Hello, Are You There?! (Again)

The first "Hello, Are You There" quiz produced two correct answers, one very timely (by five minutes) for a full five points, and the other toward the end of "regulation" for one point.

Here's a new quiz with a somewhat more lenient time scale. First the question, "What was Vancouver's first name." (There is, of course, only ONE Vancouver whom we have studied!)

Email me the answer -- don't post it here!

Answer by midnight July 30 = 5 points; midnight by July 31 = 3 points; midnight by August 1 = 1point.

Go....

Hello, Are You There?!

I am hoping that everyone in History 300 will be checking into the "Home Blog" (you are there now) very, very regularly. And so I'm providing this little opportunity to prove that you are being attentive. Email me with an answer to this question: if you have two gold nuggets and someone gives you two more gold nuggets, how many gold nuggets do you have?

If you email me with an answer Tuesday night before midnight, you will get five bonus points.

By Noon Wednesday = three points

By Midnight Wednesday = one point

One, two, three..... GO!

Keith's Exemplary Blog: First Post Office

I'd provide a caption and source note, but, ahem, the blog author did not give us one!

(August 2: By the way, Keith quickly corrected this -- check out his blog!)

Frontier Washingtonians: As we close in on the deadline for your course projects, I am going to begin to feature blogs with my comments to call your attention to exemplary work -- what do I look for in 3.0 plus efforts? These will give you some samples. I'm beginning with Keith's recent post on "The Seattle Post Office – Long lines and terrible service since 1852." Have a look at Keith's lively blog.

Also note my comment: "Keith, there is a lot to like in this post: good writing, lots of good energy and humor, good use of images, good bibliographic references. and a nice set of links. All very good. At a couple of places, however, you leave your leader with insufficient information — something to avoid. (1) Let your reader know the identity and source of every image — missing for your old post office picture; (2) when you go to another site, let the reader know where you are going — I wasn’t sure where I was when I clicked on the bibliography link. I’m going to “feature” your post and my comment on my course home blog — take that, even with the caveats, as a compliment!

Exploring Port Blakely

Pin Indicates Our Blakely Harbor Anchorage Point

On July 20, 2009, Frontier Washington West undertook two explorations: Blakely Harbor and new technology. We motored across Puget Sound at midday, carefully eluding the Ferry Boats between Seattle and Winslow Harbor (on Bainbridge Island), and having a close look at Blakely Rock. Passing the rock at the entrance to the deep harbor, we were grateful for modern charts and a depth sounder -- no running aground for us on uncharted rocks.

We dropped an anchor at the head of the harbor and ate lunch, taking in the pleasant, calming surroundings. Then after lunch we went back in time to the Blakely Harbor of about 120 years ago, when the waters were full of sailing ships, loading lumber from the local sawmill -- the biggest in the world!

Our experiment in new technologies consisted of going on line while at anchor -- using Freedom VII's own wireless network -- and beginning work on a jointly-authored Google document about the History of Blakely Harbor. Subsequently, back in Cheney, after another safe crossing of Puget Sound, Phil Carter, Candice Helsing, and Bill Youngs are expanding the Blakely document as a prototype for the final projects of History 300 students.

Click here to see the Blakely Harbor web site.

Cataldo Timeline

1842 Father Pierre-Jean De Smet, a Jesuit, came to Coeur d'Alene to establish a mission. Father Nicholar Point and Brother Charles Huet arrived later that year.

1844 Their first mission, on the St. Joe River, was about 35 miles south of the current mission. It was later abandoned due to constant flooding at the location.

1850 1850 - Father Antonio Ravalli arrives from the temporarily abandoned Blackfeet mission and begins the design and construction of the Mission of the Sacred Heart, Cataldo.

1850-53 The Mission of the Sacred heart constructed by Jesuit missionaries and Indians

-- Father Antonio Ravalli arrived in Idaho 1850 -- architect for the mission

1877 Steamboat landing built near the mission. Passage to Lake Coeur d'Alene cost one dollar.

1906 Dams built on Spokane River affect the Coeur d'Alene River, ending steamboat travel to the mission

1962 Cataldo added to the National Register of Historic Places

1965 Old Mission State Park established

Gustavus Sohon's Cataldo

What did Cataldo Mission look like 150 years ago? The builders of the Mullan Road included Gustavus Sohon, whose many skills included artist. About 1860 he did a drawing of Cataldo -- a scene that changed little over the years. Note the similarity between the photo below and the picture above.

For more images from the Sohon drawing along with other contemporary pictures, go to Sohon, Cataldo in MobileMe Gallery.

Sample Timeline Entry: "54 40 or Fight"

Date, Title, Summary, Importance, Sources

1844 James K. Polk Runs for the Presidency with Slogan "54 40 or Fight"

In 1818 Britain and the United States negotiated a Joint Occupancy agreement for Oregon -- but what territory exactly did Oregon encompass and how long would the agreement last. The northern boundary across the western United States to the Continental Divide was settled at 49 degrees in 1818, but where should it lie beyond the Rockies. In a period of western expansion

Daily Work in History 300

This is a copy of an email I sent on July 12, 2009, reviewing your immediate assignments in History 300:

This email is for all students and for staff and honorary staff of our course. For simplicity Frontier Washington Easterners will be FW-E and Frontier Washington Westerners will be FW-W. The assignments are fundamentally the same with some tweaks for East and West. No river rafting for West-Siders and no Blakely harbor cruise for East-Siders. Sorry!

