American Romanticism Web Quest:
Welcome to the World of Washington Irving

For this activity we will be going to the computer lab as a class to get you started.  Each person will choose a different topic.  Your choices are any historical, political, or technological event of the period of American Romanticism. 
      The American Memory collection will be your primary source of information.  However, you are allowed to use additional sources.  Be careful to keep up with your sources as you go along so that you can give credit both within and at the end of your presentation.

Erie Canal by John William Hill, 1829. Watercolor
 Found at http://www.history.rochester.edu/canal/

Graphic from American Memory Collection of the
Library of Congress

         Graphic from American Memory Collection
                   of the Library of Congress

2.  Begin searching:

        Here are some links to sites in the American Memory collection that you can start with.  I will help you find other sites if you need them as we go along. 

 TOP

          If you are looking for a picture of a specific person or event and cannot find it in one of these collections, you can do a search across all collections.  Type in a specific chain of words such as:  photograph erie canal.

4. I will show you how to copy the location of a source into a word document.  That way you can keep a list of the sources you think you may want to use and be able to access them later at home by saving your document on a floppy disc and taking it with you.  If you simply bookmark the sites on the computer you use in class, you won't be able to access them later at home.  You don't want to start off saving everything you find to the hard drive of the computers in the language lab.  You can come back later to the things you want and find them easily.  Then you can save those particular images. 

Have fun searching!