In the news this week CNN reports on a recently unearthed Civil War POW camp, and the artifacts found that belonged to Union soldiers taken prisoner there. Then, read up on two how-tos: how-to join the Twitter crowd and how to get students interested in history. We also bring you two links to image heavy posts. The first is 70 color photographs from the Farm Security Administration, while the second is a book of summer moments from the early 1900s. Finally, read about the controversy around a new Watergate exhibit, NPR’s look at the “Anniversary of a Lynching,” and a new series of biographies from Yale University Press.

News

• Major archaeological find at site of Civil War prison
  CNN reports on the discovery of the Camp Lawton, run by the Confederacy during the Civil War. Archaeologists have uncovered many artifacts belonging to Union prisoners at the site.

How-to

• How to Start Tweeting (and Why You Might Want To)
  The Chronicle’s Profhacker blog explains how to set up a Twitter account and join the conversation. If you do decide to join, check out the AHA’s Twitter profile here.
• “I hate history”: Thinking of Ways to Get the Average, History-Hating Student Interested in the Study of the Past
  Randall Stephens at The Historical Society blog considers some ways to get students interested in studying history.

Images

• Captured: America in Color from 1939–43
  The Denver Post has put online 70 color photographs from taken by the Farm Security Administration photographers of the effects of the Great Depression in rural and small town America.
• An Idle Record of an Idle Summer
  As the summer draws closer to an end take a look at An Idle Record of an Idle Summer from 1909 with the National Museum of American History blog.

More

• Watergate Becomes Sore Point at Nixon Library
  The Nixon Foundation, which ran the Nixon Library until three years ago when the National Archives took it over, is upset with the National Archives’ new exhibit on Watergate because they feel it is less forgiving of their former boss than the one the Foundation had on display previously. The new exhibit was scheduled to have opened on July 1. In the meantime, the museum has posted a some of the oral history materials behind the Watergate exhibit online.
• Strange Fruit: Anniversary Of A Lynching
  August 6th marked the 80th anniversary of a man’s narrow escape of a lynching in Marion, Indiana, for an alleged armed robbery and murder. In his book, A Time of Terror: A Survivor’s Story, the man (James Cameron) recalls the events of that harrowing evening. You can also listen to his story on NPR’s All Things Considered.
• Sarah Bernhardt Premieres in Yale’s New ‘Jewish Lives’ Series
  A new series of biographies of “Jewish Lives” from Yale University Press begins with Robert Gottlieb’s Sarah: The Life of Sarah Bernhardt.

Contributors: David Darlington, Elisabeth Grant, Vernon Horn, and Jessica Pritchard

This post first appeared on AHA Today.