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Travel Trunks from the
Northeast Georgia History
Center
Travel trunks enrich and support classroom learning, home-school instruction and media center
presentations. At every age level, these materials encourage the development of critical thinking
skills and reinforce content knowledge. Each trunk contains artifacts, documents and
reproduction clothing chosen for their versatility in the teaching environment. Each is a catalyst
for comprehension.
Trunk resources can be used as learning centers, as the core of a student-created museum
display, for hands on discovery and as supplemental teacher tools in the regular ed, special ed
and ESOL classroom. Trunk materials provide prompts for teaching multiple perspectives,
enhance comprehension of instructional texts, structure inquiry learning and costume
characters in classroom simulations.
You will also find recommended trade books and associated lesson plans that address core goals
for teaching across the curriculum and integrating literacy skills. We believe the travel trunk
materials will support your instruction as you build social studies vocabulary, encourage critical
thinking and analysis, and support students gaining the depth of knowledge and rigor that
inform the Common Core GPS standards.
We hope you enjoy your experience with our Travel Trunk. Please return the evaluation form
and let us know your ideas for using and improving these resources.
Best wishes!
Glen Kyle
Executive Director,
NEGa History Center
Northeast Georgia History Center page 2 World War Two Travel Trunk
Standards addressed in this Travel Trunk
SS5H6 The student will explain the reasons for America’s involvement in World
War II.
a. Describe Germany‟s aggression in Europe and Japan‟s aggression in Asia.
b. Describe major events in the war in both Europe and the Pacific; include Pearl Harbor, Iwo
Jima, D-Day, VE and VJ Days, and the Holocaust.
c. Discuss President Truman‟s decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
d. Identify Roosevelt, Stalin, Churchill, Hirohito, Truman, Mussolini, and Hitler.
e. Describe the effects of rationing and the changing role of women and African- Americans;
include “Rosie the Riveter” and the Tuskegee Airmen.
SS8H9The student will describe the impact of World War II on Georgia’s
development economically, socially, and politically.
Common Core Standards for Reading and Writing Informational Texts in History/
Social Studies
ELACC5RI2: Determine two or more main ideas of a text and explain how they are supported
by key details; summarize the text
ELACC5RI3: Explain the relationships or interactions between two or more individuals, events,
ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text based on specific information in the
text
ELACC5RI5: Compare and contrast the overall structure (e.g., chronology, comparison,
cause/effect, problem/solution) of events, ideas, concepts, or information in two or more texts.
Integration of Knowledge
ELACC5RI7: Draw on information from multiple print or digital sources, demonstrating the
ability to locate an answer to a question quickly or to solve a problem efficiently.
ELACC5R9: Integrate information from several texts on the same topic in order to write or
speak about the subject knowledgeably.
Middle School ELACC 6-8RH2Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or
secondary source; provide an accurate summary of the source distinct from prior knowledge or
opinions.
Middle School ELACC 6-8RH4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are
used in a text, including vocabulary words specific to domains related to history/social studies.
Middle School ELACC6-8RH7 Integrate visual information (e.g., in charts, graphs,
photographs, videos or maps) with other information in print and digital texts.
Northeast Georgia History Center page 3 World War Two Travel Trunk
What’s in the travel trunk?
Teacher Guide
It‟s what you‟re reading now! Please feel free to reproduce pages as you need, including the NE
Georgia History Center credit line and logo. Take a moment to read Database: World War 2for
an overview of the content supported by the trunk materials. Links at the end of the essay point
the way to more resources.
Books
Included in the trunk you will find a selection of trade books and suggestions for incorporating
strategies that build comprehension in the content area. These books can supplement your own
resources and serve as the core of a learning center.
Maps, documents and newspaper reproductions
Large printed resources (posters, for example) are laminated and rolled into protective tubes.
Newspaper reproductions are in folders. Please replace them when you pack.
Artifacts: All Real! Some Reproduction!
The selection of three-dimensional materials in the travel trunk represents key concepts for this
unit. Unless we tell you otherwise, these are reproductions -- carefully made copies of historic
objects found in museums and archives. The difference between an artifact that is preserved in
a museum and the item in the trunk is that you can handle the reproductions. There is no glass
case between students and the information you want them to acquire. We‟ve included objects
that kids during the 1930s and 1940s would have used at home and in school. There are also
examples of objects that soldiers would have used. Some were made recently (reproduction D-
Day clicker and dog tags) and some are authentic (metal helmet, LIFE magazines).
Clothing
One of the best ways to encourage your students to „step through the door‟ into an appreciation
of the lived past is to let them wear the clothing of the era. We‟ve included vintage military
clothing and a “Rosie the Riveter” style pair of women‟s overalls.
Music and DVDs
World War II was reported on the radio and in movie houses across the United States.
Americans listened to the President announce the country‟s entrance into the war after Pearl
Harbor and watched newsreels that brought the war into focus. In their free time, Americans
danced to big band music and listened to songs that often referenced the war. We‟ve included a
selection from the wealth of primary sources available.
Northeast Georgia History Center page 4 World War Two Travel Trunk
1. Database: World War II in Georgia
One page introductory texts cover key concepts, leaders, and events of the war. These
pages can illustrate a timeline of the war, build background knowledge, support
vocabulary comprehension and serve as a framework for student research.
Georgia in World War II
1940: Georgia‟s Airfields, Naval Stations, and Army Bases
Pearl Harbor, 1941
Battles, Bonds and Bombers, 1942
Rosie the Riveter
The Double V
Reporting the War, 1943
D-Day, 1944
1945: Marching to Berlin/Flying to Japan
2. Inventory of Trunk Resources: A checklist for quick reference when unpacking and
repacking the trunk.
3. Illustrated Inventory: An item by item description of each object in the trunk with
suggestions for use in your classroom and media center presentations.
Books and documents: Content area literacy is a core skill developed by this
travel trunk. Here you will find a list of the books chosen for the trunk and
suggestions for building student comprehension with reading strategies.
Artifacts: Each object in the trunk is described with suggested questioning
strategies for engaging student thinking.
4. Teaching with Artifacts Lesson Plan and Worksheets: An introductory activity to
give your students guided practice working with hands on materials. This lesson plan
scaffolds student understanding with explanations, demonstrations and explicit teaching
of content comprehension using tactile, visual, textual and auditory sources.
5. Lesson Plans
Timeline Activity: Chronological Thinking in Social Studies
Reading Photographs for Writing Responses
National Archives Lesson Plan: Documents from World War Two
Vocabulary Building (Semantic Mapping activity)
Discovery Learning Center: Rationing in WW2
Reporting from the Battlefront: Researching and Writing a Radio Script
Victory and Homecoming: Listening to Veterans’ Voices
6. Culminating activity: Step-by-step instructions for setting up your own museum
display using materials in the travel trunk student generated
Travel Trunks from the Northeast Georgia History Center:
World War II
Northeast Georgia History Center page 5 World War Two Travel Trunk
Georgia, 1939
If you had picked up a newspaper on September 4, 1939 anywhere in Georgia you would have
learned that the weather was predictably hot and sunny on the weekend before Labor Day.
Local stores offered back to school specials and movie theatres advertised their feature films and
air conditioning. Banner headlines on the front page gave the latest news of escalating tensions
across the Atlantic in Europe. Adolf Hitler had sent German troops into neighboring Poland,
triggering an avalanche of denunciations from England and France. If you turned the page,
there was news from China where Japanese forces were battling the Nationalist Army.
Georgians may not have known it at the time but September 4th was the first day of World War
Two, a global conflict that had been building since the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. On this date,
the first “Great War” became World War One and a new World War was underway. This war
would last longer, demand more resources and devastate the globe more thoroughly than the
first war of the century. At the end, in 1945, the United States and its allies, as well as the
defeated nations of Germany and Japan, would be transformed.
In 1939 the state of Georgia was emerging from an agricultural and industrial depression that
had begun with the boll weevil infestation of the early 1900s. The state had suffered economic
collapse, labor unrest and the loss of thousands of black citizens who left on the Great Migration
to northern and western states. Within months of the outbreak of war in Europe, however,
ripples from the conflict were bringing changes in Georgia. Military bases added thousands of
jobs in Atlanta, Macon and Columbus. Industries supplying war material to the Allies as part of
the “Lend-Lease” program began to run extra shifts around the state. British pilots from the
Royal Air Force training in the US strolled the streets of small Georgia towns located near new
airfields. The war was still far away but getting closer.
In December 1941, it arrived on American territory. Alarmed that their plans for Asian
expansion were threatened by the loss of American gasoline exports, Japan‟s Imperial Navy and
Air Force attacked Pearl Harbor on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Their target was the western
fleet of the United States Navy on guard in the Pacific Ocean. The result was America‟s entry
into the war. Franklin Roosevelt assured the nation that they would claim the ultimate victory.
The nation went to work to prove him right.
Over the next four years Georgians fought the Axis powers in word and deed. They supplied
troops with food and raised cotton for uniforms and gear. Women welded together the Liberty
ships that ran convoys across the Atlantic Ocean. Rural Georgians flocked to Marietta to take
jobs in the Bell Bomber plant. Just over the Alabama border in Tuskeegee, the first black pilots
in the Army Air Corps trained for combat roles. If they came to Atlanta on leave, they would
frequent the segregated USO for black soldiers. Kids collected metal scrap and paper. Everyone
dealt with rationing, shortages and the news that filled the papers, day after day. In 1939,
Georgians didn‟t know what would happen next.
Database: World War Two in Georgia
Northeast Georgia History Center page 6 World War Two Travel Trunk
1940: Georgia’s Airfields, Naval Stations, and Army Bases
In early 1940, the mayor of Macon stood with a group of Army Air Corps officers in a field near
the tiny whistle stop railroad station of Wellston, Georgia. The landscape of Houston County,
just south of Macon, was miles of flat ground interrupted by nothing more than the occasional
dairy cow. Within a year those fields had been transformed into Warner Robins Air Force base,
a massive training and repair operation that employed over 13,000 people from the nearby area
as well as housing thousands of servicemen.
This story was repeated across Georgia as bases were built and expanded to meet the
requirements of the American military, now mobilized for war. By the end of the war, every
large city in Georgia had some form of military presence. Powerful politicians from Georgia,
such as Congressman Carl Vinson, lobbied for the placement of bases in the South where
commanders could have access to cheap land, rail connections and ample labor forces. South of
Atlanta, the Army built a Quartermasters Depot (later renamed Fort Gillem) in Forest Park and
shipped tons of war materiel in and out on the nearby rail lines. North of the state capitol, in
Marietta, the Navy purchased thousands of acres to house its personnel and aircraft at Dobbins
Air Station near what would become the Bell Bomber B-29 construction plant. The University of
Georgia, in Athens, lost students but gained hundreds of Navy combat pilots training there.
Outside Columbus, World War One era Fort Benning expanded and became the headquarters of
the First Infantry Division of the US Army. The newly established Airborne Division of the Army
filled the base with trainees and an Officers Candidate school brought thousands more to the
base. Fort Benning soon became the largest infantry training center in the world. Across the
state, west of Savannah, the army purchased over half the land in Liberty County to build Fort
Stewart as an anti-aircraft artillery training facility. The nearby settlement of Hinesville became
a boomtown almost overnight, offering housing for base workers and recreation for the
servicemen on leave. In Savannah, the municipal airport was incorporated into Hunter Air Field
for the use of Air Corps pilots attached to Fort Stewart.
In the wiregrass region, prominent citizens of Valdosta lobbied US Senators Walter F George
and Richard Russell to secure a defense project for their area. They pointed out that south
Georgia had temperate weather year round that would allow pilots to uninterrupted training.
Congress authorized construction to begin on Moody Field in 1941. In Bainbridge, Moultrie,
Albany, Douglas and Cochran trainee pilots practiced the skills that would support the
overwhelming use of airpower in the war.
From the mountains of north Georgia where paratroopers ran up Currahee Mountain, to
Atlanta, where Fort McPherson processed thousands of recruits, the presence of the military
grew in Georgia during World War Two. At Camp Gordon in Augusta and Camp Lawton in
Chamblee, Georgians now had access to jobs, both on military bases and in factories supplying
those bases. Roads were paved, housing constructed and electrical lines were laid to parts of the
state that had gone without them during the Depression years, thanks to the enormous
expansion of the military presence during World War Two.
Northeast Georgia History Center page 7 World War Two Travel Trunk
USS West Virginia burning in Pearl Harbor
Library of Congress Digital ID fsa.8e00810
Pearl Harbor, 1941
Early on December 7, 1941 a Marine named Mack Abbott was eating breakfast on the Hawaiian
island of Oahu. He wasn‟t expecting to see Japanese pilots fly over Hickham field where he was
stationed at Pearl Harbor. Machine guns from the planes raked the mess hall with bullets.
Abbott grabbed a rifle and ran outdoors, shooting at the Japanese attackers from the ground.
He was later credited with being the first United States Marine to fire a shot in World War Two.
Japanese bombers struck eight American battleships that were resting at anchor in Pearl
Harbor, sinking four of them. The USS Arizona exploded and went to the bottom of the harbor
taking over a thousand sailors with her. The USS West Virginia, engulfed in flaming fuel from
the USS Arizona was hit by torpedoes and bombed. Shrapnel shredded the ship‟s bridge,
mortally wounding the captain. Dorrie Miller, a sailor
who worked in the ship‟s kitchen, manned an anti-
aircraft gun and fired on the attackers. Nearby the USS
California, hit by torpedoes, took on water and
capsized. A single bomb dropped on the USS Shaw
ignited the ship‟s ammunition magazine, setting off a
massive explosion.
Over two thousand soldiers, sailors, marines and
civilians were killed in the attack. The Japanese navy
hoped the destruction of the fleet would keep American
forces from interfering with imperial plans to extend
hostilities into southeast Asia. In addition, the
Japanese military believed that a successful attack on
Pearl Harbor would demoralize the United States and
prevent a rapid expansion of American strength in the Pacific.
