Eyewitness to History is, as the site proclaims, “Your ringside seat to history – from the Ancient World to the present. History through the eyes of those who lived it.” This site contains a multitude of first-hand accounts of people and events throughout history, and could be a terrific resource to really make your specific historical studies come alive for your students.
Caveat: This is a general history site for readers of all ages, and is NOT specifically a homeschooling site. Some of the articles on the site would not be suitable for your students – such is the nature of history – so some parental supervision would be suggested. Also there are ads on the site you have to navigate around.
Here’s a sample from just one of the hundreds of articles, videos and audios on this great site, on what it was like when Teddy Roosevelt & his family moved into the White House in 1901. We loved this one:
Just shy of his forty-third birthday, Roosevelt was the youngest president to move into the White House. He, his wife and six children brought an energetic enthusiasm and vibrancy previously unknown in the presidential mansion. Along with the family came a virtual menagerie of pets – including dogs, birds and a pony. The Roosevelt’s soon completely occupied the place making it their home and stamping it with their own unique imprint. Leaving the White House in 1909, TR remarked: “I don’t think any family has enjoyed the White House more than we have.”
…One of the favorite stunts of the children was to crawl through the space between ceilings and floors where no living being but rats and ferrets had been for years. They took delight also in roller-skating and bicycle-riding all over the house, especially on the smooth hardwood floors. Practically every member of the family, with the exception of the President and Mrs. Roosevelt, had a pair of wooden stilts, and no stairs were too well carpeted or too steep for their climbing, no tree too high to scramble to the top, no fountain too deep to take a dip, no furniture too good or too high to use for leapfrog and horseplay, no bed was too expensive or chair too elegantly upholstered to be used as a resting place for the various pets in the household…
CLICK HERE to go to the site
Mary Mallon, a cook for several well-to-do families, seemed a healthy woman when a health inspector knocked on her door in 1907, yet she was in actuality the cause of several deadly typhoid outbreaks – and before long, she would become known as the infamous “Typhoid Mary”. (Did you notice the “eggs” she is cooking in this vintage illustration?)
Ever have a toothache? Be glad you didn’t have one 400 years ago. The poor soul in this picture can give you an idea of what it was like getting your teeth fixed way back when.
Here’s an excellent audio story about an almost forgotten pioneer American Inventor, Thomas Blanchard, whose inventions revolutionized modern manufacturing. Blanchard was a real handful as a boy. He was thrown out of school for rowdiness, and burned down his family’s kitchen trying to “invent” his own blacksmith’s kiln. His punishment for these offenses… to be apprenticed to his brother, hammering out tacks twelve hours a day in his factory. But what Thomas did next changed the course of the industrial revolution forever, as you will hear in this great 15 minute audio dramatization!
The Christmas of 1776: A Young Maiden’s Story by Anne Hollingsworth Wharton (PDF ebook)
“The First New England Christmas: A Story of Life in the Colonies” by Stone & Frickett (PDF ebook)
OLogy! is a science website for kids from the American Museum of Natural History. “OLogy” means “the study of”, and the site has a several extensive collections of resources, games, hands-on activites and videos covering Anthropology, Archaeology, Astronomy, Biodiversity, the Brain, Genetics, Marine Biology, Microbiology, Physics, Zoology and more.
One of our favorite history publications for the past 50+ years was American Heritage, “the distinguished magazine of history”. Their lavishly illustrated articles on all things American – history, values, ingenuity and culture – are just great. After ceasing publication of the physical magazine in 2016, it has returned in an online format. The magazine is currently offering free subscriptions to the new digital version of American Heritage. Subscribers receive free digital issues and newsletters as they are published, plus access to over 7,000 articles and essays in their archives. The newsletters will be once-a-month emails with history news, reviews, and other items of interest.
The Thanksgiving Story by Teri Ann Berg Olsen