Sallie Eola Reneau

Sallie Eola Reneau was born on August 1, 1836 in Somerville, Tennessee, and had the first womens' public university named after her.

Sallie Eola Reneau was a crusader for state-supported higher education for women in the South and the founder of Reneau Female Academy, which was later named Mississippi College for Women at Columbus, Mississippi. Reneau hall, at this college, is named in her honor. Sallie was a remarkable woman and, when the yellow fever epidemic broke out in West Tennessee, she went and volunteered her services as a nurse. She caught yellow fever while in Germantown, Tennessee. A telegram was sent to her father in Washington, D.C., and he boarded the train to come to her bedside. In Pittsburg, a telegram was waiting for his train to tell him Sallie had died.

On August 10, 2009, university president Dr. Claudia Limbert announced that a new name for the college, Reneau University, would be presented to the state college board and state legislature for approval.

Christa McAuliffe

Christa McAuliffe  (first teacher in space) was a civilian mission specialist aboard the Challenger Space Shuttle, and died with the rest of the seven member crew when Challenger exploded 73 seconds after launch on January 28, 1986.

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986)

Georgia O’Keeffe and her paintings remain an icon of American modernism to this day.

Sandra Day O'Connor (1930-)

Sandra Day O'Connor became the first woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1981.

Lucille Désirée Ball ( 1911 – 1989 )

In 1971 Lucille Désirée Ball became the first woman to receive the International Radio and Television Society's Gold Medal. In addition there were four Emmys, induction into the Television Hall of Fame and recognition for her life's work from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Helen Keller (1880–1968)

In 1909 Helen Keller joined the Socialist party in Massachusetts. She had read Marx and Engels in German braille, and welcomed the Revolution in Russia in 1917. Keller was an activist for racial and sexual equality, and as an avowed socialist she had such left-leaning opinions that the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover kept a file on her. In 1964 she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Martha Graham (1894-1991)

Martha Graham died in 1991, after a career that lasted 75 years and produced some of the greatest masterpieces of the American modern dance. The Martha Graham Dance Company is still a vital force and can be seen in residence in New York City and on tour.

Katharine Graham (1917-2001)

For years Katharine Graham was the only female head of a Fortune 500 corporation.

Mary Katherine Goddard (1738- 1816)

Mary Katherine Goddard, printer, newspaper publisher, and postmaster, was born in Connecticut on June 16, 1738. She lived in Baltimore, Maryland from 1774 until her death at age seventy-eight, in 1816.

Mary Katherine proved to be a steady, impersonal newspaper editor and during the Revolution she was usually Baltimore’s only printer. From her press, in January 1777, came the first printed copy of the Declaration of Independence to include the names of the signers. Mary Katherine Goddard was also responsible for issuing several Almanacs, while in Baltimore, which now hold a place in the Maryland Historical Society.

In 1775, Mary Katherine became postmaster of Baltimore, probably the first woman so appointed in the colonies, and certainly the only one to hold so important a post after the Declaration of Independence.

Amelia Earhart (1897–1937)

Amelia Earhart's name became a household word in 1932 when she became the first woman, and second person, to fly solo across the Atlantic, on the fifth anniversary of Charles Lindbergh's feat, flying a Lockheed Vega from Harbor Grace, Newfoundland to Londonderry, Ireland. That year, she received the Distinguished Flying Cross from the Congress, the Cross of Knight of the Legion of Honor from the French Government, and the Gold Medal of the National Geographic Society from President Hoover.

In January 1935 Earhart became the first person to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean from Honolulu to Oakland, California. Later that year she soloed from Los Angeles to Mexico City and back to Newark, N.J.

Rachel Carson (1907–1964)

Rachel Carson, writer, scientist, and ecologist, grew up simply in the rural river town of Springdale, Pennsylvania.

Clara Barton (1821- 1912)

Clara Barton was born on December 25, 1821 in Oxford, Mass., the youngest of 5 children in a middle-class family, Barton was educated at home, and at 15 started teaching school. Her most notable antebellum achievement was the establishment of a free public school in Bordentown, N.J.

She is remembered as the founder of the American Red Cross.

Abigail Adams (1744-1818)

Wife of the second President of the United States, Abigail Adams is an example of one kind of life lived by women in colonial, Revolutionary and early post-Revolutionary America. While she's perhaps best known simply as an early First Lady (before the term was used) and mother of another President, and perhaps known for the stance she took for women's rights in letters to her husband, Abigail Adams should also be known as a competent farm manager and financial manager.

Read more here.