Japan was proved wrong. The attack on Pearl Harbor galvanized American support for the
Allies. The day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt declared war on Japan and
vowed to fight through to “absolute victory”. Japan‟s Axis allies reciprocated and declared war
on the United States. The attack on the Pacific Fleet berthed in Hawaii did not prevent the
expansion of American military force in the Pacific. To the contrary, the attack on Pearl Harbor
ended the pretense of neutrality and allowed the United States to support Britain and France in
Europe. Roosevelt was now leading an Allied nation with the manufacturing capacity to support
the war effort while remaining protected from attack by two oceans.
“Remember Pearl Harbor” became a rallying call for the American military and homefront.
Across the country, teenage boys looked at maps to find an island that was suddenly in the
headlines; some decided to join up immediately. The US Navy began repairing ships that had
been damaged at Pearl Harbor; several joined subsequent naval battles in the Pacific. The USS
Nevada, the one battleship to get underway during the attack, was salvaged and refitted in time
to see service at D-Day, Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
Mack Abbott fought across the Pacific to the final shots on Tinian in 1945. He later retired to
Gainesville, GA and became a charter member of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association.
Northeast Georgia History Center page 8 World War Two Travel Trunk
Battles, Bonds and Bombers, 1942
As the new year began, Georgians coped with shortages of tires and sugar at home as rationing
went into effect. By May civilian access to gasoline was limited with a coupon system that gave
priority to first responders and factory workers. In December, coffee was rationed. Oil, gas, and
food had to be shared now with a growing number of service men
and women. American forces were deploying around the globe.
Soldiers and medical staff were shipping out to North Africa, to
Britain, to the Pacific. They required huge amounts of fuel for both
humans and machines. They looked to the homefront for the
supplies that would win the war for the Allies.
The demands on American production came quickly. In May 1942
American aircraft carriers launched hundreds of planes against
Japanese forces in the Battle of the Coral Sea. In June an American
fleet defeated the Japanese in the Battle of Midway. By the late
autumn Allied soldiers and sailors developed the „island hopping‟
strategy of capturing stepping stones to Japan. In November,
American Marines captured the island of Guadacanal.
Across the Atlantic, convoys of war material escorted by Merchant Marine craft shipped across
the cold approaches to the Arctic Sea, hounded by German U-boats. In Britain the US Army Air
Force arrived with B-17 “Flying Fortress” bombers to support Royal Air Force raids on Germany.
Farther east, in North Africa, German and Italian troops waged a tank war with Allied forces
through Libya, Tunisia and Egypt. At every camp, from the deserts to the jungles, American
forces relied on a steady stream of uniforms, medical supplies, ammunition, weapons and food.
Factories at home in the United States began to operate around the clock.
Just as importantly, the war effort depended on infusions of cash raised from the American
public in bond drives. The United States would spend over $300 billion on the war, far more
than could be raised by conventional taxes. The US treasury offered „war bonds‟ instead.
Americans were offered a bond for the price of $18.75 with the promise that after the war it
could be redeemed for $25. When the cruiser USS Atlanta sank off Guadalcanal in 1942,
Atlanta school children bought „war stamps‟ for 25 cents that would go toward rebuilding a
replacement. Georgia‟s best known author, Margaret Mitchell, became a spokeswoman for the
USS Atlanta bond drive. She was credited with raising $65 million and christened the new ship.
As the year ended, Americans read newspapers, listened to the radio and watched newsreels at
the movie theaters across the state to get news about the war. They heard that the German
army, which had attacked its former ally Russia, was now encircled in a desperate fight around
Stalingrad. The previously undefeated Nazi forces were being ground down by the Soviets and
their winter weather. Optimistic news watchers wondered if this would mean a Nazi defeat.
Closer to home, Japanese-American families faced winter in the high mountains of the Rockies
where they had been interned. In urban Chicago, scientists with the Manhattan Project worked
in a secret laboratory hidden under the University‟s football stadium, setting off the first nuclear
chain reaction on December 2.
Northeast Georgia History Center page 9 World War Two Travel Trunk
Helen Longstreet, December 1944
1 Helen Longstreet, December 1944 LIFE magazine
Rosie the Riveter
As American factories added workers to meet wartime needs, the mathematics of warfare meant
that fewer men were available to work. With millions of American men in uniform, women
began to take jobs that had been traditionally male-dominated. Before long, people were
singing along to Kay Kyser‟s big band hit tune, “Rosie the Riveter.” The lyrics celebrated the
patriotic female workers who put together planes, Jeeps, trucks
and weapons needed for the Allied forces:
All the day long,
Whether rain or shine
She’s part of the assembly line.
She’s making history,
Working for victory
Rosie the Riveter.
The most popular image of Rosie was the creation of Norman
Rockwell, one of the best known illustrators of the 20th century.
Rosie quickly became a symbol of all women who took blue collar jobs to keep production
growing during the war. “Real Rosies” were also the face of a profound change in the American
economy. Women who had not worked outside their homes lined up for factory jobs. They were
often paid more than their counterparts in traditional „womens
work‟ jobs in domestic, educational and clerical areas.
Georgia had thousands of real Rosies. On the coast, in Savannah
and Brunswick, women riveted and welded together hundreds of
Liberty Ships. At the Bell Bomber Plant in Marietta, 30,000
workers produced B-29 “Flying Fortress” planes; of those workers,
37% were women. Among them was the widow of Confederate
general James Longstreet. At eighty years old, Helen Longstreet
insisted on doing her part to defeat Hitler, according to an article
about her in LIFE Magazine.
Women also took on increased responsibilities as each branch of
the services established auxiliary units. For the first time in
American history, large numbers of women enlisted. They could choose between the Women‟s
Army Corps (WACs), the Navy‟s WAVES and the Coast Guard SPARS. Women Marines were
called Reservists. WASP pilots – Women‟s Auxiliary Service Pilots – were considered a civilian
support group under the command of the Army Air Corps.
One traditional role for women became a career in the war years. During World War Two the
need for skilled nurses was greater than ever. In 1941 the Georgia Nurses‟ Association reported
an urgent need for 50,000 student nurses nationwide. Young women with at least a high school
diploma were in demand to fill the training schools in Georgia. Nurses training was segregated,
as was every other aspect of education in Georgia, with fourteen training schools for white and
two for African-American students.
Northeast Georgia History Center page 10 World War Two Travel Trunk
The Double V
On the battlefronts and on the homefront, African Americans knew they were fighting against
two enemies during World War Two. The first was the threat of fascism. The second was
pervasive discrimination in the segregated armed forces and in the factories where white
workers were the majority. A 1942 letter to the Pittsburgh Courier (a leading African-American
newspaper) proposed that black citizens organize against the
forces they were fighting at home and abroad. Echoing the
popular motto “V for Victory”, the Courier called for a
“Double V Campaign” to achieve two victories. The first
would defeat the Axis powers in World War II and the
second would end racial discrimination in the United States.
The effect of segregation on the war effort had been in the
news since before Pearl Harbor. President Roosevelt found
himself faced with the possibility of a march on Washington
two decades before the famous event modern historians
credit with galvanizing the civil rights movement. A. Philip
Randolph, founder of the black Pullman Porters Union,
visited the White House in 1940 to discuss segregation in the armed forces and at home, both
obstacles to the full participation of African-Americans in the war effort. In the military, black
soldiers were restricted to menial jobs in kitchens and motor pools. More people were employed
in factories supported by federal war department money but blacks workers were barred from
most skilled jobs. Roosevelt‟s delicate dance with Southern Democrats whose support he
needed meant that he temporized on committing fully to the one issue that would drive
Southern votes away – an end to segregation in the workplace and in the military.
In the early 1941 Randolph gave notice of a planned march on Washington by Americans who
demanded an end to racial discrimination in the war effort. Roosevelt tried to stop the march,
appealing to the organizers‟ patriotism and called for national unity. Randolph did not back
down. He upped the stakes and promised 100,000 marchers would attend. One week before the
march was to begin, on June 25, 1941, Roosevelt signed an executive order banning all racial
discrimination in war industry employment. Avoiding Congress by invoking direct Presidential
action, Roosevelt had intervened directly on behalf of fair employment practices. The Act had
far reaching results. Millions of black Americans left the rural South and moved to find jobs in
the coastal and northern cities with large industries.
Military segregation continued until after the war when Harry Truman again used presidential
power to order an end to racial discrimination in uniform. One branch of the service during the
war formed an all-black unit that defied stereotypes: the Tuskeegee Airmen. On a training field
in rural Alabama, black pilots learned to fly military craft and take the occasional passenger for a
ride. (Eleanor Roosevelt was the most famous person to fly with the Airmen.) Tuskeegee
Airmen were the first black military pilots in the United States. The highly trained fighter and
pursuit groups of the unit served in North Africa and Italy as escorts on bomber runs. Easily
recognizable by the distinctive tail fins of their planes, the “Red Tail Angels” protected hundreds
of bombers from Axis attacks and became one of the best known units in the Army Air Corps.
Northeast Georgia History Center page 11 World War Two Travel Trunk
Reading the news on V-J Day, 1945. Library of Congress photograph
Margaret Bourke-White, LIFE magazine reporter, 1943
Reporting the War
World War Two was fought in newspapers, on radio, and on filmed newsreels in movie theatres.
Televisions were available in the 1940s for the small number of wealthy trendsetters who could
afford them in urban centers such as New York City where programs were transmitted two
nights a week. During the war however the military claimed all the television transmitters that
were manufactured in the US; engineers who were developing television technology were
drafted to build radar installations. For most of America during World War Two breaking news
arrived on the front stoop in the morning or from a radio announcer reading the headlines.
News reporters were celebrities in a society that depended
on the written word to inform and analyze the war‟s
events. Among them were some of the best American
writers of the mid-20th century. William Shirer sent
eyewitness accounts of Nazi Germany until he had to
escape Hitler‟s thugs; Edward R. Murrow narrated the
Battle of Britain from flame lit streets in London and the
bombing of Berlin from an American bomber. Ernie Pyle
sent accounts from North Africa, Italy and the Pacific.
John Hersey was an eyewitness to the fight on
Guadalcanal. John Steinbeck reported from Salerno.
These best-selling authors were featured in both the
newspapers and large circulation magazines such as LIFE,
LOOK and the Saturday Evening Post. These pioneering
hybrids, displaying the power of photojournalism, brought the war in print, photography, and
artists‟ illustrations to millions of readers.
Women took increasingly public roles in broadcasting
as Margaret Bourke-White reported from the Soviet
front and Martha Gellhorn told the stories of wounded
pilots and the medical staff who saved their lives.
Gellhorn later scooped every American newspaper
correspondent (including her then-husband, Ernest
Hemingway) by stowing away on a troop transport
during D-Day to report from the beaches.
The Atlanta Daily World, the first black-owned and
edited daily newspaper in the American South, sent a
reporter to the front lines. The Daily World participated fully in the „Double V‟ campaign and
kept a running account of the second battlefield, protesting discrimination against black workers
and servicemen in Georgia.
Many newspaper and magazine reporters went on the air during the war, broadcasting by
shortwave from overseas. Their reports brought the sounds of the war close to home in a way
that past technologies could not. With World War Two, the war was now in American homes.
Northeast Georgia History Center page 12 World War Two Travel Trunk
Atlanta newspaper advertisement. WSB Radio trumpets Wright Bryan news broadcasts, 1944
I said to myself, in the
great cliché of the
Second World War,
“This is it,” and so, I
suppose, did every
other man in our fleet
of little ships when he
heard the news.”
A.J.Liebling,
June 6, 1944
D-Day, 1944
In the early hours of June 6, 1944 an Atlanta newspaper
man named Wright Bryan sat down in a radio station in
England and put a sheet of paper into his portable
typewriter. He began to write a report describing his
journey aboard an American troop transport plane. The
plane had taken off from England, just past midnight,
heading for France. Bryan had watched as the plane‟s
passengers, paratroopers from the 101st Airborne Division,
jumped into enemy territory. The plane turned back to
reload. Bryan headed for a shortwave transmitter. His
report, broadcast before dawn in the United States, was
the first eyewitness report from D-Day.
Planning for the invasion of Nazi-held Europe had begun
years before the flotillas left the English coast in 1944.
Josef Stalin had asked the Allies to open up a second front
of combat in Europe to take pressure off Soviet troops fighting Germany in the east. Churchill
had refused to sanction another prong of attack until Nazi German troops in North Africa were
defeated. The high level Allied conference held in Casablanca in early 1943 (after the successful
campaign against Rommel‟s Afrika Corps) included drafting a tentative timeline for the
European invasion. Dwight D. Eisenhower was named the supreme commander of Operation
Overlord, the coordinated assault on the French coast, in December 1943. Months of
preparation followed as supplies were stockpiled and a detailed plan for each unit‟s participation
was developed. Just as importantly, the Allies began a disinformation program to convince
Hitler that the invasion would be focused on a port city far from the eventual landing zones.
On the morning of June 6th the weather cleared enough to allow
planes to begin flying across the English Channel. Over 20,000
Allied airborne troops landed behind enemy lines and began
securing roads, bridges and river crossings to allow infantry troops
to move quickly into the interior of Normandy. At dawn troop
transports began landing soldiers, jeeps, tanks and weapons on the
beaches. Navy ships in the Channel kept up an incessant barrage of
cannon fire in an attempt to eliminate German gun emplacements
near the landing zones. 300,000 troops arrived by boat and plane
in the largest amphibious assault in history. They stormed ashore
along a fifty mile long stretch of stony beachfront in successive
waves over the day, landing at areas codenamed Gold, Sword,
Omaha, Utah and Juno. The casualties were heavy and best laid
plans went awry. Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, jr. (the only American general to make
a landing with his troops) waded ashore at Utah beach with the 4th Army division to find strong
currents had put them a mile off course. Undaunted, the general declared, “We will start
the war from right here,” and, under fire, acted as a traffic cop to direct Allied troops inland.
