Teacher’s Guide to Steamboat and Telegraph

 

Welcome to the teacher’s guide to the TN History for Kids booklet Steamboat and Telegraph.

This booklet was written to meet the 2027 Tennessee social studies standards. The 3rd grade 2019 Tennessee social studies standard covered a combination of world geography, colonial history and Tennessee history, while the 3rd grade 2027 standards cover U.S. history from the explorers to about 1850.

Please do NOT copy the booklet. That is a violation of our copyright and makes it difficult for our organization to exist. The reason we sell them for only $3 is so teachers will not copy the booklets.

One of the reasons we hope that this teacher’s guide is useful is that if you click on the images here, you can them show larger versions to you students.

 

Chapter One: President Washington

 

Here, on the right, is the painting on page 2. Click on it if you would like to show it to your students.

Also, it is mentioned on page 3 that Tennessee became a state when George Washington was president. On the left is the article that was published in the Philadelphia newspaper when Tennessee became a state.

(By the way, the the lower case letter “f” was used to signify a lower-case letter “s” in those days.)

I don’t know about you, but I would have hoped for more when Tennessee became a state!

 

Chapter 2: Exploring the Purchase

 

There are a lot of images in this chapter that we’d like teachers to be able to show their students.

The first (on the right) is the incredible photograph of the Missouri River.

The second image is the map on page 8, which is shown on the right column, with all the other maps.

 

 

The third is this photo on page 9.

 

 

 

 

Then there is the painting on page 11.

 

 

 

Chapter 3: War of 1812

 

On page 16 is this photo of Dolley Madison, who was born in 1768 and who died in 1849.

It’s amazing that we have a photo of an American First Lady who would have been about 8 years old when the Declaration of Independence was signed. Turns out, there’s an interesting story behind the image.

The photograph was taken by a man named John Plumbe Jr. (who, by the way, was a civil engineer and an early proponent of the Transcontinental Railroad.)

According to the New York Times, Plumbe sold his photography business in 1847 “amid financial ruin and left behind few studio records.” The photograph was discovered more than 150 years later, when someone found it in a dead relatives basement! It was sold by the auction house Sotheby’s to the National Portrait Gallery in 2024 for $456,000!

So your students better appreciate this photo, because it cost the U.S. government 182,400 times as much as the booklet did!

 

Sidebar: Dawn’s Early Light

 

The only time that the National Anthem is mentioned in the social studies standards is in the first grade, where students are supposed to be taught “appropriate” behavior when it is being played.

Since third graders learn about the War of 1812, I thought it made sense to them to learn the story behind the song and they lyrics to the first verse in third grade.

On the left and the right are larger versions of photos I took on a visit to Baltimore’s Fort McHenry. If you ever have a chance to go there, I recommend it highly. The best part is when they lower a huge American flag, and everyone there (visitors from all over the country who are strangers to each other) work together to keep it from touching the ground and to fold it properly.

 

Chapter 4: Water Power

 

The material covered in this chapter isn’t emphasized as much as I’d like it to be in textbooks.

One of the reasons I’ve become so interested in this topic is the 1832 Matthew Rhea map of Tennessee.

Click on the part of this map that shows Hardeman County, in West Tennessee (on the right).

Ask your students to county all the water mills on the small rivers and creeks in Hardeman County (I count 10!)

Then ask them what these mills were probably used for. If they don’t know, show them the photo on the left.

 

Chapter 5: Slater the Traitor

 

Besides Slater’s Mill in Rhode Island, the other famous water powered mill in New England was in Lowell, Massachusetts.

Organized in 1826, by 1840 more than 8,000 women were living and working in the water-powered mills of Lowell. They were called Lowell Mill girls, and the best place to learn about them is at the Lowell National Historic Park.

 

 

Chapter 6: Steamboats and Canals

 

The painting on page 33 (shown on the right) might be more of interest to your students if you tell them that this is what flatboats looked like in Tennessee as they headed down navigational barriers such as “The Suck” on the Tennessee River and Harpeth Shoals on the Cumberland River. This painting may explain why it was possible to head downstream through these barriers, but pretty much impossible to head upstream through them.

Students who have been canoeing along rivers such as the Hiwassee or the Duck will better understand this concept — since rives such as these have long, flat stretches of calm water followed by rapidly moving shoals falling downhill.

Also in this chapter: I think students will be surprised to learn how narrow the Erie Canal actually is (considering how important it is to American history). The Erie Canal was originally 40 feet wide, which means it was about as wide as a classroom! Now it has been widened.

One page 34, I wrote that the first steamboat that reached Nashville was in 1818 and it was called the Constitution. If you are a student of Tennessee history, you may know that all the history books and historic markers maintain that the first steamboat arrived in Nashville in 1819 and was called the General Jackson. What gives?

 

It turns out that the historic markers and history books written prior to this time are wrong. This is an interesting example of the danger of citing previous sources without digging through old newspapers.

As you can see here, on the right, an advertisement for a Nashville dry goods store that appeared in the June 23, 1818, [Nashville] Clarion and Tennessee State Gazette newspaper pointed out that the store had just received a shipment of goods from the steamboat Constitution.

