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Teaching History with Historic Clothing Artifacts

Teaching History with Historic Clothing Artifacts

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Clothing is a familiar item for all people. This led the Ohio State University Historic Costume & Textiles Collection and the History Teaching Institute to partner to develop innovative curricula correlated to academic standards in United States History for eighth through twelfth grades using primary source historic nineteenth and twentieth century clothing artifacts. Through this effort students will see the connection between themselves and history through historic clothing artifacts and the technologies used to produce these items of clothing.

The Historic Costume & Textiles Collection developed Fashion2Fiber (F2F) and the Fiber Reference Image Library as digital references to enhance learning with historic costume and textile artifacts. It is not always possible for artifacts to be taken into the classroom at the college level, let alone to classrooms in middle and high schools. This digital tool provides an opportunity to virtually take our artifacts outside of our building and into the community.