APUSH and the Golden Age of American Whaling
Open Letter to all APUSH Teachers
APUSH teachers everywhere, have you yet had a chance to teach the Golden Age of Whaling?
Most APUSH teachers typically introduce the topic when covering the period 1800–1848. They do this then for two reasons.
- APUSH Key Concept 4.2-III(B) states that “between 1800–1848, Northern shipping industries promoted the development of national and international commercial ties.”
- Many of the ships built in the North during this period were used for hunting whales.
If, for any reason, you haven’t yet managed to teach the topic, no worries. To get your students to know what they need to know, you need only put before them the PBS American Experience timeline found here. It’s an easy read and one that your students should find very interesting.
If, however, you want your students to learn more about the topic, have them check out any one of the following:
- The Golden Age of Whaling (website; Slice of Blue Sky)
- Into the Deep: America, Whaling & the World (website; American Experience, PBS LearningMedia)
- Whaling (4:00 video; Bobblehead George)
- The History of Whaling in America (4:23 video; Eric Jay Dolin)
- On the Water: Fishing for a Living (website, Smithsonian National Museum of American History)
- Yankee Whaling (website, New Bedford Whaling Museum)
- Japan whaling: Why Commercial Hunts Have Resumed Despite Outcry (website, BBC)
- By Killing Whales, Is Japan Trying to Revive a Dying Industry? (website CNN)
If you then want to have your students take it one step further, I suggest having them view a very good 6:08 KQED Above the Noise video entitled Are Endangered Species Worth Saving?
As your students watch the video, have them keep in mind that today six out of 13 whale species are (according to the World Wildlife Fund) classified as endangered or vulnerable, even after decades of protection.
After watching the video, ask your students whether they think endangered species, like whales, are worth saving?
Then if they want to share their answer to this question in a super safe place (other than your classroom), place this KQED Learn link before them https://learn.kqed.org/topics/5.
Here they can share with peers not only in their own classroom but also with students across the country, for KQED Learn isn’t just a private message board for the individual classroom — it’s a platform for more extensive discussion with students nationwide.
Lastly, if you, as an APUSH teacher, know a middle school or high school US History teacher who might want to place the above-described learning experience before his/her students, feel free to share a link to this blog post with that teacher.
