Above: Part of an article from The News-Chronicle (Shippensburg, Pennsylvania), October 1, 1940, p. 1. Image courtesy of newspapers.com, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.
Above: Young women in the NYA, making maps and globes for public schools (unknown location, ca. 1935-1938). Photo from Betty and Ernest K. Lindley, A New Deal for Youth: The Story of the National Youth Administration, New York: The Viking Press, 1938, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.
Above: This photo, from the NYA in San Francisco, ca. 1935-1940, "shows youth putting finishing touches on model of the adobe barrack of General Vallejo at Sonoma. This being a part of the reproduction of historical buildings." Photo and caption courtesy of the National Archives.
Above: A community facilities map for San Francisco, created by the NYA, 1940. Photo courtesy of the National Archives.
Above: The caption for this photo, from the NYA in San Francisco, ca. 1935-1940, reads: "NYA girl putting the final touches on the cover of a binder for colored maps of the County surrounding Crater Lake." Photo courtesy of the National Archives.
Above: A screenshot of a Library of Congress Prints and Photographs entry for an African American woman in the NYA, working on a map in Virginia. (Unfortunately, a larger digital image of the NYA worker is not currently available.)
Need a poster, or flash cards, or a jigsaw map? Ask the NYA women.
The following is from the newspaper article, "NYA Visual Aid Workshop Plan," Delaware County Daily Times (Chester, Pennsylvania), February 6, 1941, p. 2:
"Do you want a poster that will show your Junior High history class how the Egyptians and Greeks built their houses? Or music flash cards with which to teach your third-graders the difference between the bass and the treble clef? Or a new way to teach simple fractions? Or a jigsaw map for the geography class to put together? Or a variation of Bingo to teach arithmetic, or of Lotto to teach reading? Or Mother Goose posters to decorate the nursery school? Or charts to show fourth graders the respiratory system?... It's simple, really... go to the National Youth Administration Center... and talk with the capable young woman who is in charge of the Visual Aid work."
And this comes from the Final Report of the National Youth Administration (1944):
"Rural schools needed visual aid materials and came to NYA for them. One West Virginia project is typical. In Kenova, 11 girls gathered, mounted, tilted, and packaged posters and pictures on health, safety, recreation, and State and national history" (p. 173).
Above: NYA women working with a map in Parkersburg, West Virginia, ca. 1935-1943. Photo courtesy of the National Archives.
Using visual aids and making physical representations are great pedagogical strategies. I remember them from my youth and used them as a College Librarian. “Doing” is engaging for all learners.
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