Northeast Georgia History Center page 13 World War Two Travel Trunk
US Army mapshowing the ‘bulge’ in Allied front lines made by German troops attacking from the east.
Marching to Berlin 1945
The last year of the war in Europe stretched from the frozen forests of Belgium, through
Germany to the ruins of Berlin. Around the globe, in Greece and in Poland, in Vietnam and in
Denmark, the final decisive movements of troops and supplies sealed the defeat of the Axis and
set the stage for the post-war world. In December of 1944 Hitler began a surprise counter-attack
against Allied troops moving toward Berlin from the shore landings of D-Day. This offensive,
called the “Battle of the Bulge” for the irregular lines of the
battlefront, became the costliest conflict of the war in Europe.
The German assault was intended to surround and defeat the
separate Allied forces moving east across France. Allied
supply lines, including an armada of half-ton trucks called the
„Red Ball Express‟, tipped the balance as German supply lines
failed. By the end of January, the Nazi troops retreated toward
the interior of Germany. Farther east, Soviet troops captured
Prussia and pushed west toward a meeting with Allied troops.
Hitler moved his headquarters to a bunker buried under the
Reichstag in Berlin.
Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin met in early February at Yalta,
a resort on the Black Sea in the Crimea region of Russia. Each
leader came with a plan in mind. FDR wanted Russia to
redouble its efforts to defeat Japan in the Pacific. Churchill was
looking toward the end of the war and the establishment of democracy in Europe. As a
condition of his support, Stalin required Allied recognition of a Soviet zone of influence that
would encompass countries that had been occupied by Germany. All three agreed that Nazi
Germany must sign an instrument of unconditional surrender; there would be no armistice to
end this war. The country could then be „denazified‟ and demilitarized.
In early 1945 however it was still not clear when the post-war plan for Germany could be put
into motion. Allied bombers continued to fill the skies over Berlin, Dresden and other large
manufacturing centers, attempting to destroy German supply lines and morale. The Allied
forces also targeted the launch sites of the V-1 (jet propelled) and V-2 (rocket powered) bombs
that German scientists sent toward England. The V-1 “buzzbombs”, named for their distinctive
motor sound, caused thousands of civilian deaths. The V-2, the world‟s first ballistic missile,
left bomb craters across southern England but it also required expensive technology and fuel to
launch, resources that Germany was quickly depleting.
By late April 1945, Russian troops were at the gates of Berlin. Mussolini was dead and the
Italian government had surrendered to the Allies. Adolf Hitler, isolated from the chaos above
him, committed suicide on April 30. His successor surrendered to the Allies days later, ending
the war in Europe on May 8th, now remembered as V-E (Victory in Europe) Day. As American
troops closed in on the V-2 launch site, Wernher von Braun, the project director, met them and
surrendered. He went on to become an architect of NASA‟s manned mission to the moon.
Northeast Georgia History Center page 14 World War Two Travel Trunk
Flying to Japan 1945
On the other side of the world the last battles of the war were fought on the
tropical islands of the South Pacific, in China and Burma and Okinawa.
Slowly but inevitably the empire of Japan used up its resources of material
and manpower in the attempt to protect its home island and possessions
gained in the war. Battleground tactics became more deadly as the technology and geography
of the war changed.
The strategic bombing of Japanese territory grew more frequent as Allied forces captured Pacific
Islands within flight range of enemy territory. As the „island hopping‟ strategy gave Allies more
potential airfields, factories in the United States (including the Bell Bomber Plant in Marietta)
manufactured hundreds of B-29 Superfortress planes capable of flying long distances with
heavier munitions on board. American planes began to fill the skies over Japan, dropping
incendiary bombs and destroying oil fields, fuel depots, factories and nearby neighborhoods. In
response, the Japanese military command increased the use of suicide bombing raids, sending
kamikaze missions against Allied ships.
Japanese ground troops were in retreat from Burma, China and the Phillipines by early 1945.
American and Filipino soldiers captured Manila and Corregidor under the command of General
Douglas MacArthur, making good on his promise to return to the islands. Moving toward Tokyo
in pursuit of more island airfields, American Marines invaded Iwo Jima on February 19. Less
than a week later, on February 23, photographer Joe Rosenthal caught the now famous image of
Marines raising the American flag on Mt. Suribachi, the highest point on the island. Of the six
Marines photographed raising the flag, half were killed in the weeks of fighting that followed.
Iwo Jima was captured, with extraordinary American casualties, in Mid-March of 1945.
By then American military leaders were focusing their efforts on capturing Okinawa, the logical
point from which to launch an amphibious assault on Japan. By July however, when the
Japanese had been driven off Okinawa, the technology of the war had changed yet again. Far
away from the Pacific fighting, in the high desert of New Mexico, the Manhattan Project had
succeeded in building and igniting an atomic bomb. The news of the successful “Trinity Test” at
Alamogordo flashed to Washington, where a new President got the news. Franklin D. Roosevelt
had not lived to see the final chapters of the war he had declared in 1941. FDR died at the Little
White House in Warm Springs, Georgia, on April 12. His vice-president Harry Truman had
been sworn in and it would be Truman who made the decision to use the atomic bomb on Japan.
At the Potsdam Conference between the Allied leaders in July of 1945, all agreed that the
unconditional surrender of Japan was their goal. Only the United States had the technological
power to force the issue. On the 6th of August, 1945, the American bomber Enola Gay dropped
the bomb code named “Little Boy” on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. On the 9th of August, the
second bomb, “Fat Boy”, destroyed Nagasaki. Six days later the Emperor of Japan‟s voice,
unheard until then by his subjects, came over the radio announcing the surrender of his nation
to the Allies. August 15th, now called V-J Day, marked the end of the war. Surrender documents
were signed, on the decks of the battle scarred USS Missouri, on the 2nd of September. In China,
hostilities had exploded between Nationalists and Communists; the tiny Democratic Republic of
Vietnam declared its independence from colonial powers. The future was already unfolding.
Northeast Georgia History Center page 15 World War Two Travel Trunk
The Veterans Speak - Sources
The Veterans History Project
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/primarysourcesets/veterans/
Mack Abbott (article in Georgia Magazine)
http://georgiamagazine.org/archives_view.asp?mon=9&yr=2009&ID=2237
Pearl Harbor survivors in AJC
http://georgiamagazine.org/archives_view.asp?mon=9&yr=2009&ID=2237
Sites:
Douglas, GA Flight Training Museum
http://wwiiflighttraining.org/
Northeast Georgia History Center page 16 World War Two Travel Trunk
Database World War 2 Sources:
An excellent general research destination for all things Georgia is the online encyclopedia
maintained by the Georgia Humanities Council, the New Georgia Encyclopedia
http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-3507
The National Parks Service and Georgia State Parks provide information for sites with World
War Two significance:
Tuskeegee Airmen NHShttp://www.nps.gov/tuai/index.htm
What is a legend? How is one made? This site offers virtual exhibits and information
about Moton Field, home of the Tuskegee Airmen. An additional link toggles between
between English and a Spanish translation of the website
text:http://www.nps.gov/tuai/espanol/index.htm
Roosevelt‟s Little White House Historic Site
http://www.gastateparks.org/LittleWhiteHouse
Franklin Roosevelt first visited Warm Springs, Georgia in 1924. He was searching for a
therapy that would help him regain the use of his muscles that were weakened by polio.
Swimming in the warm water of the pool became a favorite activity and Roosevelt build
a home for himself nearby. Over the next decades FDR was a regular visitor.
Historians connect his years in Georgia with shaping his New Deal programs to aid
farmers, bring electricity to rural areas and put young men to work in the CCC.
The letter to the editor of the Pittsburgh Courier that began the „Double V‟ campaign is reprinted
with annotations at the Annenberg‟s “American History in the Making” site:
http://www.learner.org/courses/amerhistory/resource_archive/resource.php?unitChoice=19&
ThemeNum=3&resourceType=2&resourceID=10106
Miller Center recordings of FDR and APR
http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/presidentialrecordings/roosevelt
The Miller Center of the University of Virginia is an archive of presidential materials. The center
has made recordings from the White House available on their website. Franklin Roosevelt
installed a tape recorder in the Oval Office in 1940 to record press conferences. Other
discussions before and after those press conferences were also preserved, giving historians
access to the president‟s observations. Two recordings include a conversation with A. Philip
Randolph during the tense negotiations over the threat of a mass march on Washington to
demand equal pay for black employees of plants supported by Federal contractors.
Northeast Georgia History Center page 17 World War Two Travel Trunk
Wright Bryan recording of first eyewitness report from D-Day,
June 1944
William Wright Bryan (1905 --1991 ) was a South Carolina
native and Clemson graduate who went on to study journalism
at the University of Missouri. He took a job at the Atlanta
Journal and became the newspaper‟s managing editor in 1943.
Bryan also became a war correspondent that year, reporting
from London and France for the Journal, its radio station WSB
and the station‟s affiliate, NBC radio. He scooped the entire
press corps by broadcasting his account of watching
paratroopers landing in France before dawn on D-Day. Bryan
continued to report from Europe as Allied troops moved toward
Berlin. He was captured at a German roadblock in September
1944. He was a prisoner in Poland until 1945. After the war he
returned to Atlanta and his desk at the Atlanta Journal.
http://www.otr.com/dday_eyewitness.html
Wright Bryan WSB ad
http://www.wsbradio.com/news/news/photos/wsb-history-1940s/nLPj8/
Margaret Bourke-White “A Life Less Ordinary”
Smithsonian Magazine article celebrating the life of an American photograph/journalist.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/life-less-ordinary.html
LIFE D-Day photographs – recently restored color photographs from the war in Europe
http://life.time.com/history/d-day-rare-color-photos/#2
Pearl Harbor
An article in the National Archives‟ magazine “Prologue” covers the first reports of the attack
from the words of deck crews on US ships:
http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2011/winter/ph-decklogs.html
Pearl Harbor photographs are in the National Archives:
http://www.archives.gov/research/military/ww2/photos/images/thumbnails/
Northeast Georgia History Center page 18 World War Two Travel Trunk
Why Do We Teach World War Two?
The Second World War was the most deadly and costly military struggle
ever fought. It is estimated that some 60 million people died as a
result of it, most of them civilians. But this figure is only a
guess…
Despite the war’s frightful cost, the Soviet Union and the Western
democracies had no choice except to resist the forces of Imperial
Japan and Nazi Germany. To start with, of course, they fought to save
themselves. But there was more at stake than simple survival. Japan
intended to enslave the peoples of East and Southeast Asia, whom the
Japanese regarded as racially inferior. The Nazis also viewed most of
the people of Europe as racially inferior to the Aryan “race” of which
they believed Germans to be members. The Nazi plan was to rule Europe
… and to exterminate not only Jews by Gypsies and millions of Slavs.
The wars against German and Japan were, in a sense, wars against
particularly murderous forms of racism. They were also wars fought to
save democracy and freedom…
World War II remains a struggle that was not less noble for being
imperfect. It was fought at time with methods that are hard to defend
today. It failed to solve all the problems of humanity. But what it
did do was save a large part of the world from tyranny and make
possible the salvation of other parts of the world in the future.
Every Allied nation can take pride in what it sacrificed for this
great outcome. No subject is more worth studying today for what it
teaches us about the meaning of freedom and democracy.
From: William L. O’Neill
World War II: A Student Companion
Currently out of print, this encyclopedia was compiled by a distinguished historian with a wealth of resources and resilient opinions .
Northeast Georgia History Center page 19 World War Two Travel Trunk
BOOKS: received returned
World War 2 For Kids □ □
DK Eyewitness: World War II □ □
Hall County in World War II □ □
Franklin D Roosevelt for Kids □ □
The Good Fight □ □
Great WW2 Projects you can build yourself □ □
Remember World War II: Kids Tell Their Stories □ □
World War II: The Definitive Visual History □ □
Everyday Fashions of the 1940s □ □
DK D-Day Landings Reader □ □
The Journey that Saved Curious George □ □
A New Coat for Anna □ □
Baseball Saved Us □ □
World War II in the Classroom □ □
World War 2
Travel Trunk
Contents Checklist
Northeast Georgia History Center page 20 World War Two Travel Trunk
CLOTHING received returned
Ike Jacket □ □
Garrison Cap □ □
M1 Helmet □ □
OD Shirt □ □
Navy Coverall and Bandana □ □
Civil Defense Helmet □ □
GEAR:
WW2 Web belt □ □
WW2 canteen □ □
Gas Mask Bag □ □
Mess Kit □ □
Dog Tags □ □
Clicker Clacker □ □
World War 2
Travel Trunk
Contents Checklist
Northeast Georgia History Center page 21 World War Two Travel Trunk
MATERIALS: Received Returned
Set of laminated WW2 posters
Cotton Goes to War
Victory Garden (6)
Rosie the Riveter
Buy US Bonds
Newspaper Front pages
LIFE magazine Covers
President Truman
Winston Churchill
USS Iowa
Foot Soldier
LIFE Magazine Advertisements
Studebaker
Lucky Strike
Ration Books and Stamps □ □
Songs That Got Us through World War 2 □ □
Bing Crosby Radio Show CD □ □
Blue Star Flag □ □
48 Star Flag □ □
World War Two in Georgia
Travel Trunk
Contents Checklist
Northeast Georgia History Center page 22 World War Two Travel Trunk
MATERIALS: Received Returned
Sweetheart Pillow
World War Two in Georgia
Travel Trunk
Contents Checklist
Northeast Georgia History Center page 23 World War Two Travel Trunk
A NOTE ABOUT THE BOOKS
IN THE TRAVEL TRUNK
Why does a hands-on history trunk have so many books in it?