But this email is not about our wonderful adventures afoot and afloat. Instead it is about our assignments, which ideally add spice to the adventures in historical sites and vice versa. In my assignments overview I've mentioned things like writing comments on each others' blogs, reading HistoryLink entries for Frontier Washington, and making frequent blog entries. But how many comments? How much HistoryLink knowledge? and How many entries? Here's the deal: each week you will need to:

1. Write and post 5 or more comments on blog entries on other course blogs (including blogs on the homepage).

2. Write 2 or more new entries for your own blog with good historical content, citations, and new media. (Part of our job is to help you write better and better historical blog entries.)

3. Be prepared for a diagiostic quiz covering (a) our blogs up to 24 hours before the quiz, and (b) HistoryLink entries for the first half of the timeline.
-- First quiz for FW-E will be next Thursday, and first quiz for FW-W will be next week.
-- By "diagnostic" I mean that this test will be a list of short answer questions with your goal to be to answer as many as possible. I will grade on a simple pass or fail basis. This will help you and me determine whether you are carefully studying the course blogs and learning the basic framework of frontier Washington history.

4. Work with other class members on the class timeline for frontier Washington -- each entry, remember, should include (a) title, (b) brief description, (c) a why statement -- why is this important?, and (d) citations of two or more articles you have studied on this subject. We will continue to work on this in class.

5. Move forward on your final project: your blogs provide a good avenue for developing the final projects.

Some New Web "Finds"

Frontier Washington West is meeting in Seattle today. One of our activities is to add a few recommended web sites on this post -- also practicing linking with Blogger.

1. From April: two maps of the Indian tribes of Washington

2. Google and Life Magazine have just posted a collection of images from Life Magazine -- with a good chronological index.

Why is Cataldo Part of Frontier Washington?

If you visit Cataldo today, you will be just about half way across the Idaho panhandle, but in this 1853 map you can see that Washington Territory extended up to the Rocky Mountains in Montana. And so for a time, anyway, Cataldo was in "Frontier Washington."

The map below provides a more detailed picture from the map above showing the approximate location of Cataldo -- in the area called Horse Plain.

Field Trip Preparation: Mullan and Cataldo

On Friday, July 10, Frontier Washington-East will visit the Mission and Road-Building past of Washington. Both sites are in Idaho today, but were part of Washington Territory in the mid-1800s. Here are some sites that offer historical background:

On the Mullan Road:

-- Overview of the building of the road: 1858-62

-- John Mullan's Report -- published in 1863

-- Early Descriptions of Travel on the Road

On Cataldo:

-- Idaho Parks and Recreation Website

Assignment Overview for Frontier Washington

Frontier Washington: Assignment Overview

Reading, Reviewing, and Analyzing

1. Study existing timelines, especially HistoryLink.org to develop a solid “overview” of Frontier Washington history. Work with partners to develop a “definitive” list of roughly 50 key events in Frontier Washington history.

-- Using the HistoryLink.org timeline, work systematically through roughly 25 percent of the entries each week.

-- Select from among the HistoryLink.org timeline entries and also review other timelines for entries. (See Delicious.com site's list of timelines for ideas.)

-- “Weave” additional information (facts, ideas, maps, images, bibliography) around at least one entry per week for oral presentations to the class.

2. Participate in course blog and Delicious sites on Frontier History.

-- Read the course blog regularly for new posts by the instructors and links to posts on student blogs.

-- Write at lease two comments per week on the course blog and/or student blogs.

-- Read regularly the Frontier Washington Delicious bibliography of web sites.

-- Email Bill Youngs with nominations for the Delicious site -- include URL and your summary.

3. Develop your own blog for Frontier Washington

-- This is the place to test ideas and research skills.

-- Include examples of and thoughts about historical content and resources.

-- Add at least two new posts per week.

-- Use the blog as a way of developing (working your way into) your final project

-- Put at least one comment per week on the blogs of each of the other members of the class.

4. Complete a project on Frontier Washington

-- The project should include two basic elements: a timeline and text.

-- You can balance these any way you like as long as you include both elements.

-- Your project should include at least 2500 of your own words.

-- Essential elements: timeline, words, images, maps, documents, bibliography

-- The bibliography should involve high-level research -- what is the latest and greatest research on this facet of your project?

Hey, Westsiders, We've Got Fort Spokane!

Timeline Flash: Hey, Westsiders, We've got Fort Spokane! (And you don't.) It was settled in 1810 -- before any Euro-American settlements on the West Side. How about those apples!*

*We've also got great apples!

Good Timeline Nominations

As I write, we are in the classroom at Riverpoint in Spokane, focusing on two features of the class: blog and timeline posts. This post will summarize our deliberations on what makes a good timeline post.

1. Find the historical events to include in our group timeline:

-- Begin with the timeline on HistoryLink.org.

-- Select from HistoryLink the episodes that seem most important.

-- Also identify some events not included in the HistoryLink timeline.

-- Write a "nomination" for each of those episodes. (See nomination info below.)

-- Post the nomination in our group timeline.

2. Criterial for a good timeline event nomination:

-- Title for the Event

-- Brief Description

-- Rationale (why it matters)

-- Two or More Related Documents: One should be from HistoryLink if it is mentioned there. The other should also be "authoritative" -- a journal, for example, or a scholarly article.

River Rafting -- Spokane River

Click here to see River Rafting Video -- More information to Follow.

Viewing Each Other's NEW Blog Entries

In History 300, Frontier Washington, we need to attend not only to our own projects, but also follow project development by our course colleagues.

You can link to any of the course blogs by clicking on a name in the "Our Blogs" column to the right. Additionally, we should ideally each have on our own computers an "aggregator," a program that tracks new entries for each of our blogs.

Here is some information on how aggregators work and how to set them up:

1. A YouTube video on Google Reader:

For more on Google Reader go tothe "History Research Team" site -- view entry for July 1, 2009.