Teaching Twentieth-Century Montana History

The Montana Mosaic DVD and Companion Website

Starting this fall, Montana secondary school teachers wall have a new tool for teaching twentieth-century Montana history: the Montana Mosaic: Twentieth-Century People and Events DVD and companion website developed by the Montana Historical Society with the help of a nearly two-hundred-thousand-dollar grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Each of the DVD's twelve chapters tells the story of a particular era in Montana history, describing the events that occurred during the period as well as the ways in which they connected to national and world events of the day and to other eras in the state's history. The vignettes highlight six overarching themes: industrialization and deindustrialization, relocation and dislocation, ethnic migration, federalization, environmentalism, and progressivism.

The Montana Mosaic project is the result of the work of many people over the last two years. Recognizing the dearth of materials for teaching twentiethcentury Montana history, the Montana Historical Society (MHS) in 2004 hired Gita Saedi of West of Kin Productions in Missoula to develop the DVD with the help of a fifteen-member advisory panel made up of teachers, historians, and MHS staff. As the panel discussed the project and established its framework, two questions remained paramount: Will the story be interesting to students and will it make students want to know more about the topics?

When the planning stage was completed, Saedi and her research assistants began scouring the MHS collections and the archives of Montana PBS to find oral histories, photographs, newspapers and primary documents, film, and artifacts that would illuminate the fifteen to twenty-five minutes of documentary film used in each of the DVD's twelve chapters. Then it was up to Saedi to weave the diverse strands into cohesive, compelling stories that would encourage debate as well as help students learn how to formulate questions, articulate statements, and synthesize new information.

As Saedi was putting together the film, the MHS Education Office created the Montana Mosaic website (http://www.his.state.mt.us/ education/MontanaMosaic.asp) to provide students with additional stories and other materials related to the DVD. For example, the website's companion story for the DVD chapter that describes Indian children's experiences at federal boarding schools in Montana discusses the 1904 Fort Shaw Girls' World Championship basketball team. The companion story to the DVD chapter that discusses Jeannette Rankin, Montana's first congresswoman, looks at Montana's response to World War I, the Sedition Act of 1918, and the Montana Council of Defense. The website also provides a wealth of historical photographs and documents from MHS collections, allowing students to conduct primary-source research even though they may not be able to visit the historical society in person.

One of the strengths of the Montana Mosaic project is its flexibility in application. The website offers teachers background information for all the DVD chapters as well as information that they can use to retool existing lesson plans or to create new lessons and activities. Ready-made, content-rich lessons are just a click away. The website also offers educators a chart that correlates the DVD's chapters to the new Montana history textbook now in production at MHS.

To introduce Montana educators to the Montana Mosaic project, MHS and Carroll College cosponsored a three-day teachers' institute in Helena this past June. Funded by the Montana Committee for the Humanities, the workshop encouraged intellectual exchange between secondary teachers and thirteen Montana history scholars who attended and explored options for using the DVD and website in the classroom.

The Montana Mosaic project makes it possible for young Montanans to better understand their state's history and thus to become active citizens in the twenty-first century. This fall every middle and high school in Montana received a free copy of the DVD. For more information on the project, contact Linda Wruck at (406) 444-4794 or e-mail lwruck@mt.gov.

Linda Wruck is the Montana Mosaic project director and the Montana Historical Society's education officer.

Copyright Montana Historical Society Autumn 2006
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