 An irreverent, surprising, and fresh approach to teaching social history to secondary schoolers, Past/Present:1906 is an immersive digital video game where players live the lives of Americans from eras past. Imagine a learning experience where students are thrust into the everyday hustle and bustle of a century or two ago. That’s what they’ll find in Past/Present: 1906, a fully realized 3-D “virtual world” in which a player can “become” a fictional character or avatar who is caught up in the big issues of his or her time. Players can choose to become either Anna Caruso, an immigrant weaver at the Boylston Mill in the fictional New England town of Eureka Falls, or Walter Armbruster, a native-born middle-manager at the same factory. Players have various things to do -- read the newspaper, buy groceries, retrieve a mysterious package -- which help them understand what life was like in a mill town at the turn of the twentieth century. And by talking to characters in the town -- friends, merchants, newsboys, cops -- the player can learn about his or her avatar’s social, political and economic challenges. While the player is enjoying undertaking quests and solving mysteries, she is also making important life decisions on behalf of her character. Should Anna go on strike and risk losing her livelihood? How will Walter deal with labor unrest and the potential loss of the mill? One of the hallmarks of Past/Present: 1906 is that the students encounter multiple points of view. For instance, there are two newspapers in Eureka Falls, one a corporate booster and one that agitates for labor. Characters the player meets reflect clashing worldviews, from a fiery socialist vegetable peddler to the mill’s watchman, a loyal company man. Students will come to understand that history in not painted in black and white but in infinite shades of grey. In the multi-layered storytelling that is at its core, Past/Present: 1906 has the virtue of reminding us of the need for complexity in our understanding of the human condition. Past/Present: 1906 is played in your browser over the internet. A brief download of the game engine is required to begin playing. Please check our Beta Tech Notes for more details. For further questions, please contact us at pastpresent@cnam.com. Past/Present: 1906 is tightly aligned with secondary school state and national history standards. It has been developed with support from grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
 
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