Special Collections seeks to connect educators with local history. State history begins in 4th grade and various classes in Social Studies and History are taught through 12th grade. The following resources try to match archival resources with Alabama's specified curriculum standards, with the hope that educators can supplement their curriculum with examples from local Huntsville/Madison County History.
A full list of curriculum standards can be found through the Alabama Department of Education:
2010 Approved Standards
2024 Draft Standards
Like any repository, the Special Collections has some knowledge gaps.
Curriculum standards are not as specific as they reach towards contemporary time periods, mostly calling for brief overviews of causes of conflicts, or important cultural phenomenon. At this time, most collections being updated with contemporary material are usually tied to groups, clubs, and their functions and documents. Analytical interpretation of the materials are new. That said, here are a few items that could be interesting to talk about in the near future.
In 2020, multiple protests were held in Huntsville (along with the rest of the nation). The June 3, 2020 demonstration was in the wake of George Floyd's death and several other recent deaths of Black Americans due to excessive force and vigilantism.
Images from the Ben Collins Collection, HMCPL Special Collections.
Images from the Ben Collins Collection, HMCPL Special Collections.
In 2020, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter Movement, Confederate monuments and other iconography were protested for their glorification of antebellum values, such as legal enslavement of African Americans. The Confederate statue, which was donated to the city of Huntsville in the early 1900s by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, was removed from the Courthouse Square in October 2020 to the Confederate section of Maple Hill Cemetery.
Images below are from the Jake Cornelius Digital Collection and the Ben Hoksbergen Digital Collection, HMCPL Special Collections.
Images below are from the Jake Cornelius Digital Collection and the Ben Hoksbergen Digital Collection, HMCPL Special Collections.
The content on the Teacher Resources pages originated from a Special Collections intern who conducted a survey of Madison City School history and social studies teachers in Fall 2024. Survey findings can be found here: