Lesson Plan Westward Migration: Opportunities and Dangers K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Click here to download this four-lesson unit.
Interactive Timeline: Fulfilling America's Founding Principles: African American History Government and Civics
Essay Populism and Agrarian Discontent Michael Kazin Economics, Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Today, the Gilded Age evokes thoughts of “robber baron” industrialists, immigrants toiling long hours in factories for little pay, massive strikes that were often put down by force, and political corruption in both big cities and the...
Essay Immigration and Migration Hasia Diner Economics, Government and Civics 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ The United States emerged in the last third of the nineteenth century as an industrial powerhouse, producing goods that then circulated around the world. People in distant countries used American-made clothes, shoes, textiles,...
Essay "Hidden Practices": Frederick Douglass on Segregation and Black Achievement, 1887 Edward L. Ayers Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Frederick Douglass recalled his feelings when slavery came to an end, after so much work and so many sacrifices. "I felt that I had reached the end of the noblest and best part of my life," he admitted. But Douglass hardly...
Essay The Gilded Age T. Jackson Lears When I was a college student in the late 1960s, the most popular US history courses were the ones that covered the Gilded Age. They promised to illuminate the origins of urgent contemporary problems. Their canvas was broad and filled...
Essay The Development of the West Ned Blackhawk In the summer of 1876, two dramatically different places captured the American nation’s attention. As the summer began, fairgoers in Philadelphia teemed into the Centennial Exhibition held to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary...
Essay The Rise of Industrial America, 1877-1900 Richard White Economics, Government and Civics 9 When in 1873 Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner entitled their co-authored novel The Gilded Age , they gave the late nineteenth century its popular name. The term reflected the combination of outward wealth and dazzle with inner...
Essay Empire Building Robert W. Cherny Economics, Geography The years between the end of the Civil War, in 1865, and the end of the century witnessed rapid and far-reaching change in the economic and social life of the United States. During those years, the nation was transformed from rural...
Essay History Times: The Industrial Revolution Gilder Lehrman Institute K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 A Changing Nation The second half of the nineteenth century can be described as a time of innovation, invention, and rapid growth—a period known as the "Industrial Revolution." Many inventions from this period never caught on or have...