not regional (and they have very little specific to Montana), but for American history, it doesn’t get much better than Gilder Lehrman.
Gilder Lehrman is now accepting applications for its School Affiliate program. This program provides FREE professional development on a continuous basis for participating  schools.

Benefits to participating schools include
     • Invitations to professional development opportunities for teachers, including priority consideration in Gilder Lehrman’s renowned 40 summer seminars
     • Personalized master teacher consultations on the Civil War Essay Contest, National History Day, History Club, and Saturday Academies
     • Free and discounted GLI materials, including materials for Constitution Day and Black History Month, posters, booklets and calendars
     • Access to an exclusive Affiliate Schools section of the GLI website
     • 25% discount at the Gilder Lehrman Institute online store
     • Special access to the Gilder Lehrman Collection, recorded lectures from historians, and traveling exhibitions.

For more information, visit the Gilder Lehrman website http://www.gilderlehrman.org/