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Growth of a Nation
This ten minute interactive movie is a geographic history of the United States. It visualizes the admission of all the states and the development of the territories, intercut with major historical events. The intention is to provide students with a visual frame-of-reference within which to place events in the history of the United States.
- The narration is available in the American History Resources on the home page.
- Guide to using the movie in a U.S. history class.
- Guide to using the movie at home.
- List of events in the movie.
Classroom Videos
The four videos are designed to fit curricular requirements for the classroom. Links to the distributors for purchase are on the main page for each video, accessible by clicking the appropriate image on the home page. Teacher's guides come with the videos. Additional resources are available on the main page for each video.
- Guide to using a video in a U.S. history class.
- Guide to using the resources.
- Clips. Our primary distributor, Clearvue & SVE (a Discovery company since 2006), now provides a package of 23,000 clips from over 3,300 videos, as well as audio and image files, which can be streamed from the internet or loaded onto a school hard drive for local area network access. For more information on this innovative use of multimedia, which includes the Animated Atlas videos, go to www.PowerMediaPlus.com.
NCSS 2002 Conference Session
This is the synopsis for a presentation at the National Council of the Social Studies conference at Phoenix, Arizona in 2002. Titled "Map Animation Visualizes History through Geography," it describes various aspects of the Animated Atlas approach to teaching history in the classroom. Go to the synopsis.
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Using the movie in the classroom
The movie can be streamed from the internet or from the CD-ROM "Growth of a Nation enhanced."
- The instructor can play the movie, as a whole or in the three parts, as an overview of U.S. history, before, during, or after more detailed study.
Part I: Completion of Territory (1789 to 1853).
Part II: The Civil War (1853 to 1865).
Part III: Post Civil War (1865 to 1959)
As the movie progresses, a time line pointer moves along the time line at the bottom of the frame, indicating the approximate date of the event occuring. The event is indicated above the pointer. (The events are listed below.)
- Short sections can be played by dragging the time line pointer to the approximate date and then fine tuning the pointer until the name of the event wanted shows up above the time line. (Release the mouse for the movie to jump to the new date with the event name.) Click PLAY to start the section and pause when the section is over.
If the movie is paused within an event, hitting play will replay that event. If the movie is paused at the beginning of the next event (just after the event text changes), then clicking PLAY will play that new event.
- At any time during play the movie can be paused and the instructor can make comments or there can be a discussion. Click PLAY to continue from the beginning of the event.
- Interactive features are always on, even during play. Click a state for a closer view, or click geographic features or a territory for the name.
- By dragging the time line pointer to the right side (after 1959) and releasing, the complete United States is seen as it is today. This is the version of the country students are used to. The states can be learned by rolling over a state to show it's name, or clicked for a closer view with the capital and major cities. The boundaries of the state are blue for river boundaries, and brown for land boundaries.
- When a state is seen closer, the perspective is with the state as the center. A nice lesson is to indicate a river, e.g. the Mississippi, as the boundary for a number of states, and then show this on the full map. The rivers are a major key for remembering the states and their positions.
Growth of a Nation enhanced
The version on the CD-ROM (for sale elsewhere on this site), titled "Growth of a Nation enhanced," provides further capabilities.
- With the movie stopped at any year, click "Population" in the small window in the upper left corner, to display the disposition of people in that year. The density by county is indicated by a light tan color, and important cities are shown as orange cylinders. Roll over a city for its name; click it for the population in that decade.
The density of slaves is indicated in red, and the location of Native American tribes by the name in yellow with the original range seen when the name is rolled over. All this data is selectable with a settings panel.
This Population layer can be "played" without narration to animated the changes in population. The transformation of the tribes into reservations is animated.
- Eight migration movies, short clips of one or two minutes with narration, animate the movements of people until 1850. These movies can be invoked in several ways, and are always seen in the context of the larger population map.
- A third layer is available by clicking "Timeline" in the small window. This comes up at the year in question; historic events at that time are shown on a series of horizontal bars, which indicate events in culture, science, world, domestic, presidents, territories and states. The president and domestic events have short essays summarizing them.
- For more information on the expanded version, go to the Instructions which come with the CD-ROM.
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Using the movie at home
The most valuable use of the movie is for students to become familiar with the overall geographic changes in the history of the United States. They can do this on their own time, by accessing the web site at home or at a library. The ability to change dates by moving the time line pointer enables the student to actually "grasp" history and move it around.
- The states can be reviewed in several ways. The name of the state pops up when the mouse rolls over it. Click the mouse for a closer but still bite-sized view of the state, with a few major cities and a sense of the borders.
- Likewise history can be explored in greater detail. Click a decade in the time line to go to an expanded time line.
The expanded time has the following parallel layors:
- Political. The events in the movie are indicated, particularly the admission of states.
