In his article "The (possible) Death of History. The Disneyfication of History: Why Books, Libraries, and Librarians Remain Essential," Jamie McKenzie uses Thanksgiving as an example how our perception history has been altered by mass media. He challenges his readers his readers to search the world wide web for any trace of the actual history of the origins of the holiday. I did. This is what I found. The History of Thanksgiving, presented by the History Channel complete with a video that could be used in the classroom.
When McKenzie wrote this article in 1996, websites had not reached the level of access that they receive now. McKenzie notes that the most prominent web presences are those for tourist attractions. In 2008, this is no longer the case. Many colleges and universities have web sites with useful and accurate information. For example, if your looking for information on Hercules to combat the Disney version, Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute has the notes for their course Hercules the hero: understanding the myth available online. Similarly, APVA Preservation Virginia has a website simply titled Pocahontas with the history of the real person rather than the Disney heroine. Wikipedia offers useful articles on Rudyard Kipling and the history of Aladdin while SparkNotes discusses the major elements of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Although these are not ideal sources of information, they do appear in the top-ten Google results for their topics, leading students away from the more child-appropriate Disneyfied sites.
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