The American Package Museum
Coming into a weekend, here’s a fun site that can help you kill some time and learn a little bit at the same time. It could also be a fun little side-trip or supplement to your classroom and lessons as well. Why not spend some time browsing The American Package Museum?
The goal of the site, as stated on their homepage is to preserve a visual record of the packaging of American consumer goods from the early 20th century. You can browse the photographs in alphabetical order or search through the index of the photos they already have in the museum. In some cases, you can get a 3-D representation of the package, but make sure your browser’s java is updated. (I used this in Chrome, Firefox, and Safari and all handled it very well!)
Some possible applications in the classroom include using some of the images in discussing consumerism in the early 20th century, how packaging and advertising has changed over the past 100 years, as a writing picture prompt, as part of a design project…the possibilities are limitless and I am sure your students, and you will enjoy seeing these little snapshots form the past.
NJBiblio 