Always wanted your students to participate in History Day, but didn't have the resources?

Three premier Delaware research Institutions-- Hagley Museum, Winterthur Museum & Country Estate, and The Historical Society of Delaware--are offering free History Day packets for teachers interested in having their students create exhibits for this year's competition. Each packet contains the following materials and resources for five students to conduct research at one of these sites and create a History Day exhibit based on this year's theme--Conflict and Compromise in History:

5 cardboard exhibit boards
1 wood exhibit board
1 History Day Guide to Historical Research
1 History Day
1 Paste in Pixels DVD
miscellaneous supplies
"coupons' for copying and scanning at the Museum

Priority will be given to those teachers interested in participating in the History Day program and competition for the first time.

For more information, contact Kathy Moody at moody@udel.edu

Hagley Museum

For more information and supplies, please contact Briana Flinchbaugh (bflinchbaugh@hagley.org), 302.658.2400 (ext. 285)

Hagley Museum’s mission is to collect, preserve and interpret the unfolding story of American enterprise. Hagley's library furthers the study of business and technology in America, especially the Middle Atlantic region. The collections include individuals' papers and companies' records ranging from eighteenth-century merchants to modern telecommunications and illustrate the impact of the business system on society.

The resources of Hagley Museum include approximately 45,000 objects interpreting architecture, decorative arts, industrial machinery, hand tools, power transmission, patent models and more. The library offers books, serials, trade catalogues, pamphlets, maps, atlases and city directories covering business history and the history of technology. Its manuscripts and archived division contains the records of over 1000 firms along with the business and personal papers of the DuPont Company and family. The history of railroads, steel, oil, coal and more on the development of the country throughout the 19 th and 20 th century can be documented along with pictorial and photographic records.

Potential primary and secondary resources on the topic of Conflict and Compromise include Pierre Samuel du Pont’s personal papers reflecting on the French Revolution; the du Pont family’s decision to leave France and come to the United States, issues on riparian rights, immigration, paternalism, scientific and technical developments and innovations forcing companies to make decisions about how to survive in an increasingly competitive world. There are also resources pertaining to the du Pont family role in providing schools for African-American students during the era of segregation.

Winterthur Museum & Country Estate  

The collective resources of Winterthur Museum & Country Estate offer endless opportunities for National History Day participants. The museum collection of objects made or used in America between 1640 and 1860 is displayed in exhibition galleries and 175 period rooms and spaces. In these visually rich settings, specially-trained interpreters are skilled at helping students to consider the historical and cultural contexts of the artifacts.

The Winterthur Library is dedicated to the understanding and appreciation of America's artistic, cultural, social, and intellectual history from colonial times into the twentieth century. Its collections include excellent secondary sources, as well as rare printed materials; manuscripts such as journals, letters, and account books; photographs; and ephemeral items, including posters, games, and advertisements.

Potential topics for the theme Conflict and Compromise could include using print sources to understand depictions of the American Revolution or the political issues leading up to it, the compromise of British merchants who marketed wares featuring American heroes to attract American consumers after the Revolution, the adoption of various English cultural characteristics by German settlers in early America, and the ambivalence of historians in the early 1800s toward an increasingly industrial America.

The Historical Society of Delaware  

The Historical Society of Delaware is a private non-profit organization devoted to collecting, preserving, and interpreting the history of the state of Delaware and its people. As the home of National History Day, the staff is well-versed in the types of materials that students working on a history day project need. The library in particular, has many items in its collections that relate directly to this years theme: Conflict and Compromise in History.   Students could explore the role of the Quaker community in Wilmington in the Underground Railroad. The library holds published, manuscript and photographic source materials relating to that topic. In addition, in the Society's permanent exhibit, Distinctively Delaware at the Delaware History Museum, students will find a large silver platter given to the state's most important station master on the Underground Railroad, Thomas Garrett. The African-American community presented this inscribed platter to Garrett in appreciation for all the work and assistance Garrett provided to members of their community. Alternately, students could explore the conflict that men like Caesar Rodney and John Dickinson felt as relations between the colonies and Great Britain heated up in the mid-1700s, leading to the Revolutionary War.   In more modern times, resources in the Research Library could help students prepare an entry for History Day on the struggle for women to gain equal rights in the workplace, in the financial world, and as citizens. Helen Thomas, a local ardent women's rights advocate donated her papers to the society, chronicling the beginning of the National Organization for Women in the state.   Many local topics lend themselves to this year's theme, and the Library, with extensive manuscript, book, photograph, map and newspaper collections can provide assistance to young History Day researchers.