The Devil in The White City by Erik Larson

(Non-Fiction) I highly recommend this book, it would make a wonderful gift for any History Buff in your family. Larson explores Chicago in the Gilded Age, beginning with Daniel Hudson Burnham's miraculous design for the Chicago World's Fair (properly known as the World's Columbian Exposition ) held in 1893. The book starts in 1890 with Chicago seeking to have the World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago. It covers the life of architect  Daniel Hudson Burnham as well as engineer George Ferris who came up with a way to out Eiffel, Eiffel. Olmsted the famous landscape architect figures prominently in the book as well as Buffalo Bill. On a darker note Patrick Eugene Joseph Prendergast's murder of the mayor of Chicago is covered as well as the life of serial killer H. H. Holmes (born Herman Webster Mudgett). The book ends with Millet's death on the Titanic in 1912 and Burnhams's death shortly thereafter.

George Washington in Art

To commemorate the centennial of Washington's birth in 1832, Congress commissioned Greenough to create a statue to be displayed in the Capitol Rotunda. As soon as the marble statue arrived in the capital city in 1841, however, it attracted controversy and criticism.
Smithsonian Press

The Apotheosis of Washington in the eye of the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol was painted in the true fresco technique by Constantino Brumidi in 1865.

In Search of American History

In my search for the Perfect High School American History Course, I have stumbled across some interesting info.

On my parents bookshelf I discovered The Federal Union by John D. Hicks (Third Edition), which covers history from 1492 until 1877. It's wonderful! I also found Government and Politics in the United States by Harold Zink (Third Edition). My Father used both books when he was in college. I plan to have Lord Epa read both books before we start using the official classroom textbook. Which thanks to Tracy I now have. We will be using Glencoe's History of a Free Nation. While it's not perfect it does a good job of presenting different viewpoints and it has a TON of resource material. Many thanks, Tracy

Scott Powell also suggested several books that I plan to have Lord Epa read, they are:
1. Woodburn, Moran, and Hill, "Our United States"
2. Montgomery, "The Leading Facts of American History"
3. Harlow, R.V, "Growth of the United States"
4. Bassett, J.S., "A Short History of the United States"
5. The American Heritage Pictorial Atlas of United States History
Scott, thank you so much for the book list.


Speaking of Scott Powell, he has developed A Remote History Program for Children offered by VanDamme Academy which will be available to homeschoolers. This new program is the same curriculum Scott uses to teach his students in the elementary grades, and will be offered as a teleconference, like A First History For Adults.

And now for a brief interview with Scott Powell

(Alasandra)What lead you to develop the Remote History Program?
(Scott)The basic reason is I love to teach history! I am a historian working at fantastic private school, but to this point I have not been able to specialize in the one area where I truly feel a passion for teaching. I was driven to create the "Remote History Program" because I want to teach history, and only history! By reaching out to the homeschooling market, I hope to make that possible and to provide a product that students and their parents will really love.

(Alasandra)Can Homeschoolers receive credit for it?

(Scott)That is an interesting question. If I understand the question, let me try to answer it this way: At VanDamme Academy we have students up to 9th grade, so we usually face questions of accreditation when it comes to the acceptance of our students into high school. Typically, our students are so well prepared that it's not a problem. (The more academic the school, the easier it is for our students. Public high schools are far more rigid, and, quite frankly, irrational.)

(Alasandra)Are there textbook and test to go along with it? If not how would I asses my child's progress in the course?

(Scott)That's an easy one. I provide tests, quizzes, small homework units, and writing assignments as part of the course. I also provide grading keys to everything. So every aspect of the course is taken care of in that area. Also, I offer bi-weekly "teacher-teacher" conferences so that parents can get tips on implementing the program from me, and get answers to other questions.

(Alasandra)What makes your program different from the others?

(Scott)There are many important differences between this program and others typically available to homeschoolers. For one, you get direct access to me, a specialist in the subject. The most important dimension of the program, however, is that it takes seriously the idea that history--and I mean history, not "social studies"--is accessible and indeed essential to the education of a child. What sets this program apart is that it covers all of Western civilization in three years. It is not a series of disparate units, but rather an integrated story, that shows children, on a level accessible to them, the most important people and events of the past, culminating in the present.

(Alasandra) Thanks Scott, and good luck with your Remote History Program For Children.

This is an old post but I thought it would prove useful to those of you looking for an American History book.

Other additions:
The Making of America by The National Geographic
Chronicles of America
Chronicles of America Series
A People's History of the United States

Any textbook you can not buy directly from the publisher can be purchased from The HomeSchool SuperCenter or Amazon.com

Book Review ~ Roanoke by Lee Miller

This was an interesting book Miller hypothesizes that Walsingham sabotaged the colonist in order to destroy Raleigh. He believes when the colonist realized that supplies would not be coming they moved inland to live with a friendly Indian tribe. Because the Indians were not immune to the diseases the colonist carried the tribe was decimated by small pox allowing their enemies (The Mandoag) to overcome them and carry the colonist along with their Indian allies off as slaves.