Project Description and Philosophical Statement

Historical education serves a twofold purpose. First, the knowledge of historical facts and concepts enables students to understand the contemporary world’s origins and the roots of the complex problems facing human societies. Second, the skills developed by studying history: writing, research, and interpreting documents, useful in almost any career. Traditionally, historians and students focused on the historical record that existed in print material. Many of the late 20th century’s important documents, however, exist as only as visual media: photographs, films, advertisements, and television broadcasts. Understanding these artifacts requires students to go beyond print and achieve visual literacy. By understanding how people in the past created and used visual media, and looking at the same images with their own eyes, students gain a deeper understanding of historical events. In addition, visual literacy is a vital skill for comprehending a world where the images is ubiquitous (Staley 58-87).

The challenge for teaching history is to find an affordable and convenient way for students to access visual primary sources, especially television, a medium with a notoriously short “lifespan.” One of the great Web 2.0 phenomena, YouTube, offers a solution to this challenge. Using cheap digital storage, video compression, and the higher speeds enabled by a broadband-based Internet, YouTube serves as an (almost) infinite archive for the images of our past. Because users generate all of the content, YouTube serves the needs of a wide variety of communities, including historians and history teachers. Like video thrift-store, however, there is a lot of clutter and junk. There are, however, terrific “finds,” if the viewer knows what he or she is looking for.

Unfortunately, however, many of the clips on YouTube are posted “as is,” with minimal or inaccurate background information. Without this knowledge, it is difficult for the viewer to contextualize their experience and comprehend what they are watching. This project aim is to find historically significant video clips and provide the requisite background information along with links and citations for more in-depth study. Each clip also features examples of discussion questions that students can work on as a class or as an independent assignment. The first goal is to relate the visual images with the historic record. The second is to encourage students to think critically about what they are seeing. There are also links to other sources of free on-line film for classroom use. I hope that this project will also inspire the reader-viewer’s own investigations into on-line video, and encouraging the recovery and use of the visual past.

Sources
David Staley, Computers, Visualization and History: How New Technology Will Transform Our Understanding of the Past. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2003.