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Unit I: Lesson One
Study the Newspaper
Preparation
Note: This lesson incorporates the use of an
issue of the New York Times from 1913**. If you do not have access
to the New York Times, you may use another serial from the same
time period.
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Print out copies of pages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and the society/obituary
pages of the March 13, 1913 issue of the New York Times.
- The first activity requires access to images
of the New York Times of March 3, 1913.
ProQuest Historical New York Times
(an online subscription database) now provides this access for The Urban
School of San Francisco.
If this access is not available, several
pages of the New York Times on this date may be printed from
microfilm or microfiche usually available at university libraries.
The March 3, 1913 date was selected since
it reports on the election of President Woodrow Wilson, provides some
insight into the ending presidency of Taft, captures the experiences
of the suffragettes in London, and otherwise provides insight into
the world on the eve of the Great War.
The full page images also provide a snapshot
of period life through the layout of the news, the inclusion of ads,
the pricing of products, and the phrasing of headlines.
The students study the pages of the March
3, 1913 edition of the New York Times. This exercise engages
students in learning from a contemporary source about events leading
up to the Great War of 1914-1919.
The purpose of this exercise is to help students
comprehend how "history" is made.
[Note: This activity could use the New
York Times or other national newspapers from other dates, such
as June 27-29, 1914 (the dates surrounding the assassination of Archduke
Franz Ferdinand). The newspapers from July 28-30, 1914 would be another
choice since they offer insight into reaction of the world to the
assassination and the developing events of the early months of the
war.]
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Gather several reference books to make available
during this activity. Students may need to access information to identify
people in the news at this time.
Good resources are:
Briggs, Asa, ed. Dictionary
of 20th Century World Biography. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1992. Brief entries on people of the twentieth century.
Drexel, John, ed. The Facts on File
Encyclopedia of the 20th Century. New York: Facts On File,
1991. Pictures, maps, charts, timelines, and text entries on people,
places, events, and concepts of the twentieth century.
Teed, Peter. Dictionary of 20th
Century History 1914-1990. New York: Oxford University Press,
1992. Brief entries on people, places, and events.
An encyclopedia such as Britannica,
World Book, Collier's, or Merit
Student Encyclopedia.
Internet access.
Classroom Activity
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Place the copied pages of the March 13, 1913, New York Times
on the wall or floor. Or, locate the pages online through ProQuest
Historical New York Times and display these using an LCD projector
of classroom computers.
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Have the students study the five pages of the March 13, 1913, issue
of the New York Times. This newspaper was published in
the year before The Great War started in Europe. The United States
did not join in the war until 1917.
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Hints of the coming war can be found in this 1913 issue of New
York Times. Instruct students to make a list of these hints.
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The newspaper also reveals many things about life in New York City.
Notice the news articles, the ads, the society columns, and the lists
of vital statistics. Have students create a chart of what they learn
from reading the 1913 newspaper.
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Have the students study the pages and make observations by answering
the question:
"What can you tell about the history of this day and time
in history from reading the newspaper?"
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Note the names of individual people, advertisements, headlines, etc.
Students may be divided into groups with each group assigned one of
the newspaper pages.
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Direct the students to create a neat, organized chart with six headings
(each heading/category should have a distinct symbol on the chart).
Possible headings include:
History and politics
Religion
Science and technology
Literature
Education
The arts (music, painting, theater)
Health and medicine
Daily life (births, deaths, marriages,
divorce)
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Using the available secondary sources, each student is responsible
for finding information for two of the categories in the newspaper
and adding this information to the chart in a neat and orderly manner.
(Skills used--charting and note-taking).
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If Internet searching is used, this is an excellent time to teach
the important use of quotation marks for name searching, such as for
"Woodrow Wilson" or "Archduke Franz Ferdinand".
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Repeat the above newspaper exercise with a current newspaper. Change
the groupings for the current day newspaper. Ask the students to notice
if there are any sections found in the current newspaper that are
not found in the 1913 newspaper.
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As a conclusion to this lesson, each student first writes a summary
of the events from one of the categories. Next, the student writes
a letter in which s/he explains what s/he would like her/his grandchildren
to know about this day in history. In this lesson students are creating
both a secondary source (the summary) and a primary source (the letter).
Help students to understand the distinction between primary and secondary
sources. For additional information, direct students to What
are Primary Sources and Types
of Primary Sources.
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Direct students to put these letters in envelopes in a safe place
for the future generation.
**Instructions for accessing the New York Times
of March 3, 1913
- To locate the newspaper for March 3, 1913,
go to ProQuest .
You may need to ask for the ID and password for access. Change the Collections
to search PQ Hist. News. NYTimes. This is the Deep Backfile. Copy and
paste the following search string into the search box: PDN(03/03/1913)
AND DTYPE(front_page)
- This search string instructs ProQuest to locate
and display the articles that are found on the front page of the March
3, 1913. Pushing return or clicking on Search should result in a list
of 22 articles. Click on the "front page" icon to view the front page
of the New York Times of March 3, 1913.
- Access additional pages by using the "Goto
Page" arrow selector.
- Individual articles may be viewed in a larger
format by clicking on the article. Viewing of the individual articles
requires the Adobe Acrobat plug-in. Return to the page image to access
other articles or other pages.
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