The goal of the Reel American History Project by students at Lehigh University is to stimulate high school, college, and graduate students to think critically about the ways movies construct our history.
To that end, this "ever in-progress" site is an expanding archive of student projects on individual films that also contains a variety of resource materials intended to enable other students to complete such projects.
Our hope is that teachers will read the note to teachers for ideas not only about using our material but also for designing student projects that we can add to the site or to which we can link.
The growing film projects section contains detailed analyses of more than two dozen films about American History accessible by title or by date.Reel American History contains the following resources for investigating how the "reel" makes the "real":
The section for students contains a note to students explaining the project, advice for selecting a film to work with, guidelines and templates for each of the fourteen parts of a film project, as well as more widely applicable research questions and research strategies.
The section for teachers contains a note to teachers outlining the genesis and goals of the project and five ways this site can be used, as well as a syllabus and assignment library.
The resources section contains a short selected bibliography and a longer general bibliography, a list of online film resources, a glossary of critical terms, a collection of quotes on the role and purpose of history and film history, and an extensive list of films related to American history.
The section about RAH contains our mission statement, the credits and contact information for those involved with the Reel American History Project, a comprehensive list of the content available on this site, and a timeline of project development itself.
Lehigh University students, faculty, and Information Resources staff under the direction of Prof. Edward J. Gallagher work collaboratively on the ongoing development of this site.