What will your class find that is wrong in the textbook?

 

 

SIDEBAR: The Man Who Blew Things Up

 

If you click on the image on the right, you can read a more detailed account of when Fulton blew up a ship in New York Harbor.

On the left, you can see the crude sketch of what the torpedo explosion look like.

I have a feeling third graders — especially boys — will like this sidebar!

 

 

Chapter 7: Age of Jackson

 

 

I would think it fairly difficult to explain 185 year old political cartoons to a third grader, but I’ve uploaded the one on page 45 on the right and another one about Andrew Jackson and the national bank on the left.

It is interesting that even when he was president, political cartoons still referred to the man as “General Jackson.”

Chapter 8: Indian Removal

 

Click here for a virtual tour of the Museum of the Cherokee Indian in Cherokee N.C.

Click here for a virtual tour of New Echota, GA.

And click here for a virtual tour of Red Clay State Historic Park in Bradley County.

On page 51, I quote a Cherokee woman named Rebecca Neugin — one of the few survivors of the Trail of Tears who anyone actually interviewed “on the record” (hard to believe, but true).

It turns out that there’s very good reason Rebecca Neugin was quoted: She lived to be more than a hundred years old!

On the right is the first part of a story in the Muskogee [Oklahoma] Times about Rebecca Neugin that was published on March 20, 1931. On the left is a continuation of that same story.

Click on each to read them.

 

 

 

Sidebar: Newspapers and the Trail of Tears

 

I know third graders can’t just pick up a copy of a newspaper from 1838 and read it. That’s why I have composed abridged versions of these articles and put them in the booklets.

On the right and the left are two of the original articles I abridged in Steamboat and Telegraph..

 

 

 

Chapter 9: Iron Horse

 

All the photos in this chapter were taken at the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.

Since most public students cannot go see this wonderful museum, click here to take our virtual tour.

Meanwhile, I need to point out that railroads played a central role in several other topics that are important to American history:

Immigration — A lot of Irish and Chinese workers were brought to this country to work on railroads

Civil War — A case can be made that the Civil War was won by railroads

Westward Expansion — the rapid expansion of the U.S. in the West would not have been possible without railroads

Universal Time — Before railroads came along and standardized time, EACH TOWN HAD ITS OWN TIME ZONE! (Click here to read more about this topic.)

Racial segregation — the landmark Plessy v Ferguson decision, which locked in segregation, was a railroad case.

A lot to think about!

 

Sidebar: Mountain Men

 

I’m proud of the comparison between the photo of Joe Walker on page 62 and the photo of Kelly McFall (who I have never met, by the way, but who agreed to let us use her photo) on page 63.

I also love the painting of Jedediah Smith on page 64, shown here.

(And I apologize for asking third grade teachers to explain the meaning of the words “he once had to sew his scalp back on after a grizzly bear had torn it off.”)

 

 

Chapter 10: Westward Ho

 

I’ve upload the map on pages 66-67. It can be seen on the right column.

The 2 quotes on the bottom of page 66 come from the website www.oregontrail101.com/sites.html.

Also, I’d like to say something about teachers using the Oregon Trail Video Game as a teaching tool.

 

Many students play the video game but they don’t actually SEE the amazing sites on the Oregon Trail.

A few years ago, I went to the internet and showed some 8th grade students — who had finished “studying” the Oregon Trail by playing the video game — what Scotts Bluff and Chimney Rock looked like. They were amazed, because they had not seen photos of these places!

So please show students photos of some of the incredible landmarks along the Oregon Trail.

 

 

Sidebar: Brittania Arrives and Other News

 

I dug up the information in this sidebar when I researched a book called True Tales of Tennessee: Earthquake to Railroad.

Here, on the right and the left, are the amusing articles that document the first telegraph message in Nashville.

On the right, the Tennessee Baptist newspaper of Feb. 24, 1848, says that the telegraph line is installed and that a crowd of “men and boys” is following the men installing the line, starting at the mechanical apparatus.

The installers must have had more trouble than it seemed, because it wasn’t until 12 DAYS later (March 7) that the telegraph worked, as you can see on the left.

 

Chapter 11: Gone to Texas

 

Click here for a TN History for Kids virtual tour of the Alamo and click here for a TN History for Kids video about the Alamo.

For a much larger version of the remarkable map on page 78, see the right column.

And click on the image on the right to see the painting on page 79.

 

 

Chapter 12: War Against Mexico

 

Click on the image on the right to see the image on pages 82-83.

The map on page 85 can be seen on the right column.

 

 

 

Chapter 13: Gold Rush

 

There’s a state park in northern California called Marshall Gold Discovery State Park, which is on the site where James Marshall discovered gold on January 24, 1848 — starting the California Gold Rush.

Twice, TN History for Kids has had inservices that were broadcast from that state park and hosted by park rangers Holly Thane and Ed Allen.

As a result of these events, we have put together a virtual tour about the California Gold Rush.

Click here to take it.

The map on page 90 can be seen on the right column.