Help me out with my History assignment.

Unfortunately, I have this big ass history assignment that isn’t due till Feb. However, I have to figure out my topic by Sept. 15. I have to write a 1500-2500 word paper that has to do with “Frontiers in History: People, Places, and Ideas.” It also must have a connection to the American Government.

Here is the hard part: I actually have to care about this assignment, because there are a myriad of scholarships and extra credit given out for doing well. I want to choose something with sufficient resources, an obvious connection to the topic, and something that isn’t too popular.

Any suggestions. Any other highschoolers have to do this bullshit too?

hey! That’s no fair, I didn’t get help from these people when I chose my assignment. Of course, I’m in Modern World History, so I have a larger area to choose from. I also have a very lenient teacher, my project is about Disneyland: a frontier in entertainment. Hey it was the first theme park, that’s a frontier right?You could do what a few junior friends of mine are doing although you’d have to narrow down the topic. Censorship in the American Media and the 1st Amendment, I dunno, I’ll get back to you on that. And don’t worry too much about history day, plenty of people have to do it. I get to do it twice.

Kitty

Hmmmmm. That’s a good idea. I thought a poster was bad, but I’m actually gonna have to research this time :(.

Okay, former teacher here. You want a project you can be enthusiastic about? Figure out what you’re already passionate about, and go from there. Love sports? All sorts of frontier type stuff with sports that tie in nicely with the larger social/governmental thing. Love Polish food? Look at all the issues surrounding immigration and assimilation via a look at the Americanization of ethinic foods or ethinic holiday celebrations. Love God (the Goddess)? Research the history of religious movements in American history and the impact of social issues (including slavery, civil rights, women’s liberation, etc). Love movies? Look at the evolution of storytelling regarding history–take just one area-Native Americans for example–and trace how the portrayal of their culture has changed, reflecting a greater? acceptance on that culture in our society. Actually, anything with entertainment can fit nicly into the frontier theme, because entertainment both leads and reflects wht is going on with society.

I had a couple of girls that did a project on the Middle Ages by creating several instruments of torture–including beheading a Barbie and putting another Barbie on the rack–they had so much fun figuring out how th make the props that the research about how/why the stuff was used came very easily. Of course, I had the start all my classes by beheading Barbie each day, but we all enjoyed that (oh, and this was at an all girls school).

Anyway, concentrate on having fun with the project–that will get your creativity engaged, and great things will follow. Good luck, happy researching.

Space is the final frontier isn’t it?

Are you a trekkie Cogitoergosum? :wink:

Read “The Right Stuff” and then see the movie (again). There are so many aspects to space exploration that you can’t go wrong. If this doesn’t toast your muffin, try posting some of the areas of interest that you DO have so that we may help you better. K?

Space categories:

The Race To The Moon (Whole cold war schmeer)

Satellite systems for communications, weather and mapping (i.e., GPS).

The new space station. (all the brou ha ha over Russia’s screw ups on their module deliveries)

Advances in medicine and materials that can only be accomplished in space.

The role of microelectronics in making space flight possible.

The spin off technologies from Aerospace research.

Interplanetary travel and satellite probes.

The list is endless and this topic can suck up many pages of blank term paper.

Cogitoergosum–I’d go with space, as dpr and Zenster suggest. Lots of good topics there that encompass people, places, ideas, and the US government.

Fairy Princess Kitty said:

I’m not an expert on the subject, but I think Coney Island in New York would qualify as the first theme park–it predates Disneyland.

A large number of the settlers on the American frontier were immigrants. Maybe you could do a survey of the various nationalities and what area they settled. Did they tend to divide into ethnic enclaves or mix at random? To what degree did they preserve their old country culture and transfer it to their new homes? To what degree did they create new traditions? Did they consciously seek out areas that reminded them of their homeland? Did they make their plans while still in their original countries or adopt them as they went along? What about cultural overlap in areas with mixed ethnic background? Did later generations continue these traditions and what examples of immigrant culture still exist?

As for connections to American government: How did these immigrants become citizens? Did territories compete for settlers in order to increase their population, and if so, how? What were the voting patterns of the various immirant communities? Did the political “machines” of the Eastern cities exist on the frontier? Did politicians seek the immigrant vote? What was the history of the anti-immigration movement and how did it affect frontier settlement?

