Featured Primary Source This primary source is a photo of graffiti on a canvas bunk on the troopship General Nelson M. Walker. Pvt. John Sales drew this graffiti with a magic marker on the bunk above his own. It includes Nashville-based radio station call letters, girlfriends' names, local schools, cars, and places in Vietnam where he'd been.
Pvt. Sales was born on April 7, 1947, in Nashville, TN, and served in the United States Marine Corps from May 1966 to May 1968. As a member of Company A, 1st Battalion, 4th Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, Sales was deployed and was wounded twice in South Vietnam. A sniper hit him as he was crossing a rice paddy in February 1967. On April 10, 1967, his patrol was ambushed at night by Viet Cong. Due to his injuries during combat, Sales received a Purple Heart.
This source meets both the 5.68 and US.66 Tennessee social studies standards.
For more primary sources about the Vietnam era, be sure to visit our website.
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Documenting COVID-19: Record Your Experience
Tennesseans, like so many people worldwide, are reacting and adapting to the global COVID-19 health crisis. As the repository for collecting and preserving our history, the Tennessee State Library and Archives (TSLA) is pleased to announce a new initiative to chronicle this moment in our country’s history and its impact on Tennesseans.
TSLA encourages all Tennesseans to document their experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. Whether in the form of personal diaries, journal entries, poems, photographs, drawings, or audio and video interviews, your contributions will be invaluable in documenting this historic moment. TSLA may share submitted materials on social media or in a digital collection. Submissions will be preserved for future generations.
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At-Home LearningFor the past several weeks, the Tennessee State Library and Archives education team has posted at-home learning resources that may be useful to you and the parents/caregivers of the children you teach. Please visit our At-Home Learning tab on our education website.
Here you will find three types of resources:
- Daily Primary Source Activities - Since April 1, we've been uploading a primary source on our education website every weekday, along with a few questions and a short activity.
- Documenting Pandemics: Exploring and Creating Historical Materials - Students can do this activity on their own from home to learn about the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918. This activity will also help them create a primary source about what we're all experiencing these days.
- Social Studies Resources - We have grouped a selection of social studies resources from the Tennessee State Library and Archivesand the Tennessee Electronic Library. We have added annotations to give you an idea of what the resources do.
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This Date in Tennessee History
May 5, 1925
John Thomas Scopes, a teacher from Dayton, TN, is arrested for violating Tennessee's Butler Act. Scopes asked some of his students to testify against him at a Nashville grand jury to ensure his case would go to trial.
May 25, 1925
John Thomas Scopes was indicted for teaching the theory of evolution, as the Tennessee state law prohibited teaching evolution in public schools.
For more primary sources on the Scopes Monkey Trial, be sure to visit our website.
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Educators - we need your feedback!
If you've attended any Tennessee State Library & Archives professional development teacher workshops, we are interested in getting your feedback. Please share your thoughts in the survey below before May 22.
Survey Link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TKFZ8RC
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Resources for Students and Families to Share COVID-19 Stories
Primary sources are first-hand accounts that reflect how people think, feel, or wonder about their current situation. They are evidence that historians use to study events from the past. Primary sources come in a variety of forms and have changed as technology has changed our world.
The Tennessee State Library and Archives encourages students and their families to think about creating primary sources to document our collective response to the Covid-19 public health crisis. We want to hear your story!
For help documenting your story, visit our website.
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The Tennessee Electronic Library (TEL) provides access to over 400,000 magazines, journals, articles, essays, podcasts, videos, and more. It's available free of charge to any resident of Tennessee and has 24/7 accessibility from any computer with internet access.
Visit www.tntel.info to get connected.
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