Yes, I had to take a Maine history course.
It wasn’t until college that I realized that most people didn’t call it “The Maine-Missouri Compromise”.
Pennsylvania - graduated 1995. Had half a year of PA history. Mostly all we covered (that I remember) was Drake’s well (first oil well). We covered it because our history teacher was lazy and we had a film strip about it. I’ve seen that stupid film three times now in various history classes. Also we were supposed to memorize the name of every county in the state. Why? I have no idea. It was the first quiz I ever flunked, so it sticks out in my mind. I figured out it was such a small portion of my grade that it wasn’t worth wasting time on. Ooh, I was such a rebel.
Colorado state history was offered as an elective for high school seniors where I graduated (back in the late 1960s.) I didn’t take it because my family lived it and I heard “tribal” stories handed down from my homesteading ancestors to my grandfather and father. I did take such a class in college, though. We used the official Colorado State Historical Society textbook (pretty dull stuff, really) plus had to read Michener’s “Centennial” (much more interesting) which I had already read before taking the class.
We had to take New York State history somewhere around 8th grade.
There were numerous Indian tribes in N.Y. before we drove them out or killed them off. And canals were built before they were killed off by the railroads. That’s about all I remember.
Interesting history from my reread of Isaac’s Storm last night - the largest cash donation for Galveston hurricane relief in 1900 came from the state of New York, over $93,000. New Hampshire gave $1, tying it with Moose Jaw, Canada.
Go figure.
I’m from Maryland and we did state history in 4th grade. We went to Ft McHenry in Baltimore (where *The Star Spangled Banner * was written) for our huge class field trip. Maryland actually has a pretty interesting history.
I didn’t have to take a state history class in high school (Michigan 1980s) and don’t recall a lot of state history elsewhere in primary or secondary education (Ohio 1970s and MI 80s again). However, to graduate from an Illinois state university (Illinois State University, in fact) I had to pass a test on the Illinois constitution. No class required and as I recall the test was pretty basic.
I had a year of pretty diluted Georgia history in eighth grade. We glossed over our involvement in pretty much anything unsavory, but made sure to note what jerks the Union consisted of (as evidenced by Sherman’s burned swath). Very pro-CSA crowd down there. Although I do thank them for it in a way. Learning about the stuff my history books didn’t want to discuss was what got me into history in the first place.
Georgia history in either 2nd or 3rd grade, don’t recall for sure which. I remember that Robert Fulton did not invent the first steamboat, he just beat the Georgia fellow to the patent for same. And we had to learn the state song (which for some reason reminds me a bit of the Notre Dame fight song).
I think my 4th grade class is the only one in California history that didn’t have to make a model of a mission. When my younger sister was in 4th grade, years later, she drove the rest of the family to distraction in her perfectionist attempt to build a perfect model of the San Diego Mission. (San Diego de Alcala, I think is the official name.) We did go visit the closest mission, though (in Sonoma), and leared about Junipero Serra. IIRC, my teacher didn’t sugarcoat it much, either.
Anyone grow up in the far north part of California? What do you do if you’re too far away to visit a mission? Can you even finish fourth grade without ever visiting a mission?
There was a similar tale in SC. Eli Whitney was inspired to create the cotton gin after seeing a similar device used to pull the burrs out of sheep’s wool. I think Nathanael Greene was the person who supposedly had the “sheep’s wool gin.”
Sugar cube missions! I remember those from back in the late 70’s. Is making models of historical buildings unique to California education, or do other states do it? Or do other states have their own unique state history art projects?
I studied Minnesota history for a year in sixth grade. Our studies culminated with a class trip (there were 28 of us) to the capitol, Minnesota Science Museum, and Minnesota Zoo.
I had WV history in 9th grade and it was the biggest pile of BS I’ve ever seen. I learned more about the history of this state watching the series on WV on PBS a couple years back than I did in that entire wasted year (documentary was done like the “Civil War.” and "Baseball’ series PBS did).
I remember a full year of Texas History in what was then Junior High. We also had a semester each of Texas Geography & Texas Government.
Even earlier, we could read Texas History Movies, published by Mobil Oil–with the Flying Red Horse on the back. It was readily available in classrooms, especially useful for keeping certain pupils occupied while the rest of the class plodded along. Later, some outdated & offensive bits were deleted–apparently rather ham-handedly.
Well, lookie here: The New Texas History Movies by the late Jack Jackson is available. As Jaxon, he helped create Underground Comix, then began writing fine graphic novels based on Texas & American history. Sounds like a good update–& Amazon says I’ll have it in my mits by this Friday!
Of course those classes so long ago didn’t tell us the whole story of Texas. But they were a good base for discovering the other, more interesting stuff.
We took Ohio History in 4th or 5th grade. I recall the books being about as old as Ohio itself. We spent a ton of time learning about native people and their burial mounds.
I think we did more Ohio History in middle school. I remember we had to know the number of counties and maybe a few key counties but didn’t have to memorize them.
I didn’t have to learn the counties until I took Geography of Ohio as a nice cushy senior class in college (college in Ohio).
No, never any Illinois history, unless I’m forgetting something from the earlier grades.
Heh Kyla it is ENTIRELY possible to get out of school and never visit a mission. Maybe I slipped through the cracks, but I never did.
This topic miffs the shit out of me, because until recently I had NO IDEA that fourth grade was the year California does their little history/mission thing. I have absolutely no memory of ever learning that kind of thing, and I know for sure I never had to do any sort of craft project involving California history. How did I miss out on this?
I do recall lots of things from 4th grade, one of which was being taken out of “regular” class to do some special reading assignments and such, so the only thing I can figure is that they were doing all of that while I was gone. 
Funny enough, I’m planning a fun trip for my SO and I to Mission San Juan Capistrano. Perhaps I should build a model as well!
'93-'94 4th grade history was spent learning all about the state of New Jersey. We even went to Waterloo Village as an end of the year field trip. Ultimately New Jersey history has helped myself and my other Jersey friends defend our homestate when we decided to leave NJ for college. All of those useless facts come in handy. Does skiing and onions mean anything to anyone else?
I don’t remember any either, (southwest suburbs of Chicago) but I do remember the Constitution tests.
It doesn’t mean a thing to me, and I’m from New Jersey. But I took my NJ History classes thirty years before. Aside from a very little (and reportedly not very good) skiing in NJ, and the fact that they do grow onions there, what do they mean?