Between Fences Web Sites
The following list is a Museum on Main Street (MoMS) resource adapted for Arizona’s tour of Between Fences. The following Web sites may be of interest to those of you participating in this statewide conversation.
The American Dream: Urban Sprawl
This is an abstract posted by National Geographic from an article about urban sprawl and its impact on life in America, particularly the rapid conversion of traditional farmland. The page contains a list of useful links related to urban sprawl.
The Border
This PBS website is a companion to its series examining contemporary life along the U.S.-Mexico border. It includes a history of the border, an interactive and text timeline, an animated map section that shows the evolution of the border, and a valuable list of links to other sites about the border.
Congress For The New Urbanism
An urban design movement that emerged in the1980s, New Urbanism aims to reform urban development to provide more open spaces, walkable neighborhoods, appropriate but diverse architecture, and a balance between jobs and housing as the best way to improve the quality of urban life, reduce motor commuting, increase affordable housing, and slow the progress of urban sprawl.
Devil’s Rope Barbed Wire Museum Home Page
The Devil’s Rope Barbed Wire Museum Homepage includes a history of barbed wire, describes how to identify different types of barbed wire, and shows images of different types of barbed wire. The museum also houses what it claims is the only monument in the world to barbed wire.
The Early Days: How The Wild West Was Fenced In
This online article from The Cattleman magazine offers an entertaining historical overview of how the fence impacted the cattle, the culture, and the landscape of the American West.
Encyclopedia Of North American Indians
The entry addressing agricultural practices of Native Americans details concepts of land ownership for the individual and the community, the cultivation of the land, interactions between European settlers and Native Americans related to land use, and the Native American’s loss of land to white colonists.
The Handbook Of Texas Online
The Handbook of Texas Online offers a very rich resource concerning the evolution of ranching and property rights, including the histories of particular ranches and ranch families, range wars, sheep wars, fence cutting, the impact of barbed wire, homesteading, the relationship between European settlers and Native Americans, the border between the U.S. and Mexico in Texas history, and other topics related to the exhibit.
Homestead National Monument Of America
The official site for the Homestead National Monument of America in Beatrice, Nebraska, describes the Homestead Act of 1862 as well as the process of claiming land. Under "Homestead Legacies" brief biographies are posted of famous homesteaders and their descendants, including the likes of Willa Cather, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Virgil Earp, George Washington Carver, and Lawrence Welk.
Our Documents Initiative
The Our Documents initiative is a resource for students, teachers, and the general public that offers photographic images of 100 milestone documents in American history, the stories behind the documents, lesson plans, and activities. Documents available for viewing include President Andrew Jackson’s message to Congress on the subject of Indian removal (1830), the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) that ended the Mexican American War and established the modern border between the United States and Mexico, and the Homestead Act (1862), among other documents related to land use. The Our Documents initiative is supported by National History Day, the National Archives and Records Administration, and the USA Freedom Corps.
Public Land Survey System
WorldIQ.com offers a comprehensive, interesting, and easy-to-understand guide to the history and concepts involved in the United States’ rectangular land survey system, information on the Land Ordinance of 1785, and maps and examines the system’s impact on education and popular culture.
Ten Families: Beyond The White Picket Fence
A contemporary response to the idealized nuclear family of 1950s America, American Families: Beyond the White Picket Fence is an online photographic documentation project exploring the daily lives of ten American families whose diverse forms reflect our country's changing family landscape.
United States-Mexico Border/Frontera
From the Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies, this segment of the Migrations in History website offers an historical and cultural overview of the U.S.-Mexico border. Topics addressed include people at the border, regions of the border, and the border in history.
