Of land with locations in every state. More than 325 Million People visited these sites last year. Over the next 90 minutes, well feature a mixture of Natural Beauty and history at eight different parks around the country. We begin outside of cleveland. Well learn how the canal plays a major role in western expansion. The ohio canal is part of a twocanal system that was put in place in the early years of america, built between 1825 and 1832. And basically its a water transportation route that connected lake erie with the ohio river which is part of a large idea, a National Water transportation route. In the early days of america, we had 13 colonies all situated along the atlantic seaboard. And our leaders at that time saw a problem. That problem was we needed that country to expand westward. However, there was a big obstacle. The appalachian mountains. Our first president , george washington, happened to be a canal engineer, had an idea. That idea was to create a transcontinental water
Next, we travel about 15 miles northwest of washington, d. C. To Great Falls Tavern Visitors Center where well take a boat ride to learn about the history of the chesapeake and ohio canal. I would like to introduce myself. My name is cassandra and i am a seasonal park ranger here at the chesapeake and ohio canal. I think were going to cast off here shortly, but well go ahead and start to give you a brief history of here on the canal. So it is called the chesapeake and ohio canal, but definitely doesnt reach the Chesapeake Bay or doesnt go all the way up to the ohio river, which is your intention of the canal when we first started building it july 4th of 1828. We wanted to try to connect the Eastern Shore with what was considered the west back then. The west was up in ohio, pennsylvania, that area. We wanted to connect pittsburgh to the Chesapeake Bay, and so what we did was we started building this canal. We tried earlier, it was George Washingtons dream to actually use the Potomac Riv
In 1940s, a photographer named alexander land noticed in riis book how the other half lives, that on the title page it says, with illustrations after photographs by the author. So he said to himself, well, where are these photographs . And after several years of searching, he tracked down riis son and with much coercing got riis son to try to find the pictures which turned out to be in the attic of the familys home in queens, new york, that was about to be torn down. So his son discovered a box filled with 400 negatives, 300 odd lantern slides and almost 200 paper prints. And delivered them to alexander hollande, the photographer, who again, taking a couple of years, created an exhibition of from the negatives making beautiful prints, modern prints from the negatives and working with the curator at the museum of the city of new york to put on an exhibition called battle with the slum named for one of riis books in which these beautiful, enlarged pictures along with excerpts of riis wri
Greys anatomy has collected every day objects that mark and dehumanize africanamericans. The founder and director of the jim crowe muchl of racism memorabilia he said they can be used as teaching tools. Next on american artifacts a visit to the museum at Ferris State University in big rapids, michigan to see a selection of artifact of a collection of thousands. Special thanks to the museums cinemagrapher recorded the audio and video while we asked questions via zoom. When i was a kid growing up in alabama, 11, 12 years old or so i went to a flea market hybrid carnival. There were carnival rides but also people there selling objects. One of the objects was similar to this. I purchased it and i broke it. And, again, it wasnt a philosophical thing i didnt like the object. I dont remember the second object or third or the fourth, but i started collecting, and basically have been collecting for several decades. Didnt start out with the anticipation of creating a museum. I was what most peop
Hampden, virginia. Up next, robin reed gives us a tour showcasing the forts history from a colonial era through its completion in 1834 and its role in the civil war. Welcome to fort monroe located on the Pleasant Place we call Point Comfort. Actually, oh, Point Comfort and that way for a long, long time. Here over 400 years of history occurred. In fact, some say even longer. Some say even thousands of years. Inside the museum aptly named, Casemate Museum. A vault made is inside a for the wall. Youre inside the fourt wall. Unique for museums this date in time. Well talk about the history that occurs here. Some of our stories deal with the virginia indians, the africans that first arrived here, and their plight during the American Civil War. Thousands and thousands of years ago, the natives of this land started to migrate. They migrated as far as, far west as mexico and the Mississippi River valley. They migrated as far south as south america, and central america. They migrated all the w