There‟s a short answer: content literacy
Teaching social studies content is an opportunity to craft lessons that support effective reading
comprehension strategies and critical reading skills. The books in this trunk can help you teach
across the curriculum and promote a multi-resource, multi-genre learning environment.
There is a common language for talking about things and texts. What kids learn from talking
about books can transfer to talking about artifacts and primary resource documents. The
materials in this trunk helps kids see different points of view, ask good questions, and create
reflective responses. Students will learn from the trunk materials as they apply the
understanding they construct from textbooks and trade books.
The trunk materials include several picture books that work well for interactive read-alouds.
Reading books out loud to a class is an entry point for reluctant and ELL students. Using
materials from the trunk helps make vocabulary terms concrete and memorable. Find an
opportunity to pull items from the travel trunk to use as props and to illustrate challenging
vocabulary. The books we recommend have been used by teachers and media center staff who
search for compelling, authentic accounts of the past. Well written narratives keep student
interest high while building background knowledge about the past. Kids can generally listen
at a higher comprehension level than they can gain by reading themselves so using these books
can help fill gaps in understanding.
This teacher guide will suggest other strategies such as concept mapping, constructing a
timeline, and F/Q/R (Fact/Question/Response) charting. Each of these techniques will
support your students as they internalize the skills of summarizing, synthesizing, evaluating and
creating. That‟s why all these books are in the travel trunk; they‟re a scaffold to help your
students grow!
As teachers, we want our students to be active,
independent, strategic learners but that is not
possible if they do not comprehend text.
Maureen McLaughlin, Content Area
Reading: Teaching and Learning in an
age of Multiple Literacies (Pearson, 2010).
Northeast Georgia History Center page 24 World War Two Travel Trunk
DK Eyewitness: World War II
Simon Adams
ISBN 0756672678
From the indispensable DK Eyewitness series, this
book includes high quality photographs of artifacts and
documents with supplementary information. Kids can
see examples of spy craft artifacts, uniforms and home
front materials. Good „go-to‟ resource to build
background knowledge. Arranged chronologically for
reference or in a timeline activity.
Hall County in World War II
Glen Kyle
ISBN 0738594016
What was it like to live in Gainesville, Georgia during
World War 2? Archival photographs and brief
informational texts give the answers. Along with
Liberty bonds, rationing and the growth of a naval
air station, Hall County citizens had to deal with a
destructive tornado, a Presidential visit, and an
overwhelming need for the region‟s textile and
agricultural production. Life in one little north
Georgia town would never be the same.
World War Two in Georgia: Resource Books
World War II for Kids: A History with 21
Activities
Richard Panchyk (with an introduction by John
McCain)
ISBN 1556524552
Clearly written, well organized history with directions
for constructive learning. It‟s hands on, rich in primary
source content and encourages kids to build
comprehension with activities that have cross
curricular and literacy links: creating a recruitment
poster, learning military lingo, sending V-mail.
Northeast Georgia History Center page 25 World War Two Travel Trunk
Great World War II Projects You Can Build Yourself
Sheri Bell-Rehwoldt
ISBN 0977129411 Spy messages, Victory gardens, ration cards, bomb shelters and instructions on how to fold paper cranes – it‟s all here in an accessible guide to how it felt to live through World War II. A timeline and simplified maps make this book a good choice to boost vocabulary and build background knowledge as well as inspire hands-on participation.
World War 2 in Georgia: Resource Books
The Good Fight: How World War Two
Was Won Stephen Ambrose
ISBN 0689843615
The author of Band of Brothers summarizes his
research and opinions for a YA audience. His
familiarity with primary sources shows in the
selection of eye-witness anecdotes that illustrate
major events and technological change in the war.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt for Kids Richard Panchyk ISBN 1556526571
FDR‟s life and times, written in the same format as other “For Kids” books in this series from the Chicago Press. Includes a timeline, activities with directions and information about both FDR and ER (as well as her famous uncle, Theodore).
Remember World War II: Kids Who Survived
Tell Their Stories
Dorinda Makanaonalani Nicholson
ISBN
The author, an eyewitness to the attack on Pearl Harbor as a
child, has compiled a collection of first person accounts of
WW2. Nicholson interviewed adults about their experiences
and blended their memories with photographs. The
introduction is by a famous grown up who was once a refugee
from the Nazis - former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
Northeast Georgia History Center page 26 World War Two Travel Trunk
DK Reader: D-Day Landings
Richard Platt
ISBN: 978-0-7566-0275-8
An accurate version of D-Day, the D-K volume is aimed at independent grade school readers and uses primary source images with some illustrations to cover events from June 6, 1944 to the capture of Paris.
World War 2 in Georgia:
Resource Books
Everyday Fashions of the Forties
JoAnne Olian
ISBN: 978-0-486-26918-4
This book is a compilation of 122 fully illustrated and
captioned pages selected and reproduced from rare copies
of the Sears catalogs of the World War II era.
World War II: The Definitive Visual History
Richard Holmes
ISBN: 978-0-7566-7548-6
The most destructive and world-shattering conflict of all time is brought
vividly to life in this powerful, engaging and visually stunning book. It looks
at this epic war from every angle, tracing the course of military, strategic, and
political events across the globe documenting the experiences of combatants
and civilians.
The Journey that Saved Curious George
Louise Borden
ISBN: 978-0-547-41746-2
Curious George is known and loved all over the world. Bur
few people know the exciting history of his creators. In 1940,
Hans and Margret Rey had to flee their Paris home as the German
army advanced on the capital city. They began their harrowing
journey on bicycles with their children‟s book manuscripts among
their few possessions.
Northeast Georgia History Center page 27 World War Two Travel Trunk
World War 2 in Georgia:
Resource Books: Illustrated
A New Coat for Anna
Harriet Ziefert
ISBN: 978-0-394-89861-2
Even though there is no money, Anna‟s mother finds a way to make Anna a badly needed winter coat. Inspired by a story told to the author by Dr. Ingeborg Hoffman, a NJ pediatrician who still has the coat her mother had made from bartered cloth in postwar Germany
Baseball Saved Us
Ken Mochizuki
ISBN: 978-1-880000-19-9
A Japanese American boy learns to play baseball when he and
his family are forced to live in an internment camp during
World War II, and his ability to play helps him after the war is
over.
World War II in the Classroom: A Collection of Activities for Grades 5-12
Publication of the Atlanta History Center
A compendium of lesson plans, classroom projects, maps, images,
and manuscripts written and collected with the express purpose of
educating Georgia schoolchildren.
Northeast Georgia History Center page 28 World War Two Travel Trunk
ARTIFACTS AND DOCUMENTS
in the TRUNK
Handling 3-D objects and reading historic documents encourages both the development of
critical thinking skills and the retention of content knowledge. Travel trunks can help your
students build vocabulary and encourage respect for diverse points of view and perspectives.
Travel trunks give students a chance to practice their critical thinking skills: analysis, inquiry
and synthesis. Asking questions about an object is one way to learn historical literacy, one of the
many strategies for comprehension that our students will need in the future.
Looking for cause and effect, identifying turning points in the past, understanding change and
continuity, looking at the world through the eyes of people who lived then – these are all skills
developed by interaction with primary sources.
In the next section we‟ve put photographs of the materials in the travel trunk along with some
inquiry questions. If you‟re unpacking the trunk with students, questions like these to get them
thinking past the „wow, this is cool‟ first reaction. They ARE cool. They are also clues about the
past that you can touch, a structure for understanding how the past was very much like and very
much different from our time in history. After the catalogue of trunk items, you‟ll find the
lesson plans. The first one is an all grades introduction to working with artifacts. We‟ll walk you
through it step by step and suggest ways of using these resources.
Let‟s look at the stuff in the trunk!
Primary sources are the raw materials of history — original documents and objects that were created at the time under study. They are different from secondary sources, accounts or interpretations of events created by someone without firsthand experience.
Examining primary sources gives students a powerful sense of history and the complexity of the past. Helping students analyze primary sources can also guide them toward higher-order thinking and better critical and analysis skills.
Library of Congress, “Using Primary Sources”
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/usingprimarysources/
Northeast Georgia History Center page 29 World War Two Travel Trunk
General Dwight Eisenhower holds up the pens used signing the German surrender documents, May 1945. LIFE Magazine photo.
This jacket was the most popular uniform worn by American army and Air Force personnel in
World War Two. It replaced a longer uniform jacket that looked much like a man‟s suit coat, a
style that had not changed much since World War I. Soldiers found that the Ike jacket had
several advantages: the shoulder loops (called epaulets) kept the straps of equipment from
slipping; the covered buttons made it easier for soldiers to move without getting tangled up; the
sleeves were roomy enough to allow a soldier to fire a weapon easily. General Dwight David
“Ike” Eisenhower, the supreme commander of Allied forces, favored this jacket. “Ike” insisted
on wearing the same jacket issued to regular American troops. American soldiers therefore were
commanded by a general who wore exactly the same uniform they wore as they fought across
Europe. General Eisenhower‟s original jacket is now displayed at the Kansas Museum of
History in Topeka, KS, not far from his home town of Abilene.
What had changed about American army uniforms since earlier wars? Use photographic
evidence to compare and contrast the uniforms of the Civil War, for example. Uniforms are still
made of wool in World War Two but are no longer made of blue or grey wool. The standard
colors are olive drab and khaki – the colors of camouflage. In addition, WW2 uniforms are
standard government issue with little variation and were not made at home. The phrase “GI”
comes from the term “government issue” – the source for everything the soldier received.
World War Two Travel
Trunk: Clothing
Eisenhower (Ike) jacket
Northeast Georgia History Center page 30 World War Two Travel Trunk
American Soldiers wearing M-1 Helmets on patrol in the Pacific, 1944
M1 Steel Pot Helmet
The M-1 helmet, called a “steel pot” after its resemblance to (and occasional use as) a cooking
utensil, is one of the most recognizable pieces of World War 2 American soldier gear. When the
United States joined the war in 1941, soldiers were wearing a variation on the shallow brimmed
helmet made famous by doughboys in World War 1. The technology of WW2 demanded a
different helmet, one that would protect soldiers from shrapnel, ricocheting bullets from
automatic weapons, and debris thrown by high powered explosives. The M-1 helmet was
developed by borrowing from other designs. The lower back brim that protected the soldier‟s
neck, for example, was a feature of WW1 German helmets. The M-1 served its purpose as a
sturdy head protector that could also be used as an impromptu wash basin, bucket or chair.
Tens of millions of M-1 helmets were made for the American army in World War 2 and many
went on to see service in Korea. This example is a late war surplus helmet. It once had a fabric
and leather liner that has since been removed.
Find pictures, descriptions or illustrations in the
trunk materials (and classroom resources) of
soldiers and other armed forces personnel who are
wearing this helmet. One American general
credited three inventions with winning the war for
the Allies: the M-1 rifle this soldier is holding, the
M-1 helmet he is wearing and the landing craft
(Higgins boats) used during D-Day.
World War Two Travel Trunk
Clothing and Gear
Northeast Georgia History Center page 31 World War Two Travel Trunk
Garrison Cap
World War II in Georgia
Travel Trunk: Clothing
Civil Defense Helmet
Dog tags
“Rosie the
Riveter” coveralls
In World War II Clickers were used by Allied paratroopers preceding and during Operation Overlord as a way of covertly identifying friend from foe. A soldier would click once and if two clicks were received in return from an unidentifiable soldier then his identification was confirmed.
Each soldier, sailor, or Marine was issued, soon after entering the service, a pair of identification tags, commonly known as “dog tags.” These were worn around the neck on a chain. If he died in combat, one tag was buried with the body for future identification by the Graves Registration Service. The other tag was collected for the unit commander and for administrative purposes. Tags for the US Army were oblong and included a notch at one end. This notch allowed the tag to be correctly inserted into an embossing tool.
In 1939, a new field cap - adapted from a World War II shape – was adopted for barracks and field use. It was then standardized on February 19, 1941. Olive drab serge material was used for winter uniforms, and tan cotton was used for summer/tropical wear. Officers often wore caps made of “elastique” material. For enlisted individuals garrison caps had colored “piping” around the folds (called the “curtain”). Sometimes these colors were in special designs. Each arm of the Army had its own design. For officers, caps had gold braiding (for generals), or gold/black braiding (for other officer ranks). In addition, each unit‟s distinctive insignia was placed on the left front, until August 25, 1942, when it was replaced by insignia designating the rank of the wearer.
Clicker
Northeast Georgia History Center page 32 World War Two Travel Trunk
Coveralls – Army Air
Corps and WASP pilots
Historians agree that air power was a key element of the Allied victory in World War Two. The
technology needed to design faster, efficient aircraft had been put in place after World War One
showed the tactical advantages gained by using planes. American factories could manufacture
bombers, fighter planes and transport craft. Who would pilot these expensive, essential pieces of
war materiel? This olive drab coverall symbolizes the answer to a persistent problem.
Learning to fly an airplane demanded quick reflexes, good decision making skills and an
element of fearlessness in the face of danger. The Army Air Corps, then part of the regular army,
searched for adequate numbers of pilots. One solution to the ongoing pilot shortage came from
two groups of Americans who had never been encouraged to take off into the wild blue yonder
until wartime emergencies forced the hand of the military. Women pilots joined the Air Force as
civilians in the WASP (Womens Auxiliary Service Pilot) corps. Black pilots joined a segregated
Air Force unit, training in Tuskeegee, Alabama. In addition, the Air Force enlisted increasingly
younger pilots, some of whom had just walked off the stage of their high school graduation
ceremony before taking the controls of a trainer airplane.
