Notable documents offer new ways to teach history

When Thomas Jefferson negotiated the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the deal did not simply add 828,000 square miles to the United States for four cents an acre. It doubled the amount of U.S. property where slavery was allowed. By 1830, one quarter of a million slaves had been moved to Louisiana.
The Civil War was not just about slavery, but about the expansion of slavery, which depended on Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas.
In that context, the parched paper treaty becomes an important milestone in American. history, said Warren Goldstein, chairman of the history department at the University of Hartford.
The treaty is among 26 documents on display at the University of Hartford until May 16 in an exhibit titled "American Originals: Treasures from the National Archives.”
Hartford is the last of eight venues for the exhibit. It offers a rare view of the historic documents that shaped the governance of the United States.
On March 12, a group of Danbury history teachers toured the exhibit with Goldstein and Leslie Lindenauer, chairwoman of the university’s women studies program.
"It’s an amazing thing,” Goldstein said. "You all have studied history to be history teachers. What you get here in this exhibit are the things that give you goose bumps.”
They stopped to look at the original voting record book from the Constitutional Convention of 1787.
"This, with the Bill of Rights, is the oldest still-used constitution in the world,” Goldstein said.
"I want to get kids to see that this was a big deal. This document illustrates how hard it was to write the constitution. They voted on one point at a time,” said Danbury High School history teacher Betsy Needle. "Personally, as a teacher, anything that exposes me to new knowledge and reconnects me to documents excites me, and that’s what you have to bring to the classroom. I have to find what is drawing me to the information and then find how can I translate it.”

The Emancipation Proclamation of 1862.

The collection, which is under glass and in subdued light to protect the aged paper, includes the letter Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1790 accepting the job as the nation’s first secretary of state. Across the room is the 1872 arrest warrant for Susan B. Anthony for illegal voting. They crossed out the male pronouns on the affidavit and inserted "she.”
Danbury schools won a federal grant to work with universities and scholars to improve the knowledge of their history teachers and rewrite their history curriculum.
This visit was part of the grant program. Some teachers may use it as a field trip.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, with the original signature of Lyndon B. Johnson, is in the exhibit along with John F. Kennedy’s handwritten notes for his inaugural address in 1961. Also on display is Thomas Edison’s patent application in 1870 for the electric lamp, George Washington’s statement in 1775 accepting commission as commander in chief of American forces and Ethan Allen’s letter to George Washington in 1778 thanking him for his release as a prisoner of war. The preliminary Emancipation Proclamation from 1862 is on display and the final Emancipation Proclamation, signed by Abraham Lincoln, will be on display for four days at the end of March.
Also on display is a collection of Connecticut Originals, inventions from Connecticut that in some cases, shaped history, from guns and aircraft engines to wiffle balls and silly putty. One Connecticut invention was the cotton gin.
"Without this machine, slavery would have died out,” Goldstein said. "Tobacco was exhausting the soil down south and without the cotton gin as a way to take the seeds out of the cotton, cotton would not have been profitable. It was a machine of the 19th century that changed world history.”
Another item in the Connecticut Originals is a photo and document about Prudence Crandall, whose groundbreaking efforts to educate young black girls resulted in a state law banning such schools and terrorism that drove her from Connecticut. The law was repealed in 1838 and in 1995, Crandall was honored as a state hero.
"This exhibit gets it right. A key issue of the 19th century was slavery,” Goldstein said. "Thirty years of scholarship and activism have given us new trees to focus on in the forest. As a consultant for the grant, I help them look at the shape of the forest but to do that you have to choose which trees to focus on.”
For instance, Goldstein said, no one cared about the Amistad 30 years ago and now the slave ship is being restored, there was a movie about it and historians are focused on the episode’s larger meaning. He called it notable that Connecticut citizens stepped in to help the African captives on the ship who went to court to defend their freedom five years after residents of the state had driven Crandall from her home. The exhibit includes the statement of Bahoo, the native African who testified in the U.S. Circuit Court in Hartford in 1839 with his X as a signature.
Danbury High teacher Joseph Vas said the exhibit benefits from the verbal analysis of a scholar like Goldstein. He said his role as a teacher is to provide those insights to students to bring the historical material alive.
"It’s a pile of old papers until someone brings it to life,’’ Vas said. "That’s why this grant is so important. We can’t make these links until we know the history. Somebody needs to bring it to life.”
The Amistad display, which also included the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court giving the Africans their freedom, caught the attention of high school teacher Barbara Taylor.
"We think of the Supreme Court as representing the people. To see a Supreme Court decision hand-written would make history real to the students,” Taylor said.
She also was excited to see the document of the Japanese surrender in World War II and to read details of the agreement. "It brings history to life and connects events with real people.”
The grant is funding workshops all year and a summer academy. It pays for Goldstein as a scholar in residence.
"This is all leading up to a dialogue about what we are teaching, are we providing a common experience for the students, what is worth teaching. We’re revisiting historical events,” Needle said. "We will create new lesson plans and new curriculum with essential questions.”
They are significant resources for the teachers, said Danbury High teacher Christopher Peterson, who’s helping Needle coordinate the grant activities.
"The whole thing about this grant is that we have professional development all the time but you can see this making a difference. We are sharing ideas and talking about history.”