Or maybe you'd like to know more about the concentration camps that were set up in the United States during World War II for people of Japanese ancestry.
And, how about the California Gold Rush, or the pioneers that traveled the Oregon trail more than a hundred years ago?
If any of these things, or other interesting things that happened in the early days of our country, intrigue you, why not make a point of finding out more about them?
Most of us, when researching things like this, head for the public library. I love the library, and spend a lot of time there myself, but I have found an even more interesting way to learn about the past, and that is to read about the event from old newspaper archives.
Instead of the story being written by a modern author who was nowhere around when the event took place, the stories in these old newspapers are told by reporters who were, in most cases, actual eye-witnesses to whatever was happening at the time.
How much more interesting it is to read about the trials of burying loved ones who died along the Oregon Trail told by someone who was actually there, than to read about it in a textbook written a hundred years or more later. Reading such accounts from archived newspapers makes it much easier to realize that these were not just characters in a story, but real people, sorely affected by whatever happened to them in their daily lives.
If you have a hankering to find out what life in Mississippi was really like in 1759, or how the people in Chicago survived the great Chicago fire, check out NewspaperArchive.com
If you're like me, you'll be sparked into learning more about your family history, and the history of our country than you ever knew existed.
No comments:
Post a Comment