This one piece overall was worn by pilots and mechanicswho kept the airplanes in the air. As
with any advanced technology, the air craft of World War II required constant attention. Pilots
were responsible for their craft and their crew, doing mundane tasks that added up to the
overwhelming display of military firepower offered by the Air Force.
World War Two
Travel Trunk Clothing
Northeast Georgia History Center page 33 World War Two Travel Trunk
“Web gear” is a catchall term that describes the woven fabric “belt and suspenders” that kept
soldier‟s gear safe and accessible. Infantry troops have carried the same items for millennia:
food, water, shelter, clothing, weapons. In World War Two for example a soldier could find
himself carrying more than a dozen pieces of equipment attached to a cartridge belt or
suspender strap: shovel, gas mask, M-1 rifle and ammunition, first aid kit, map satchel, canteen,
field rations and mess kit.
Q: What items are the same as the items a Civil War soldier carried? What is different?
A: Soldiers really do “fight on their stomachs”. Soldiers in both the 19th and 20th century had to
carry water and food. Some of the most dramatic changes in soldier gear came with the first aid
equipment and weapons that World War 2 soldiers used. American soldiers carried sulfa powder
to treat open wounds that could lead to infections; they also carried multiple rounds of
ammunition for semi-automatic weapons that could be barely imagined by Civil War soldiers.
World War Two
Travel Trunk: Soldier Gear
US Army WW2 era metal
canteen (with black
Bakelite cap) and cotton
web belt with
ammunition pockets
American infantrymen approach a Belgian town, September 1944, wearing web gear supporting entrenching tools, ammunition belts, and canteen pouches. Source: NARA
Mess Kit
Northeast Georgia History Center page 34 World War Two Travel Trunk
Every American soldier was issued web
gear, woven cotton gear transport tools
such as cartridge and pistol belts and the
bags, pouches and packs that were carried
with shoulder straps or suspenders.
TYPICAL EQUIPMENT for rifle infantry man
included items such as:
- canvas bags and packs. The military
manufactured several types: a satchel called
a haversack, a rubber lined waterproof
"jungle pack", stuff sacks called "musette
bags" that were carried by officers and
paratroopers.
- canteen with a carrier and cup
- mess kit with utensils
- portable stove, matches, fuel
- steel helmet & fiber liner
- entrenching tool (a small shovel for digging
foxholes)
- gas mask and carrying pouch
- flash light
- first aid kit
- combat suspenders
- identification discs ("dog tags," each man
carried 2 on a chain around his neck)
- web belt (with cartridge pockets for
riflemen and BAR gunners).
Soldiers who were responsible for field
communication carried early walkie-talkies,
considered “portable” communication
devices. Battery operated telephones
required hard wiring to work and weighed
about 10 pounds per receiver.
An infantryman from the Japanese American 442nd unit prepares
to embark for Europe, 1944. Photo accessed on olive-drab.com
Japanese American troops in World War 2
Japanese immigrants' children born in the United States were, under the Fourteenth Amendment,
American citizens. Many of these first generation Americans, called Nisei in Japanese, volunteered to serve
in the United States military. The 442nd Regimental Combat Team was an all-Nisei U.S. Army regiment
which served in Europe during World War II becoming one of the most decorated units of the war.
A United States Army Infantryman and his Gear
Northeast Georgia History Center page 35 World War Two Travel Trunk
Sixteen million American men and women joined the armed forces during World War Two. For
many it was their first chance to travel far from their hometowns. Georgia born soldiers could
find themselves training on the West Coast while soldiers from the northeastern states rode
trains south to forts in Georgia. From every stop soldiers sent postcards, letters and souvenirs.
The armed forces were allowed free postage within the United States on inexpensive postcards
sold at Army bases for quick messages. Overseas the armed forces maintained a postal system
that moved packages and messages across oceans. The result was tons of mail filling railroad
cars and planes. The military soon required that letters would only be sent to soldiers, marines
and sailors if they were written on stationary that could be photographed and sent as a filmed
image to be printed at the destination. This form of communication – called “Victory Mail” or
V-Mail – lightened the load on Allied planes delivering war materiel to the battlefront but never
entirely replaced the postcard and package as a welcome sign of a soldier‟s thoughts of home.
World War Two
Travel Trunk: Soldier Gear
Souvenir pillow case
and postcards
I must have around 500 letters from my husband, some V-mail and some airmail. You could send a regular letter for about $0.03 and an air letter was I believe $0.06.V-mail was something to expedite your letters- to get them over to the service people quicker. They had two post offices- one was in New York and the other was I believe in San Francisco and you would purchase this sheet of paper and you would write your letter on one side, fold it up and write the address on the other side. The postal service would photograph it, reduce it to about half of the size, and men send it off overseas.
Veterans History Project Interview with Clare Johns
Northeast Georgia History Center page 36 World War Two Travel Trunk
Ration Books #3 and #4
When the United States joined the Allied war effort in 1941, civilians began to see changes on the
home front. Gasoline and tires became harder to purchase since the military now needed
everything the country could produce. Goods that had been imported from Asia and South
America – rubber, coffee, silk and sugar, for example – became scarce. It was too dangerous to
ship them through heavily patrolled enemy waters. With millions of men (and 350,000 women)
joining the armed forces food was in short supply as well. Canned and processed foods were
going to the military overseas while fresh produce could no longer be shipped long distances by
trucks or trains due to fuel restrictions. The federal government established a rationing system
to distribute foods more equitably across the country. Every American citizen over the age of 12
was issued a ration book with coupons that could be torn out at the cash register in the grocery
store. Stamps were good for a week, for specific items at the store. Shoppers could only buy a
rationed item by providing the right ration stamp along with the money for the purchase. Once
the stamps were used, people had to wait until the next ration week began. During World War
Two families planned ahead to save scarce items like sugar and used substitutes for some items.
World War Two
Travel Trunk
Homefront
Ration books were issued by the Office of Price Administration and came with rules and regulations for their use.
Kids learned how to use ration books during World War II. Canned foods were rationed in order to conserve metal that could be used in wartime for weapons. Buying a can of V-8 in 1943 required both money and a ration stamp.
Northeast Georgia History Center page 37 World War Two Travel Trunk
RATION STAMPS AND COUPONS
Look at the images of ration stamps and coupons on this page. Each one was issued during World
War Two for civilians who wanted to buy a rationed item. What items were rationed?
Why were these items rationed? Think about where the items came from, how they were
transported and who needed them during a war.
Large
families
received
extra
ration
coupons
like these.
The grocery
store had
charts that
unlocked
the ‘code’
on these
rations
stamps.
They could
be for
canned
goods or
sliced
bread.
What do meat,
fats, fish and
cheese have in
common? Why
do we need to
eat these
foods?
Northeast Georgia History Center page 38 World War Two Travel Trunk
48 Star US Flag Single Blue Star
Service Flag
Maps
World War Two
Travel Trunk – Flags
Flags flew from every home, office building,
school and military base during World War
Two. Every US flag displayed forty-eight stars,
representing the states of the Union. Some
flags, smaller and more poignant, hung in the
windows of houses and apartments. Some
showed one blue star, some more. Some
displayed gold stars.
These “service flags” belonged to families who
used them to show how many people had left
home to join the armed forces. The
appearance of a gold star in place of blue star
told the community that the family had
suffered the loss of a soldier, sailor, pilot or
Marine in the war. Service flags were first
used in World War One and have remained in
use since then.
Clair Morrison Johns’ WWII service flag,
now in the Library of Congress (Veterans
History Project Collection). Mrs. Johns’
flag shows stars for her husband, who
died during the war, and her two
brothers who survived.
http://memory.loc.gov/diglib/vhp/story
/loc.natlib.afc2001001.01754/
Northeast Georgia History Center page 39 World War Two Travel Trunk
World War Two
Travel Trunk
Homefront – LIFE Magazines
Authentic magazines from World War Two are accessible
primary sources for images of soldiers and civilians and
eyewitness accounts of events. The advertisements are just as
rich a source of information about what people were thinking
about and purchasing during the war years.
TREAT THESE MAGAZINES CAREFULLY. The paper is over
half a century old and will not stand up to the kind of casual
flipping kids use with contemporary printed sources. Teaching
the importance of handling primary sources with respect will
require explaining, demonstrating and guiding use of these
fragile materials.
Support the magazine on a table at all times while
viewing
Turn one page at a time, very gently
Use the scanned images included in the trunk for
timelines and other displays, leaving the original source
safely displayed in its Mylar protective pocket.
Northeast Georgia History Center page 40 World War Two Travel Trunk
Advertisement placed by General Motors, 1944 LIFE
This ad for Cadillac in a 1944 magazine tells us about what happened to car companies in the US during
the war and generates questions about the economy during the war. What’s missing from the picture?
A car! American automobile manufacturers went into the business of making what the Army needed
and civilians had to do without! What countries are mentioned in the text? What was going on in 1944
in Europe? What is the ad at the bottom right telling you to buy? What is that symbol of a man with a
gun? It’s a Minuteman, a symbol of a much earlier American war. Why would this be chosen as a
symbol for the war bond sales program ?
Northeast Georgia History Center page 41 World War Two Travel Trunk
Newspapers
World War Two was reported in newspapers across the United States. In Georgia, most readers
looked to the flagship white-owned Atlanta papers: the Journal and the Constitution. On
Auburn Avenue, a few blocks west of the home where the Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr. was
raising his family, the Daily World printed news from the African-American community. This
trunk includes Xerox copies of vintage newspapers from 1939 to 1945.
Time line
Compare and contrast: Take a daily newspaper and a World War II era paper and place
side by side. Have students look for what has changed and what has remained the same.
What parts of the newspaper are still around today (headlines, banners)? What has
changed? (Length of articles, use of color and photography). And, yes, people still wanted
some diversions during war times. Comics were a regular feature, including Superman,
Tarzan, Little Orphan Annie and
Class project newspaper
World War Two
Travel Trunk
Northeast Georgia History Center page 42 World War Two Travel Trunk
World War Two
Travel Trunk
Posters
Northeast Georgia History Center page 43 World War Two Travel Trunk
World War Two
Travel Trunk
World War II Radio Broadcasts on CD
Northeast Georgia History Center page 44 World War Two Travel Trunk
http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/ThinkingLikeaHistorian/
Thinking Like a
Historian: Rethinking
History Instructionby
Nikki Mandell and
Bobbie Malone
What do we ask of the past?
Looking for evidence of change over time gives students the
experience of „thinking like historians‟.
These five questions form the basis of historical inquiry:
1) Cause and effect – what were the causes of past events? What
were the effects of these events in their time and now?
2) Change and continuity – what has changed? What has stayed
the same from past times to the present?
3) Turning points – what decisions in the past changed the
kinds of choices people would have later?
4) Using the past – how does learning about the past help us
understand the present?
5) Through their eyes - How did people in the past view their
world?
Northeast Georgia History Center page 45 World War Two Travel Trunk
Why use primary sources? To answer the five questions historians ask.
Content: Primary source materials support your learning objectives. Documents help
students focus on the actions of individuals, groups and institutions in the words of their
time. World War Two era newspapers and images bring a timeline of the conflict to life.
Participants in the World War Two did not know how it would end. From Franklin
Roosevelt to children in war torn Europe, different people made decisions and confronted
obstacles to meet their goals. Primary sources illustrate the conflicts inherent in the United
States during this time and show the changes that came about as a result of the war.
Primary sources answer essential questions.
History is more than lists of dates and terms to memorize. A good historian reads
documents and looks at artifacts to answer essential questions: Did geography affect the
course of the World War Two? What effect did the Holocaust have on the course of the war?
Was World War Two worth its costs? What was the effect of the World War Two on the
home front in Georgia? These questions require higher order thinking to answer and
analytical skills to decipher. They are the questions we want students to engage with by
using primary sources, developing their opinions. At the end of the class, students should
have a viewpoint and back it up with evidence drawn from original materials.
Primary sources connect historic eras to the present.
What is the point? Every lesson has a goal, something to discover rather than to just
“cover.” Teachers can look to primary sources for vivid examples of history‟s recurring
themes. Laws and letters, art and artifacts can bring students to understand that the
past is reflected in the present. Holding an object that someone held over sixty years ago
bring the relevance of the past into the present. Students are challenged to recognize the
enduring themes that were part of the World War Two experience as well as their own.
World War Two
Travel Trunk
Working with Primary Sources
Northeast Georgia History Center page 46 World War Two Travel Trunk
Q: Where Do You Find Primary Resources?
A: In the Archives – actual or virtual!
An archive is a storage place for primary resources – newspapers, diaries, letters, unpublished
manuscripts, photographs and other visual resources, interviews and other audio materials.
Here is an example of a World War Two primary source preserved in one of the nation‟s greatest
collections of authentic materials, the National Archives and Records Administration:
World War Two
Travel Trunk
During the evening of December 7, 1941,
Franklin Roosevelt dictated this brief
request to Congress for a declaration of war
against Japan. President Roosevelt then
edited the typed draft that his secretary
prepared. He added some details about the
attack that had come to his attention and
selected stronger words to convey his
message. For example, he changed the
original phrase in the first line, “a date that
will live in world history,” to the more
emphatic “date that will live in infamy”.
The president addressed the joint session of
Congress the next day and signed the
declaration of war almost twenty-four hours
after the attack on Pearl Harbor began. This
draft of the president’s speech is archived
with his papers at the FDR Library in Hyde
Park, NY (an administrative unit of the
National Archives).
http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons
/day-of-infamy/
Northeast Georgia History Center page 47 World War Two Travel Trunk
TEACHING WITH ARTIFACTS
An artifact is any object made by humans to fill a need. Artifacts are representatives of the
culture in which they were made and the resources that were available.
As you examine artifacts, you can learn about the time and place in which they were made.
