About

This project was created by Andrew Hutsko as the final project of the class HIST 689 Teaching and Learning History in the Digital Age, taken in the Summer 2021 with Dr. Kelly Schrum. The course was part of the Graduate Certificate program in Digital Public Humanities at George Mason University. This project is intended for first year undergraduate students taking their first college level history course. The purpose of my project is to help these students learn the skills of historical thinking that are crucial to the work of historians. My goal with this project, is to help first year undergraduate students discover, that through the close examination of primary sources, many of our most commonly held historical narratives are either untrue or grossly oversimplify that which is much more complicated. I selected the narrative of the United States being the great "melting pot" and have chosen nine primary sources that highlight how for one group, the Carpatho-Rusyns, the "melting pot" narrative is not entirely accurate. By examining these nine primary sources like a historian would, students will realize how certain historical narratives do not always tell the full story about the past.