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In a hurry? Save or print these Collection Connections as a single file.
Go directly to the collection, Around the World in the 1890s: Photographs from the World's Transportation Commission, 1894-1896, in American Memory, or view a Summary of Resources related to the collection.
1) Picture Postcards
Pyramids and Sphinx, Dec. 1894 |
As the World's Transportation Commission traveled in different countries,
photographer William Henry Jackson took pictures of important tourist sites.
Search on
some of these popular places:
Pyramids and Sphinx in Egypt, ruins of Carthage in Tunisia,
emperor's palace in Peking, and the Taj Mahal in India.
These images are often seen on picture postcards.
Students can search
Around the World in the 1890s to identify other types of images of
"picture postcard" places, such as temples, mosques, or ancient gates,
and people, such as warrior, chief, beggar, and maharaja.
After collecting an interesting group of photographs, students can create
postcard messages that might have been written by a Commission member.
The messages can describe the visitor's impressions or compare the
postcard photograph with something familiar or previously seen. |
2) Travel Brochure
| Have students create a travel brochure
describing places to see and things to do in one of the countries included
in the World's Transportation Commission tour. Use the
Trip Itinerary
to locate a country.
For example, a brochure inviting Americans to visit Russia might include
Close-Up
of Bactrian Camel Caravan with an invitation to join a camel caravan
and travel on ice. A brochure for India could show photographs of dining
at a wealthy maharaja's home, visiting palaces, riding elephants,
and touring cities such as Bombay, Hyderabad, and Calcutta.
Encourage students to use photographs from the collection to illustrate
their brochures and to write the text to reflect American viewpoints of that
time. |
Close-Up
of Bactrian Camel Caravan, 1895 |
3) An Anthropologist's Notebook
Warrior
in Ceremonial Armor, 1895 | An anthropologist, one
who studies social customs and cultures of groups of people, might find
many interesting images in this collection.
Search
on clothing, food preparation, eating customs, homes,
houses, places of work, mosques, and temples for
examples of social customs and practices.
Search on
specific names of native groups, such as Fijans, Samoans,
or aborigines, to see pictures of different cultures.
Have students collect a set of photographs appropriate for an
anthropologist's notebook and write a caption for each image.
For example, this
Warrior,
probably from the Gilbert Islands in Oceania, wears ceremonial armor and
carries a 3-pronged object called a triton. |
4) Literature Report
Have students select and read a book about life in one of the countries
highlighted in this collection. Students can then report on what they
learned about the country's culture, comparing their impressions from
the book to those from photographs in the archive.
Students might choose from these books:
- E.M. Forester, A Passage to India. Racial and religious tensions
affect romance and friendship in this story set in India during the 1920s.
- Jung Chang, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China.
(Nonfiction) The lives and experiences of three generations of Chinese
women reflect the huge changes in that country between the early 1900s
to the present.
- Suzanne Fisher Staples, Shabanu, Daughter of the Wind. An
11-year-old girl seeks to find her own way within a tradition-bound
family in modern-day Pakistan.
- Elizabeth Peters, The Last Camel Died at Noon. This mystery
is set in Egypt during the 1890s, complete with camel caravan.
- Jill Ker Conway, The Road from Coorain. (Nonfiction) Conway
describes her Australian childhood, which was characterized by sheep
and British attitudes that ignored the native culture.
- Jules Verne, Around the World in Eighty Days. Here is a
lighthearted adventure in which the characters cross three continents
and two oceans by trains, elephants, sleds, and steamers.
- Paul Theroux, The Great Railway Bazaar.(Nonfiction)
The author describes people, places, and landscapes -- not to mention
the trains themselves -- in Siberia, India, Japan, and other places in Asia.
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