Lessons in community building and cultural understanding are important aspects of a 21st-century education. Through such lessons, students gain the keys to societal understanding as they gain knowledge about their cultural and historical contexts, and use that understanding as a setting for exploration of deeper values, emotional experiences, and…

This article discusses how local history can be used by teachers to help develop historical thinking skills such as source analysis, the collection of data, and the creation of historical arguments. Using New York City as a case study, this article argues that urban spaces and local communities provide historical evidence that can be read and…

Information from local records can be used in a variety of ways to strengthen and add interesting detail to undergraduate history courses on slavery in the United States. Specifically, the author describes the use of county records to teach about slavery in Texas before the Civil War. Four sources of records can be consulted: (1) United States…

The booklet describes the local history component of an interdisciplinary high school course on American Studies. The program involves students over a three-year period in collecting, recording, organizing, interpreting, and disseminating the history, culture, and tradition of Scituate, Rhode Island. The booklet is presented in six chapters.…

Elementary school pupils are introduced to a genealogical approach to state and local history. Although the examples in the booklet pertain to Wisconsin, the format can be easily adapted for classroom use by teachers in other locations. A teacher's supplement accompanies the booklet and offers a bibliography, background information, additional…