- Territorial. The entry and changes in territories and possessions are indicated.
- Presidential. The terms of all the Presidents are shown, with small portraits of each individual.
- Popular. Some sense of the life of the people is glimpsed, including labor advances.
- Native American. Major changes in the treatment of the Native Americans are sketched.
- Planetary. Very important, a sense of parallel events in the history of other nations is indicated.
- Technological. Advances in technology and science world-wide are indicated.
- Cultural. Major cultural achievements world-wide are indicated.
- An important use for this interactive movie is to provide the student with an audio-visual overview of U.S. history which is also a gateway into the internet. This feature is rudimentary at this time. Two events, the Mexican War and World War I, can be clicked to go the the resources for those two periods, also accessible from the main pages for the videos on those periods. This is a large project, but important, as it would provide a way to search for material from the web not from a list of sites but from an overview of history itself.
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List of events
These are the events covered in "Growth of a Nation." They are in the order of presentation, which sometimes departs slightly from the chronology. At this time two of the events can be clicked to go to resources for that event. The final, 20th century events are available to be clicked but are not depicted in the movie.
- - 1783 - Peace Treaty of 1783
- - 1791 - Vermont Admitted
- - 1792 - Kentucky Admitted
- - 1796 - Tennessee Admitted
- - 1803 - Ohio Admitted
- - 1803 - Lousiana Territory Purchased
- - 1812 - Lousiana Admitted
- - 1812 - War of 1812
- - 1816 - Indiana Admitted
- - 1817 - Mississippi Admitted
- - 1818 - Illinois Admitted
- - 1819 - Alabama Admitted
- - 1820 - Maine Admitted
- - 1821 - Missouri Admitted
- - 1820-1850 - Slavery
- - 1820 - Missouri Compromise
- - 1818 - Treaty with Britian
- - 1819 - Treaty with Spain
- - 1810-1824 - Latin American Revolutions
- - 1821 - Mexican Independence
- - 1821-1836 - Texas Growth
- - 1820-1840 - Indian Territory
- - 1836 - Arkansas Admitted
- - 1837 - Michigan Admitted
- - 1840-1860 - Oregon Trail
- - 1845 - Florida Admitted
- - 1845 - Texas Admitted
- - 1846-1848 - Mexican War Go to resources
- - 1848 - Mexican Cession
- - 1846 - Oregon Territory
- - 1846-1847 - Mormon Trek
- - 1846 - Iowa Admitted
- - 1848 - Wisconsin Admitted
- - 1850 - California Admitted
- - 1853 - Gadsden Purchase
- - 1858 - Minnisota Admitted
- - 1859 - Oregon Admitted
- - 1850-1860 - Territories
- - 1861 - Kansas Admitted
- - 1860 - Slavery
- - 1861-1865 - Confederacy
- - 1861 - Border States
- - 1863 - West Virginia Admitted
- - 1861-1865 - Civil War
- - 1866-1870 - Readmission
- - 1861-1865 - Territories
- - 1864 - Nevada Admitted
- - 1867 - Nebraska Admitted
- - 1867 - Alaska Purchase
- - 1876 - Colorado Admitted
- - 1817-1890 - Indian Wars
- - 1889 - North Dakota Admitted
- - 1889 - South Dakota Admitted
- - 1889 - Montana Admitted
- - 1889 - Washington Admitted
- - 1890 - Idaho Admitted
- - 1890 - Wyoming Admitted
- - 1896 - Utah Admitted
- - 1865-1910 - Economic Growth
- - 1898 - Spanish-American War
- - 1898 - Hawaii Annexed
- - 1907 - Oklahoma Admitted
- - 1912 - New Mexico Admitted
- - 1912 - Arizona Admitted
- - 1959 - Alaska Admitted
- - 1959 - Hawaii Admitted
- - 1914-1918 - World War I Go to resources
- - 1921-1939 - Rise of Fascism
- - 1939-1945 - World War II
- - 1945-1990 - Cold War
- - 1990- ? - Post Cold War
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Using a video in the classroom
The video can be screened before or after the material is covered in lecture, as with other curricular videos. They can be played in sections. Outlines of the contents of the videos are in the teacher's guide that comes with each video, along with activities, etc.
- The narration for the video and a glossary of terms for the period covered are in the resouces on the main page for each video.
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Using the resources
The resources are designed to be used by the student at home or in the library to explore further into the content of the period portrayed. Resources for all of American history are on the home page, including access to the expanded time line. There are five sections of resources:
- There is a brief introduction to the period which is useful if the resources are accessed from "Growth of a Nation."
- The narration of the video is available to review the content of the video.
- The glossary from the Teacher's Guide is reprinted for each video.
- A gateway is provided to web sites related to the period and people in the video. The web sites are organized.
- Primary sources for the period are available.
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