Working with the materials in this travel trunk is a teaching strategy for structuring real
encounters with the past that support further learning.
Artifacts can introduce a rich vocabulary lesson, add depth to comprehension of soldier life and
the homefront during the World War Two and reinforce „then and now‟ understandings of how
cultures express themselves in material objects.
How do we learn from artifacts?
We READ them. The best analogy for working with artifacts is the process of gaining literacy.
Understanding artifacts mirrors many of the skills that students use to read and comprehend
text. Students use diverse learning styles to investigate these materials, led by their natural
curiosity and supported by background knowledge about the subject matter and content area
vocabulary.
Framing questions and developing answers are part of interpreting an object, a document or a
song. As they investigate an artifact, students can use strategies they have learned from reading
such as directed inquiry and composing summative reflections. These skills are flexible and
fluid, reinforcing each other across the curriculum.
How to handle artifacts
Just as we ask students to handle books carefully, we ask
them to handle artifacts respectfully. Learning to handle
artifacts for learning is a metacognitive skill supported
by this trunk. Before starting the artifact inquiry activity,
work with your students to brainstorm a list of
appropriate ways to handle an artifact and post the list:
“We will hand each object carefully and respectfully. We
will not grab an artifact out of somebody‟s hands.” There
are fragile, vintage textiles and paper in this trunk that
are older than your students‟ grandparents so this bears
repeating.
Northeast Georgia History Center page 48 World War Two Travel Trunk
One veteran teacher uses an “Object of the Day” inquiry strategy when working with travel trunks. She opens the travel trunk box and examines it, building suspense. She reaches in for one item and as it emerges, begins her questioning: “Look at this old magazine! You may notice that I’m holding it very carefully to show you the cover. I’m looking for some clues – who is this on the cover? A soldier? Why do you think he’s a solder? His uniform? His weapon? Good observation. What else do you notice? The price of the magazine is 15 cents. Well, when was it printed – can you tell by looking at the cover? “
Teaching in Time: Lesson Plan for
Directed Artifact Inquiry
“Reading” is a familiar activity and a useful analogy for discovering the use and significance of
an object. Just as students learn to deal with differences in texts, they will see that some objects
are easier to identify than others. Some artifacts need more careful examination to determine
what they are and how they were used. In this lesson, students learn to analyze an object and
summarize their opinion about it.
When students examine an object, they become detectives, piecing together clues from what
they observe. They use their background knowledge to compare and contrast, intuit, deduce,
and assess the historical significance of an artifact. The lesson plan includes a graphic organizer
so that students can record their observations, “leaving tracks” toward comprehension.
GOAL: Students will gain a richer understanding for and appreciation of history by analyzing
and describing objects from the travel trunk.
Method: Begin with a whole class discussion and a teacher-led inquiry
1. Anticipation! Build some interest in the concept of artifact. What do we mean when we say
artifact? Set up an anticipation guide to support student inquiry. Here are four short
statements about artifacts to present to the class.
i. Artifacts can be old but do not have to be.
ii. Artifacts are made by humans to fill a need in their lives.
iii. Artifacts are manufactured from the resources available to the people who made them.
iv. Artifacts can tell you about the people who made them – when, how, and why.
Ask students to respond to each statement. True? What do they think about this statement?
Kids often think of artifacts as dusty objects from an ancient tomb or obsolete items from the
attic. Have they ever thought about how their own possessions tell other people about them?
2. Model an artifact inquiry with a think out loud.
Choose one artifact from the trunk. Handle it carefully while talking about its shape and
dimensions, the materials from which it is made, your guess as to who might have made it and
why. Thinking out loud gives students a model for generating their own questions.
Northeast Georgia History Center page 49 World War Two Travel Trunk
3. Transition to directed artifact inquiry. (Two options – stationery or mobile)
a. Divide the class into table groups or pairs and distribute the artifacts, one per group
or pair. Ask each to examine the artifact and work together to prepare a verbal report for
the class on what they have concluded about the artifacts. Refer to the information on
each artifact from the teacher guide to review the group‟s identification and support the
discussion. Encourage questions about production and consumption processes, the
place of trade and bartering, the use of natural resources and the work of artisans in
manufacturing each object. Trade objects between tables once each group has finished
with an object and add more as needed. As time permits, ask for verbal reports.
b. Set up stations around the classroom so that artifacts from the trunk are placed into
functional clusters: clothing, things from a house, printed documents, things that were
traded. Divide the class into groups and send each to a table, rotating them around the
class until each group has visited each table.
On the following pages you will find guidelines for asking questions about artifacts. There are
two reproducible artifact discovery worksheets with guided questions for fact-finding.
Worksheet #1 scaffolds students through identification and compare/contrast questions. The
second page of the worksheet is a graphic organizer for the transition to evaluative questions
and writing a summary statement. Worksheet #2 can be used to encourage research about the
artifact. It includes a Fact/Question/Response chart that includes space for student
investigations to answer questions that are generated during the activity.
The worksheets can also be used as outlines for written reflections with an opening statement,
supporting facts and a concluding statement. Using these prompts, students can construct a
statement summarizing their inquiry process and their discoveries.
How does this work in real life? What if you have never modeled an artifact inquiry before?
1) Explain what you’re doing.
2) Demonstrate how to describe an artifact.
3) Guide the students by modeling an artifact examination with them.
4) Let the students practice what they have learned by watching you.
5) Leave time to reflect and respond.
Remember: Ask good questions that can’t be answered with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
Canteen: Let’s look at this metal object. Does it have a cap? Is there any writing on it? What
could you use this for? Water?Great idea. What do we have now that’s like this object?
And, for any object, ask the important question: What can we learn from this? What can this object tell us about the way people lived long ago?
Northeast Georgia History Center page 50 World War Two Travel Trunk
Teacher’s Guide to Artifact Inquiry
Sample questions to ask while modeling artifact “reading”
1. What kind of item do you have? Pick it up and feel it. Is it heavy or light?
2. What kind of material is it made of? Be specific. Artifacts may be made of several materials.
Try to list them all.
3. Does it have anything written on it? English?Other language? Read what you can on the
artifact to learn more about it.
4. Was it manufactured? Was it made by hand? Can you tell? How?
5. How was it used? Who was it used by? Where would it have been used?
8. Do we have or use anything similar today? If so, how is this object the same and how is it
different?
9. Note those things that are different or strange or that you cannot identify or do not
understand.
And, perhaps, the most important question:
10. What can we learn from this object?
This last question is important because it helps us understand history, the story of human life
over time. There are many ways to research and analyze history. Reading books and watching
documentaries are great ways to learn history. But being able to handle actual pieces of history
(primary sources) gives students a unique opportunity to interact with history in a physical,
hands-on way.
When students reach a conclusion or gain an insight about history from studying an
artifact, they gain not just knowledge, but a material connection to the past and the
experience of discovery they cannot get from text books, documentaries, or other
secondary sources.
Northeast Georgia History Center page 51 World War Two Travel Trunk
NAME:
___________________________
1. EXAMINE THE ARTIFACT
Write a few words about the artifact‟s shape or color. What about texture? Is it rough or
smooth? Heavy or light? Look for any movable parts, anything printed, stamped or
written on the object. Record what you find out here:
2. WHAT CAN IT DO?
A: What do you think it could be used for?
B: Who do you think used it?
C: Where do you think they were?
D: When do you think someone used this?
ARTIFACT DISCOVERY WORKSHEET With summary organizer
Northeast Georgia History Center page 52 World War Two Travel Trunk
What does this object tell us
about technology of the time in
which it was made and used?
What does it tell us about the
life and times of the people who
made this and used it?
Do we have anything like
this now? Look around and
see if you can find
something similar.
Think about what you‟ve noticed already about the artifact. Now put it together. Answer these
three questions and summarize what you have learned.
A summary is a short paragraph telling the most important
things you have learned about this artifact:
WHAT DOES THE ARTIFACT TELL US?
Northeast Georgia History Center page 53 World War Two Travel Trunk
Northeast Georgia History Center Travel Trunk
Worksheet for Artifact Study with Fact/Question/Response
What IS this object? Do you know? Can you guess?
Write a sentence or phrase about what you think:
Identification:
1) What materials were used to create this artifact? What went into it?
2) Are there any markings or writing on the artifact? List them here:
3) How do you think this artifact was used? ? Why would anyone need something like this?
Evaluation
4) Is this artifact one of a kind or do you think many were made just like this one?
5) Who would have used this artifact?
6) What does the artifact tell you about the time in which it was made?
Northeast Georgia History Center page 54 World War Two Travel Trunk
7) Can you think of anything you use now that is like this artifact?
8) What is your conclusion about this artifact? Complete the prompts below.
FACT
QUESTION
RESPONSE
This object is a:
I wondered if
I found out that:
Northeast Georgia History Center page 55 World War Two Travel Trunk
3. Whole class “now and then” synthesis
A. On the white board or chart paper, write: If you lived during the World War Two, you
would know….
Ask for some phrases to fill in the blank:
Some people who were fighting in the war
What you could do to help the war effort like recycling metal and scrap paper
All about who was fighting - the Axis against the Allies
People who got wounded
B. Ask: If you lived during the World War Two, you would NOT know:
Think about all the things that kids didn‟t have then and all the things that happened
after the war was over:
I wouldn‟t know about computers.
I wouldn‟t know about cell phones.
C. Ask: What do you think is the biggest difference between your life and the lives of
kids in the 1940s? Why?
Pair and share for a few minutes to generate answers!
Artifact Analysis Worksheet
1. ANALYZE THE ARTIFACT
What do you think this object is made out of?
Is it bone, pottery, metal, wood, stone, leather, glass, paper, cardboard, cloth, plastic?
I think it is made out of
This type of open ended discussion can generate dozens of questions. Record them for future mini-
research projects using a Fact/Question/Response graphic organizer.
FACT QUESTION RESPONSE
It was hard to find out what was How did people find out what was Some technologies that we happening around the world going on where Americans don’t think about much now because the war was so big. were fighting. were very important – people listened to the radio a lot and they read newspapers.
During read alouds or sustained silent reading, kids can keep F/Q/R logs on their own and return
to their questions during the discussion. Post students’ completed F/Q/R organizers as a reference for other students Use F/Q/R logs to generate research questions.
Northeast Georgia History Center page 56 World War Two Travel Trunk
“ An essential understanding in the social studies, particularly history, is
chronology… In order for students to understand issues of continuity, change,
and cause and effect, they must know what events occurred and the order in
which these events occurred. … Significant events can be examined through
revolutions, progress, cause and effect.”
50 Social Studies Strategies for K-8 Classrooms
o Obenchain and Morris (2011)
This lesson plan is adapted from Chapter 46: Timelines.
1Lesson Plan: Timeline
One of the best ways to utilize the travel trunk materials is in the construction of a student
generated timeline. A timeline demonstrates student comprehension of an essential
understanding of social studies and is open to differentiation and elaboration. This project
produces a visible record of class work and can also serve as an anchor for subsequent
instruction.
Timelines are essentially graphic organizers. They can be written on a white board or acted
out with students. Timelines can be written onto index cards and placed in order on a string or
posted around the classroom as an ongoing year-long project. Trunk materials can be used to
research timeline events and to prompt entries on the timeline.
What do you need to make a timeline?
A starting point and ending point
Dates to investigate – think of them as hooks to hang history on
Vocabulary words: sequence, cause, effect, earlier, later, consequence
Essential Questions:
How does a timeline help us understand what happened in the past?
What events and people are essential on a timeline of World War Two ?
What were some of the turning points in World War Two? What happened? This is an open
ended question with many answers. Military and political decisions, social and cultural mores,
as well as technological changes could all be considered part of a turning point in history
connected to the events of World War Two.
Northeast Georgia History Center page 57 World War Two Travel Trunk
Skills/Objectives:
Students will create a correctly sequenced timeline of significant events during the years of the
World War Two. Students will be able to make inferences about
Cause and effect in the course of the war
The effect of the war on the lives of people, both civilians and soldiers
Teacher Preparation:
Decide on the form that the timeline will take:
o Poster style: Students, singly or in groups, report on an event or person and post
their research on a timeline that becomes a part of the classroom wall display.
o Digital: To incorporate technology, a digital timeline can include music and
narration.
o Single presentation: A “living timeline” is made up of students holding artifacts
to illustrate the timeline element they are representing. They can “wear” a year
or identifying information and answer questions about their choice.
Teaching Procedures:
Introduction
o Determine the students‟ understanding of “timeline”. Review the school year
or a contemporary event such as a political campaign, in context as part of a
timeline.
o Focus on the EQ: History is a line of many days. We can put them in order
just as you do your day at school. A timeline can tell us a lot about the past: what
came first, what one event did to affect another event, how people refine their
technologies over time, what happens when people make decisions to adapt,
change or resist.
o Relevance: Timelines are handy organizational tools for remembering key
events in the order that they happened. This is a skill that students will use when
recalling important terms and events, when writing DBQs and analyzing
information for research papers.
Method: Determine the beginning and end dates of the timeline and assign
years/subjects/people that would be essential to the timeline (major battles, events such as
the attack on Pearl Harbor, V-E Day and V-J Day) and the effects on the homefront.
Clarify the necessary elements of a timeline, including:
o Correct Dates -- “about 1940” is not a good date for the attack on Pearl Harbor
o Accurate description of the document/image used in the timeline.
Model working with primary source: Place document on ELMO or project a scanned
images.
o Indicate key elements: source, date of publication or creation of a document, for
example. For artifacts, determine who would have used it and when.
o “Think-talk” the document or artifacts place on the time line. “Where would you
put this headline about the Battle of Britain?” Demonstrate placing an item.