MysterEcks
You’re probably right that Coney Island predates Disneyland, as you can see I haven’t done much research yet. However, I do believe that Coney Island was an amusement park, there is a rather large difference in concepts.
Cogitoergosum
The ideas here are all very good, but you eally need to be interested in your topic, another idea would be geographical borders. The Old West, California Gold Rush, the mexican american war, ummm national borders work too like the interaction between the southern US and Mexico, hope you got some ideas. Good Luck!

Kitty

FPK, get a copy of the book, “Drawing the Line”. It’s all about how borders and maps have affected history. Easy to read and you’ll love it. Zenster sez: Check it out!

Tell the brave story of Jebediah Springfield, who, after a misinterpretation of a passage in the bible, led settlers into the wilderness to found a great American town! Legend has it he also slew a white buffalo with his bare hands.

I like your idea, neuroman. I mean, if one must do research, I can’t think of anything better than The Simpsons.

Well, I definitely agree that space is a good answer- a report on the Race to the Moon would certainly have a bunch of interesting characters and events.

Not interesting enough? How about the New Frontier, John F. Kennedy’s call to arms for the youth of the '60’s. You can write reports on Camelot, the fall thereof, and the entire youth movement of the late '60’s.

Too recent? Why not take a look at the frontiers of medicine- investigate how medicine turned from a near-mysticism in the early 19th century to a vaguely rational science by the early 20th.

Or there’s the frontier of morality- take a look at the moralist movement of the early 20th century, reflected through the populist and dry movements, which resulted in some great achievements- the FDA, Women’s Suffrage, the right to a 40 hour week- and one dreadful failure- Prohibition.

CES,

I suggest you cogitate on what you really care about. The Simpsons without any deeper context will get you only the mediocre grade it deserves.

As an archaeologist and history teacher, I can tell you that the one critical piece of information is still missing: what do you care about?

When we know that, the answer will be simple…

-oscar

Another possibility: Where do you live? Since the whole country was built on migrations/invasions, every part of this country has been “frontier” at one point. Local history is always great because so few people actually learn their local history, letting you present information that is not generally known.

Conversely, since all those migrations were invasions, you can make the case that there has never been a frontier, only borders of the original inhabitants that were swept away by the new immigrants. (Speaking of immigrants, the two ideas immigrate/immigrant and emigrate/emigrant were only coined after the European settlement of this continent. English did not have words that specifically conveyed those ideas until immigrate was coined a few years after the landing in Massachusetts and the rest of the words were coined between 1750 and 1795.)

Like Baseball.

In particular, baseballs westward expansion, the creation of competing leagues (before the merger), baseball’s ‘gentlemans agreement’ to exclude blacks, public financing of ballparks, free-agency and baseball anti-trust exemption.

…why not pick today? Or tomorrow or the 15th when your topic is due?

It may sound silly but think about it a second. What greater frontier in history than today. Today IS the frontier in history. Yesterday already IS history. You could nail one day down and explore the ramifications of that day’s news on the future.

  • Didn’t the Space Shuttle just go up to work on the International Space Station?

  • We’re in the midst of an election…the next president likely to become a historical figure.

  • Wen Ho Lee(sp?) has been practically let go by the government after they had accused him of perhaps being the spy of the century by handing over America’s crown jewel atomic secrets.

  • Football season just began, baseball season is drawing to close.

  • Internet stuff all over the place…Napster in a fight for its life and all the issues attendant upon that, the Feds wanting to be able to read our e-mail (privacy), taxation on the internet, etc…

You could go on and on with this. Writing those few ideas above the major problem I saw would be limiting your paper to 2500 words. It’d practically write itself. This type of paper would be especially good as it allows you to speculate. As long as your speculation is backed-up by logic your teacher can’t mark you down for getting something wrong.

Finally, if the idea is to research actual history than you can compare and contrast similar events from the past (recent or ancient) and extrapolate on whether history will repeat itself (i.e. what history tells us we might reasonably expect to happen given today’s events).

Maybe it’s too far out there but I can guarantee your paper would standout for being original if nothing else.

Good luck!