Exhibits containing tag : 19th-century-geography
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Smith's Geography - 1845
8/13/24 (updated 12/15/25)Roswell C. Smith’s “Geography” is a 19th‑century school textbook that teaches world geography to children and general learners. It combines maps, descriptive text, and question‑and‑answer exercises to train students to “produce” geographic knowledge rather than just memorize lists.Main purposeSmith’s geography books were designed for use in schools, academies, and families, presenting geography as a systematic course of study rather than a travelogue. They introduce physical and political geography, including continents, countries, major cities, rivers, and mountains, along with brief notes on climate, resources, and peoples.The “productive system”The subtitle “Geography on the Productive System” refers to a pedagogical method in which students answer structured questions on maps and short texts so that they “produce” the lesson’s facts themselves. Lessons are often arranged as:Map questions (locating places, tracing rivers, etc.).Short, concise descriptions of each region.Review questions to reinforce memory and reasoning.This approach distinguishes the work from purely catechetical geographies by emphasizing observation, comparison, and active recall.Content and structureTypical editions cover:General definitions (globe, zones, latitude/longitude, oceans, continents).A progression from world overview to specific regions: the United States and its states, then other parts of North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and “Oceanica.”Brief cultural and economic notes that reflect contemporary American and Eurocentric views, including value‑laden rankings of “states of society” and “forms of government,” and often problematic racial and civilizational hierarchies by modern standards.So, in short, Smith’s “Geography” is a mid‑19th‑century didactic geography textbook series, using maps, guided questions, and concise descriptions to teach basic physical and political geography with a strongly moralized, hierarchical view of world cultures characteristic of its period.Source: Perplexity.ai-- G. Ly
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Monteith's Manual of Geography - 1876
9/28/23 - I love the old geography textbooks because they are so raw, striving for accuracy and objectivity, but also heavily biased. I also find them beautifully designed. Tom PaperJames Monteith (1831-1890) was an American author known for his widely published geography textbooks in the 19th century1. He was born in Strabane, Ireland, and immigrated to the United States as a child, where he lived his entire life in New York City1. Monteith began his career as a teacher in New York's public school system and eventually became the headmaster of Ward School 17 (later P.S. 18) at 211 West 47th St1.In the 1850s, Monteith started publishing textbooks on geography and history, initially collaborating with Francis McNally, a fellow New York public school teacher and mentor to Monteith until his death in 185513. His influences included Alexander K. Johnston, Arnold Guyot, Matthew Fontaine Maury, and Emma Hart Willard1. A.S. Barnes and Co. published many different versions of Monteith's geography textbooks from the early 1850s to the 1880s, which grew larger, more detailed, and more sophisticated over time1.Monteith's geography textbooks were widely published in the United States from the late 1850s until well after his death, offering some of the most popular educational resources of the time2. His works were part of the National Series of Standard School Books and featured black and white illustrations and color maps4. Some of his well-known textbooks include "First Lessons in Geography: On The Plan of Object Teaching" and the "National Geographical Series"46. Source: Perplexity.ai
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