Northeast Georgia History Center page 58 World War Two Travel Trunk
o Break into mixed ability groups or pairs.
o Explain that students will create contributions to the timeline using a pre-
selected set of primary source documents and images.
o The group is responsible for determining the dates/events for coverage.
o Encourage the use of items from the travel trunk, photographs, newspaper
headlines, examples of technological advances in the era. There should be both
primary source documents and illustrations incorporated into the timeline.
Students will determine the date a document or image was created and summarize its
significance.
o The National Archives has posted graphic organizers for documents,
photographs, magazines, recordings and other archival materials.
http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/worksheets/
Each group will then sort their primary sources into chronological order and display
their group‟s set of images/document copies onto the timeline of the war.
Students will interpret the compiled sources to identify turning points such as key
battles, homefront shifts affecting gender and racial roles, and the effect of technological
innovations on the course of the war.
Suggested strategies:
Jigsaw the years of the war so that every table becomes the “experts” in one year of
sources
Jigsaw the major events of the war so that one table has D-Day resources, one has
homefront, one has Pearl Harbor, etc.
o Groups should work together to identify the source, using the graphic organizer, and
summarize its content, audience and purpose. One student records the group‟s work for
assessment.
o Rotate materials (or students) to distribute exposure to sources. Ask each group to
share their findings with other students.
Additional Materials and Resources:
Primary sources from World War Two are available on line at the Library of Congress and
through the National Archives:
National Archives Docs Teach page http://www.archives.gov/education/
Library of Congress http://lcweb2.loc.gov/fsowhome.html and
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/primarysourcesets/
Focused collections such as Pearl Harbor images (34 large format b/w) are
here: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/related/?fi=subject&q=United%20States-
-Hawaii--Honolulu%20County--Pearl%20Harbor
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Differentiated Instruction
Provide a „word web‟ graphic organizer for ELL students and have them find the
words (dictator, Allies, Axis, battleship, assault, for example) in the sources and
record the sentence or phrase in which they are found.
Distribute a timeline of World War Two for each group to scaffold the process of
assigning chronological order to the events summarized.
Closing: Build the timeline
o If the groups have been jigsawed, students return to their original group work
tables and take a few minutes to look over the completed graphic organizers,
adding any details they have collected during the rotations.
o Each table in turn reports on their primary source(s) answering the questions:
type of document, content summary, audience, purpose.
o Copies of documents and images are posted on the timeline.
o Student generated illustrations of objects that are not suitable for a 2-
dimensional timeline can be added in their place.
Presentation and Closing
The timeline activity can be completed over the time spent on the World War Two
unit in the classroom. It does not have to be completed in a single class period! Every
installation of the timeline should have its own presentation moment however so that each
group can show their work, answer questions and discuss their choices.
Sequence:
Groups display their contribution to the timeline (poster page, costumed tableau, entry
in a digital timeline).
o Each group should be able to explain how the students came to their conclusions.
Display the contribution in chronological order on the timeline.
o Each group must turn in a written or illustrated page about their conclusions.
Review and ask for feedback: How does a timeline help you answer the EQ?
o Did you see connections that you had not seen before?
Assessment/Evaluation:
Check for understanding before, during and after the lesson
o If you end the day with structured journal writing, ask students to summarize
what they observed while constructing the timeline. What do they know now that
they did not know when they began the activity?
o Some key elements of a rubric for the timeline: accurately reported events (years,
name of community), students‟ ability to narrate events on the timeline and
explain their importance and reason for inclusion.
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JUMPSTARTING THE TIMELINE
The following pages show suggested formats for timeline pages.
Display them as examples for students who need an explicit model for investigation.
Every source should cite a DATE and a SUMMARY of its contents.
Use these pages as a framework for the timeline, keeping it in chronological order and
making space for student contributions
Pre-teach different primary sources (photographs, newspaper headlines, magazine
covers) by referring to the examples. Students can then match timeline materials by
referencing the examples.
Assign group work: Ask “who is missing from this timeline? Who else should be in it?”
and “How can you explain where these battles happened?”
Model linking dates and events in „cause and effect‟ relationships:
o What effect did the invasion of Poland by Nazi forces have on the United States?
o What is the historic connection between England and the United States?
o What should be the FIRST event on the timeline?
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World War Two Timeline September 1, 1939
Front page of the Atlanta Journal newspaper
DATE
SOURCE
This primary source answers
the question “When did
World War Two begin” and
“Who was the leader of the
German nation during the
war?”
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1941
Northeast Georgia History Center page 63 World War Two Travel Trunk
1939
Sept 1, Nazi Army and Airforce (Luftwaffe) invade Poland Sept 3, Britain and France declare war on Germany German submarine (U-boat) sinks British liner off Ireland
British Navy requires ships to cross North Atlantic in convoys Japanese forces attack the Chinese National Army
Adolf Eichmann begins deporting Jews from Austria and Czechoslovakia into Poland.
Oct 11, Albert Einstein describes implications of atomic power to FDR, who orders the a plan to develop an atom bomb.
Nov 4,Neutrality Act is signed into law .Isolationists in the US are intent
on keeping American out of the conflict but allow “belligerent nations” to buy arms on a cash and carry basis.
1940
January, Adolf Hitler orders unrestricted submarine warfare, beginning
the “Battle of the Atlantic”. March 18, Hitler and Mussolini announce Italy will fight with Germany,
“forming an axis on which Europe will revolve”. April -May, Germany invades Norway, Denmark, Belgium, France,
Luxembourg and the Netherlands
May 10, Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Oversees the Dunkirk evacuation by UK forces.
June 18, France and Germany sign an armistice, ending the invasion of France. Charles deGaulle establishes a Free French government in London, in opposition to pro-Nazi Vichy rule.
July 10, Battle of Britain begins with Luftwaffe attacks on UK August 14, British scientist, Sir Henry Tizard, leaves for the United States
with top secret UK technologies including the magnetron, key to the successful radar systems being used in defense of Britain against German air
attacks Sept 2, The Destroyers for Bases Agreement is signed. Britain obtains 50
mothballed US destroyers in exchange for 99 year leases for US naval and air
bases in the Atlantic and Caribbean. Sept 10, Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 authorizes the first
peacetime conscription (draft) in the US. Sept 27, The Tripartite Pact is signed in Berlin by Germany, Italy, and
Japan, promising mutual aid. These countries are known as the Axis
powers. Nov 4, Franklin Roosevelt wins a third term as US President
December. FDR tells Americans that the US will become an „arsenal of democracy’ for the Allies fighting against Germany.
WORLD WAR TWO TIMELINE
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1941
8 Feb, Churchill asks in a speech that the United States, “give us the tools”
to defeat Germany. 11 Feb, United States President Roosevelt signs the Lend Lease Actallowing
Britain, China, and other allied nations to purchase military equipment. FDR compares this to lending a neighbor a garden hose to put out a house fire next door to your home.
11 April, the US begins sea patrols in North Atlantic shipping lanes where American convoys are in danger of U-boat attacks.
8 May, Heavy convoy losses in the Atlantic continue; however, one U-boat is captured by the British. They find a German "Enigma" code machine and
break Germany‟s encryption. 21 May, American Merchant Marine ship USS Robin Moor is sunk by a
German U-boat. FDR declares a national emergency.
2 June, “Tuskeegee Airmen” (99th Fighter Squadron, Army Air Force) unit is formed– the first black pilots of the US military.
22 June. German invades Russia, their former ally, breaking a „non-aggression pact’ between the two countries. Roosevelt promises American aid to Russia under the Lend-Lease Act.
25 July. Japanese army invades French Indochina. FDR freezes all Japanese assets in the US and cuts off exports of oil to Japan.
31 July. Adolf Hitler orders his assistant Herman Goring to provide a plan for the „final solution to the Jewish question‟.
9 – 14 August. FDR and Churchill meet in Newfoundland, Canada to sign the
Atlantic Charter, a statement of Allied goals: open trade, freedom of the seas and political “self-determination”.
27 September. “Liberty Fleet Day”. The first Liberty Ship, USS Patrick Henry, is launched, a symbol of US wartime production.
17 October. The USS Kearney is torpedoed off Iceland by a German U-boat.
Eleven sailors are killed, the first American casualties of World War 2 in the Atlantic.
18 October. In Japan, General Hideki Tojo becomes prime minister, signaling the military‟s increasing power in the country.
31 October. The USS Reuben James, a convoy escort off the coast of Iceland,
is sunk by a German U-boat. It is the first United States Navy vessel lost to hostile action in WW2.
26 November. Cordell Hull, Secretary of State, tells Ambassador Nomura that the American embargo on oil exports to Japan would continue until Japanese troops withdraw from Indochina. The strike force heading for Pearl
Harbor leaves Japan that day. 7 December. Japanese planes bomb the US Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor and
destroy US planes on the ground. 8 December. The United States declares war on Japan. 11 December. Axis powers declare war on the United States.
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1942
2 January. Japan takes control of the Philippines. US General Douglas
MacArthur holds Corregidor, a Manila fortress. 20 January. Wansee Conference. Nazi leaders determine the “final solution
to the Jewish problem” is extermination. 15 February. British colony of Singapore surrenders to Japanese Army.
Japanese forces soon invade Burma, Timor and Bali.
19 February. FDR signs Executive Order 9066, mandating exclusionary zones in which foreign nationals can no longer reside. This order paves the
way for Japanese relocation. 11 March. General MacArthur leaves the Philippines, vowing “I shall return.”
American forces move to the Bataan Peninsula. 9 April. 75,000 American and allied troops surrender to the Japanese,
starting the „Bataan Death March‟ to prison camps.
18 April. The Doolittle Raid by American pilots on Tokyo does little damage to the island but boosts American morale.
4-8 May. Battle of the Coral Sea. American planes attack from navy aircraft carriers, stalling Japanese invasion of Australia.
15 May. First national gasoline rationing goes into effect in US.
15 May. A bill creating the Women‟s Auxiliary Army Corps (the WACS) is signed into law by FDR.
31 May. In North Africa, German General Edwin Rommel fights British troops now supplied with American made Sherman tanks.
3 June. Japanese troops begin the Aleutian Island Campaign, attacking
islands in Alaska Territory, owned by the US. 3-6 June. Battle of Midway. US Navy engages with Japanese and destroys
the enemy fleet, ending the threat to Australia. 22 July. Treblinka concentration camp opens in Poland. 7 August. US Marines land on Guadalcanal (Solomon Islands) to eliminate
Japanese defenses and give the Allies a „stepping stone‟ to use during an eventual invasion of Japan.
22 August. In Russia, the Germans attack Stalingrad. Nazi forces expect to take control of the city by autumn but instead face stiff resistance from the Russians.
4 September. In the US, Manhattan Project scientists led by Enrico Fermi begin work on an atom powered bomb
3 October. First successful launch of a ballistic missile, theV2 rocket, at Peenemunde, Germany, led by Werner von Braun.
12-15 November. Battle of Guadalcanal. The US fleet sinks 28 Japanese
warships, leaving the island open to American capture. 25 November. The German army‟s attempt to encircle Stalingrad and force it
to surrender by a siege has failed. Winter sets in and the German forces are now surrounded by Soviet troops.
1 December. In the US, coffee is rationed.
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1943
14-24 January. At the Casablanca Conference, Roosevelt and Churchill map
out a strategy for the invasion of Europe. 2 February. German people learn that the Nazi Army has been defeated and
has surrendered to Russians at Stalingrad. 7 February. Shoe rationing begins. Civilians will get three pairs of leather
shoes a year, using coupons from Ration Book #3.
14 – 25 February. American troops under General Patton link up with British troops to stop Rommel‟s drive across North Africa.
1 April. In the US, meats, fats and cheese are now rationed. 7 May. British and American troops defeat Axis (German and Italian) troops in
North Africa, ending Hitler‟s attempt to capture the Suez Canal and block oil supplies heading to Britain.
16 May. In Poland, the Warsaw uprising in the Jewish ghetto is crushed by
Nazi troops and the survivors are deported to concentration camps. 27 May. After A. Philip Randolph threatens a „march on Washington‟ to protest
racial discrimination by government contractors, FDR issues an executive order forbidding the practice.
29 May. Rosie the Riveter is born. Norman Rockwell‟s illustration for the
Saturday Evening Post features a woman in coveralls who symbolizes the 6 million female factory workers who have stepped into traditionally male jobs.
10 June. Allied forces invade Sicily, giving Allies control of the Mediterranean sea.
19 June. Allies bomb Rome from bases in Sicily, forcing Musssolini‟s
resignation as prime minister. 23-24 July. RAF (British) bombers fly heaviest raids of the war into German
territory, bombing Kiel and Hamburg. 2 August. Lt. John F. Kennedy‟s boat, the PT109, is attacked and sunk by
Japanese. Kennedy and his crew, wounded, escape.
3-9 September. Allied invasion of Italy, with fierce fighting against German troops who have supplanted the Italian forces.
6 November. On the anniversary of the Russian Revolution in 1917, Soviet troops take Kiev from German occupiers.
20 November. Battle of Tarawa. At the cost of 3,900 casualties, the US
Marines capture the island and its airstrip, nearing Japan. 28 November. The Teheran Conference brings together FDR, Churchill and
Stalin to discuss the invasion of Europe. 3 December. American newsman Edward Murrow broadcasts an eyewitness
report on the RAF bombing of Berlin
27 December. General Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower is named Allied commander of the planned invasion of Europe, code named “Operation Overlord”.
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1944
22 January. Allied invasion of Anzio, coastal area near Rome, Italy.
Concurrent attacks on Monte Cassino continue inland. 31 January. Allied invasion of Marshall Islands in the Pacific.
26 February. “Big week” Allied bombing campaign over Germany proves P-51 fighter escorts can protect the slower bombers.
4 April. General Charles deGaulle takes command of Free French forces
fighting with Allies and coordinates with the growing Resistance movement sabotaging German occupation of France.
