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"I Must Of Course Have Something Of My Own Before Many More Years Have Passed Over My Head": Sally Rice Leaves the Farm

Source

From the rocky soil of Vermont's hill towns, many young men and women in the 19th century went looking for new opportunities. Often they made a series of moves between farm, factory, and city. Their leave-taking pitted the responsibilities of maintaining family farms against the new attractions of financial and social independence. Sally Rice, born in 1821 in Dover, Vermont, was typical. In... Read More »
Thumbnail of a older photograph depicting a girl sucking her thumb

19th-century American Children and What They Read

Review
19th-century American Children and What They Read is a website born of a passion for exactly that—material written for children, and occasionally by children, in the 19th century.

20 June 1791, Anonymous Drawing

Source

In this depiction of the King’s arrest, the Queen risks her body to save her son, the crown prince.
Title page of A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture A Native of Africa, but Resident Above Sixty Years in the United States of America Related by Himself

A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture A Native of Africa

Source

In this excerpted source, Venture Smith recalls his experiences in the slave trade as a child. This source is especially important, as Smith gives a very vivid account of slave raiding, a common practice that took place during the peak years of the slave trade in the 18th century. Smith, the son of a Guinean Prince, was sold into slavery at the young age of three by his own mother. Unable to... Read More »
Title page of A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison

A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison

Source

In 1753, 15 year old Mary Jemison was captured by Indians along the Pennsylvania frontier during the Seven Years' War between the French, English, and Indian peoples of North America. She was adopted and incorporated into the Senecas, a familiar practice among Iroquois and other Indian peoples seeking to replace a lost sibling or spouse. Mary married and raised a family in the decades before... Read More »
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Advice of an Aztec Father to His Sons

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Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún recorded this text in the mid-16th century as part of an effort to gather information about native Aztec history and customs. Sahagún went to Mexico in 1529 as one of the first missionaries assigned to the newly conquered territory of New Spain. He remained there until his death, preaching and instructing youth in Spanish, Latin, science, religion, and... Read More »
Advice of an Aztec Mother to Her Daughter

Advice of an Aztec Mother to Her Daughter

Source

Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún recorded this text in the mid-16th century as part of an effort to gather information about native Aztec history and customs. Sahagún went to Mexico in 1529 as one of the first missionaries assigned to the newly conquered territory of New Spain. He remained there until his death, preaching and instructing youth in Spanish, Latin, science, religion, and... Read More »
Image from the collection titled "Making Pottery at Kwilu" taken by Robert E. Smith in the 1960s. It shows a woman kneeling over a clay bowl she is sculpting with her hands.

Africa Focus: Sights and Sounds of a Continent

Review
By using the search filters effectively, teachers can have students compare and contrast various images of worship, schooling, work, and landscapes to highlight the vast cultural and ecological diversity of Africa.
Photograph of a Goudiry Woman and Children

Africa Online Digital Library

Review
The site’s stated goal is the implementation of emerging best practices in the “American digital library community” in an African context, and it does not disappoint. Indeed, the site demonstrates a rare combination of scholarly sophistication, ease of use, and broad appeal.
The image is a detail from the a photo titled "Boys at Boubon, Niger 1992" from Gallery 5 of the site. It shows three Nigerian boys posing for a picture.

Africa Speaks: West African University Students Write About Their Lives

Review
The great strength of Africa Speaks is the honest and unfiltered voices of the Nigerien students. Rather than being described and defined by journalists, scholars, and other outsiders, they speak for themselves about the experience of growing up in a developing and politically unstable African country during the 1970s and 1980s.

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