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Broadsides, a common term we hear when discussing primary
documents.
But what are broadsides?
Well broadsides are a poster sent out to inform the public.
Here we have a variety of samples.
Broadsides can take many different forms.
One form could be an advertisement.
Another could be a public announcement put out by the
government.
In this one we see Civil War volunteers.
This one is a home card put out to inform the public that they
need to reserve and cut back on food during the war.
It says "Save the wheat.
Save the meat.
Save the milk".
This one supplements this home card.
Here we have "Save the butter by not serving too much to each
person".
As you can see, broadsides tell us a lot about a specific time
period.
Let's actually take a look at one and go through the steps in
analyzing a broadside.
It is very important to pull all of the information off of a
broadside so that students understand the historical
context of the time.
First, we should always look at the title.
This one, "Great Inducements For Volunteers In U.S. Service".
It's broad and bold, and it already tells us a lot of
information.
Second, we should look at the picture.
This one is filled with symbolism.
We have an eagle, the flag, the arrows, the olive branch,
totally screaming patriotism, nationalism.
We move further down and we look at the narrative section.
Here we have a lot of detail pieces of information.
We can see that if you volunteer, you will receive
$13.00 per month for three years.
In total with all the extra fees that they are willing to pay,
you would make $1,167 to volunteer during this time.
Now students might start to ask some questions such as,
"How much is that?"
"What is it worth today?"
Well if we do that calculation we could tell students that's
pretty equivalent to $29,000 to $30,000 today.
We go on and look, that if interested we can apply to James
Reed in Lockport, New York.
Down below in small writing it also tells us that "Colored
Volunteers" will receive bounties if they volunteer.
If students start to actually research African American
volunteers during this time, we will find out that they, their
bounty was $7.00 while a white volunteer was 13 until after
1872 when equalized pay was established by Congress for all
military volunteers at that time.
Let's take a look at a second one.
This one is an advertisement.
This advertisement is showing cheapest excursions to Buffalo
and return, October 24, 1901.
We go on to see that a variety of locations people could travel
to Buffalo.
If you look here, Boston to buy a ticket from Boston to Buffalo
in 1901 it was $7.50.
If we actually look and research we would find out that that
train ticket today would cost $117.00.
But students might ask, "Why would all these people across
New York State and New England want to travel to Buffalo in
1901?"
Well let's move further down and read through some of this
narrative.
We find out that the Pan-American is going on at this
time in Buffalo, New York.
What is the Pan-American?
It is the World Fair.
This attracted over 8 million people to this area.
So you could see that this advertisement would be big news
to a town.
When students are researching they might actually discover a
piece of history.
A piece that they might find out is that President McKinley was
assassinated and shot in Buffalo in 1901.
Here is a second broadside representing that event.
This one is a proclamation by the Governor of New York stating
that September 14, 1901 should be a day of mourning for the
state in honor of the deceased President.
Also we know that broadsides exist today.
Broadsides, like we said before are posters.
We see them in campaign material.
This one 1984 is very unique because this one from Mondale
and Ferraro is printed in Spanish.
It offers a second language, trying to attract people that
speak a different language and inform them of the campaign.
This one here "Democracy: It Still Works, If You Work At It,
Register To Vote."
This one was published in four different languages in 1976.
Once again, you can see broadsides were here to inform
the public.
So bring a broadside into your classroom and let your students
explore a day in history.