5 June. Rome falls to Allied forces, the first capitol of an Axis nation to surrender.
6 June. D-Day invasion begins before dawn with Allied planes dropping paratroopers into German-occupied France. Hours later, Allied forces land on beaches of Normandy and Allied ships begin artillery assault from the
English Channel. By the end of the day, Allied troops have broken through German coast defenses in the largest amphibious military operation in
history. 13 June. German scientists launch the first V-1 jet propelled bomb toward
London. (V is for “Vengeance”, in retaliation for the Allied invasion.) British
targets call them “buzz bombs”. 15 June. B-29 “Superfortress” bombers raid Japan from bases in China. US
troops begin amphibious assault on Marianas Islands. 19 June. Battle of the Phillippine Sea, largest aircraft carrier battle in
history. US Navy pilots call it the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot” for the large
numbers of Japanese planes lost. 22 June. President Roosevelt signs Servicemen‟s Readjustment Act -- better
known as the GI Bill. 20 July. An assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler, led by a group of German
Army officers, fails.
10 August. US forces capture Saipan, Guam and Tinian Islands, giving Allies airfields for bombardment of Japan.
25 August. Paris is liberated by Allies and Free French Army. 12 September. V-2 bombs, the first modern rockets, are launched from
Peenemunde, Germany. More accurate than the V-1 bombs, five hundred hit
London. 20 October. General Douglas MacArthur returns to the Philippines, as
promised, wading ashore at Leyte Island. The subsequent battle of Leyte Gulf is a major Japanese defeat, leading to the use of kamikaze (suicide) attacks on US ships.
7 November. FDR elected to unprecedented fourth term in office. 16 December. Battle of the Bulge, the last major German counteroffensive
action. Allied troops are trapped in the Belgian Ardennes Forest for two weeks of brutal fighting in winter before stopping the offensive with the aid of Patton‟s tank forces.
Northeast Georgia History Center page 68 World War Two Travel Trunk
1945
20 January. Franklin Roosevelt is inaugurated for his fourth term. Harry S
Truman is inaugurated Vice President. 1 February. 1,000 American bombers attack Berlin.
3 February. US forces enter Manila, capital of the Phillippines. 4 February. Yalta Conference. Churchill, Stalin and FDR meet in the Crimea
to plan final assault on Germany and partition of post war Europe. They also
plan a peace conference of Allied nations to be held in San Francisco, the first assembly of what will become the United Nations.
13-14 February. Firebombing of Dresden by Allied planes. 23 February. US Marines raise the flag on Mt. Suribachi during the Battle of
Iwo Jima. Marines capture the island a month later, suffering greater casualties than the Japanese defenders.
7 March. US troops cross the Remagenbridge into Germany.
9 March. US bombers firebomb Tokyo. 23 March. Allied troops move into Germany from the west; Soviet troops
reach Austria, heading for Berlin, from the East. 1 April. In the Pacific, US forces begin the Battle of Okinawa to secure a final
“stepping stone” for invasion of Japan.
10 April. US troops liberate Buchenwald concentration camp. 12 April. Franklin Roosevelt dies of a stroke at Warm Springs, Georgia (the
Little White House). Harry Truman becomes President of the United States. 18 April. US war correspondent Ernie Pyle is killed by a sniper while reporting
from the battlefront, near Okinawa.
25 April. US and Russian troops meet at the Elbe River in German. Russian forces have surrounded Berlin by April 27.
30 April. Hitler and a handful of his senior staff have remained in Berlin, in a bunker under the Reichstag (central government building). Hitler names General Donitz his successor as president of the Third Reich and, with his
wife Eva Braun, commits suicide. 8 May. Germany having surrendered on the 7th of May, the 8th is celebrated
as “V-E Day” – marking the Victory in Europe. 26 June. The United Nations Charter is signed in San Francisco. 16 July. The Trinity test in Alamagordo, New Mexico, is the first explosion of
a nuclear bomb. 6 August. The US bomber Enola Gay drops the first atomic bomb on Japan,
obliterating the industrial center of Hiroshima. 9 August. The second A-bomb is dropped on Nagasaki. 15 August. Emperor Hirohito broadcasts the announcement of Japan‟s
unconditional surrender. This is V-J day. 2 September. Allied commanders and representatives of the Emperor sign
the Instrument of Surrender on the USS Missouri.
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2
Lesson Plan:
Reading World War Two Photographs
Goal: Use primary resources to describe the forces engaged in the war, important locations of
World War Two and effects of the war on the homefront.
Materials: Use copies of photographs from the trunk or
the Library of Congress website: www.loc.gov and search in the index for World war
Two photographs . You can also go directly to
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/cwphome.html
or the National Archives (NARA) photograph resources (see below)
Each picture can tell a story or answer a question.
Example: This is downtown Atlanta in ?1944
Q: Why was Atlanta an important location in WW2 ?
A: For the same reasons that it was important in the Civil War! The railroads which met in the
center of the city made it an important shipping and manufacturing location.
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Suggested Photograph Reading Process:
For each photograph ask students to follow the guidelines below. Students may
work individually or in groups, sharing the photographs.
Look closely at the photograph.
Describe the scene in the picture. Describe the people in the picture.
What expression is on the face of that person? (For younger students, ask „Are they sad,
mad, glad, or angry? Are they funny or serious?‟)
If you could step into the photograph, what would you be seeing, smelling, hearing?
If you could step into the photograph, what would you ask the person?
Write a caption for the photograph.
Sources for Lesson Plans: National Archives
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The NARA site is a gold mine of resources for working with primary materials.
Start here for an introduction to the NARA collection for educators.
http://www.archives.gov/education/research/
You can find lesson plans for reading photographs from WW2 here:
Curated collection of NARA images from WW2
here:http://www.archives.gov/research/military/ww2/photos/
A NARA lesson plan on WW2 photos?
Northeast Georgia History Center page 72 World War Two Travel Trunk
Photo Analysis Worksheet
Step 1. Observation
A
.
Study the photograph for 2 minutes. Form an overall impression of the photograph and
then examine individual items. Next, divide the photo into quadrants (with a ruler or
another piece of paper) and study each section to see what new details become visible.
It‟s important to take some time to develop a good mental image of the photograph and
identify any objects, signs, buildings, transportation or other technology.
B
.
Use the chart below to list people, objects, and activities that you see in the photograph.
People Objects Activities
Step 2. Inference
Based on what you have observed above, list three things you might infer from this
photograph.
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
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Step 3. Questions
A
.
What questions does this photograph raise in your mind?
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
B
.
Where could you find answers to them?
____________________________________________________________
______________________________
Adapted from a worksheet designed and developed by the
Education Staff, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC
20408.
http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/worksheets/
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Written Document Analysis Worksheet
1. TYPE OF DOCUMENT (Check one):
___ Newspaper
___ Letter
___ Patent
___ Memorandum
___ Map
___ Telegram
___ Press release
___ Report
___ Advertisement
___ Congressional record
___ Census report
___ Other
2. UNIQUE PHYSICAL QUALITIES OF THE DOCUMENT (Check one or more):
___ Interesting letterhead
___ Handwritten
___ Typed
___ Seals
___ Notations
___ "RECEIVED" stamp
___ Other
3. DATE(S) OF DOCUMENT:
4. AUTHOR (OR CREATOR) OF THE DOCUMENT:
5. FOR WHAT AUDIENCE WAS THE DOCUMENT WRITTEN?
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6. DOCUMENT INFORMATION
A. List three things the author said that you think are important:
B. Why do you think this document was written?
C. What evidence in the document helps you know why it was written? Quote from the
document.
D. List at least two things the document tells you about life in the United States at the
time it was written:
Designed and developed by the
Education Staff, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC
20408.
http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/worksheets/document.html
Northeast Georgia History Center page 76 World War Two Travel Trunk
Make a Museum!
World War II Edition
Materials in the World War II travel trunk can be displayed in the classroom with
museum-style labels written by students.
Supplement the trunk materials with student-constructed dioramas, interpretive
timelines, and photographs of artifacts, maps and portraits.
Northeast Georgia History Center page 77 World War Two Travel Trunk
If your museum display is in a high
traffic area, you might need this sign!
This museum was set up in the hallway
near the classroom door.
1) Begin with the vocabulary of museum work. Write on the board or post the bold
faced terms on a word wall and derive definitions for them in the context of the
travel trunk:
What is a museum?
o In a museum, people collect, organize, identify and take care of things (also
known as artifacts).
o The objects in a museum are on display so you can see them and learn from
them.
o Artifacts displayed in a museum are identified with some form of text: a written
label, an entry on a podcast, or an audio guide to the museum.
Museums are not just cases full of stuff. Objects in a museum need contexts and
connections to tell their story.
o Museums use technology to interpret the artifacts on display. Some museum
include videos that show the context an object might have been used in or record
a curator (expert) talking about the artifact.
o Exhibits include audio recordings of text so that visitors to a museum can hear
the label text as well as (or instead of) hearing it. Museums can place an iPad or
tablet in the exhibit with detailed information about the objects in an exhibit.
The goal of a museum exhibit is to let the objects speak. In order to do that, exhibit
designers have to think about how to display an object, how to protect it and how to
help visitors make personal connections to it.
Do your students collect anything? The methods they use to assemble, organize
and protect their personal collections can give them an insight into museum
responsibilities.
What do you collect?
How do you organize your collection?
How do you take care of your collection? Do you
leave your card collection on the floor or do you put
your cards in a box to protect them?
2) Make a Museum Exhibit:
Creating a museum display will require your students to
summarize information and ask evaluative questions about
the artifacts they select.
A student generated museum exhibit is also a meaningful
form of assessment, connecting your students‟ learning
with a „real world‟ presentation of their comprehension.
Northeast Georgia History Center page 78 World War Two Travel Trunk
A: Brainstorm the THEME of the exhibit with the whole class
Ask: what story will the objects tell us?
Here are some suggestions:
o Chronological - year by year, from the beginning of the war in Europe (1939) or from
the entry of the United States (December 1941), highlighting significant events and
people
o Compare and contrast – For example, looking at the Allied and Axis powers, students
can ask„What was different about their form of government?‟
o What happened in Georgia during the war? What kind of primary evidence do we
have to tell us the story?
B: Working in groups, match artifacts to the theme of the exhibit.
o Every museum artifact should help tell the story of the exhibit.
o If the organization is chronological, for example, each artifact chosen for “1941”
should propel the story of that crucial year as German invades Russia and Japan
attacks the Pacific Fleet in Hawaii.
o List the objects the group has chosen and present it to the whole class for
constructive feedback: Explain what the item is, who would have made it, written it,
and used it during the war. How does this artifact or document support other stories
in the exhibit?
o Each group should present a collaborative summary statement for the part of the
exhibit for which they are responsible. This can become part of the exhibit label text.
C: Find a safe place to display the artifacts.
o How much room do you need to tell the story of the war in a comprehensive way?
Look around the classroom for space. Pushing tables against a wall gives you
more display area. Grouping desks into theme areas gives you a „museum in the
round‟ experience.
o Clear table space, place the objects in order according to the theme.
4: Organize the artifacts.
What do you need to help your visitors understand the significance of the artifacts?
At the very least you need a label near each artifact, clearly stating what the artifact is,
what it is made out of, and how it was used.
5: Write labels for the exhibit.
Label writing exercise adapted from the
D-Day Clicker
Reproduction
Paratroopers were given this child’s toy and
told to use it to communicate with other
American troops in the darkness of the early
morning hours of June 6,1944.
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Smithsonian Museum activity:
“Creating a Classroom Museum”
http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/lesson_plans/collect/crecla/cre
cla00.htm
A GOOD LABEL IS ACCURATE AND INFORMATIVE
Comprehensive labels – Students, working in groups or individually, write labels for the
objects. In museums, the word "label" refers to the printed information in an exhibition. The
labels should include all the essential information about the object and indicate why it was
chosen for the exhibit.
A LABEL MUST
IDENTIFY the object.
Explain what it's MADE OUT of. Animal, mineral, vegetable?
TELL WHO would have owned or used the object.
TELL WHY someone would want or need this object.
Point out any particular parts that the viewer should pay attention to and explain why
they matter.
Keep your label short. (Remember that exhibition visitors don't want to spend all their
time reading. Also keep in mind that exhibition space is limited.) Three expanded points
may be enough to cover all the prompts listed above.
Place the label – on a folded card, laminated or otherwise displayed for viewing – on
your exhibit space and place the object with its label.
You’re ready to give a tour of the museum!
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Northeast Georgia History Center page 81 World War Two Travel Trunk
KWL pages - Want to Learn More?
About the World War Two Homefront in Georgia?
Interviews with Veterans – Help put a veteran in the Library of Congress
Put a Veteran in the Library of Congress
The Library of Congress Veterans History Project. American Folklife Center hopes you’ll mark
Veterans Day by taking time to talk to a Veteran, video tape or audio record the conversation (it
must be 30 minutes or longer), and submit it for inclusion into the Library of Congress records.
There are specific guidelines and forms, but the Library of Congress has a user friendly website
and a downloadable “field kit.” What a better way to pay tribute to the veterans in your family
than to ensure their voices will be part of the national archives for generations to come
See what is on the Veterans History Website already:
Photographs
http://www.loc.gov/vets/vets-news-photos.html
Models for MS/HS work
http://wwii.lmc.gatech.edu/charlie/media.php
Japanese American national museum
http://janmstore.com/aboutus.html
Annenburg Double V lesson plan
http://www.learner.org/courses/amerhistory/resource_archive/resource.php?unitChoice=19&
ThemeNum=3&resourceType=2&resourceID=10106
V-Mail http://www.postalmuseum.si.edu/exhibits/2d2a_vmail.html
http://www.brighthubeducation.com/middle-school-history-lessons/9189-wwii-project-
writing-and-producing-a-newspaper/ - also has “persona journal‟ activity