Scope and Contents:
This collection consists of an album created by Faytima A. Pond as a class report for a summer course for educators offered by the Illinois State Normal University in 1926.
Faytima A. Pond (1892-1949) was an educator who taught in both rural and public schools within and surrounding Sangamon County, Illinois, including the Ridgely School in Springfield, Illinois. From July 24-August 7, 1926, she joined a group of student teachers at Illinois State Normal University (now Illinois State University) on a 2,300-mile statewide bus trip (referred to as the "Geography Field Tour") under the direction of Dr. Robert G. Buzzard and assisted by Mabel Crompton. Forty student teachers enrolled on the trip, and for two weeks, the group traveled throughout Illinois where they visited various historical, agricultural, and industrial sites, and camped every night. The trip was an "effort to discover how people make a living in response to their geographic surroundings."
This collection contains an album created by Faytima A. Pond in response to the Geography Field Tour she took in 1926 with an Illinois State Normal University geography class for student teachers. The album, Pond's final project for the course, contains her reflections on the trip, various maps of Illinois, and photographs taken on the Geography Field Tour. Also included is a copy of the student newspaper, The Vidette, which announced the field trip and a map of the route. Among the places covered on the trip were Quincy, Rock Island, Port Byron, Galena (smelters), Apple River, Zion City, Ottawa, LaSalle, Streator, DePue, Elgin (sewage treatment), Chicago (stock yards), Urbana, Mattoon, Olney, Lawrence and Cumberland Counties (oil), Olney, Shawneetown, Cairo (levees, Sears home-parts warehouse), Jackson County, Cahokia (Mounds), Decatur, Petersburg (New Salem), and Springfield (Lincoln sites).
Vincent Golden, whose aunt was a college friend of Faytima A. Pond, donated the album to the Library in 2004.
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