Lesson Plan Native American Cultures and the Impact of the Boarding Schools 3, 4, 5 Click to download this four-lesson unit.
Video: General Ira Hayes: An Archetype of 20th-Century American Indian Veterans Tom Holm (Creek/Cherokee) is a professor in the American Indian Studies Program, which he helped found, at the University of Arizona. This video was filmed as part of the Gilder Lehrman Institute’s partnership with the Veterans...
Lesson Plan Rise of the Populists and William Jennings Bryan 9, 10, 11, 12 Historical Background As the United States evolved into an industrial powerhouse in the decades following the Civil War, the growing strength of the railroads and the banks particularly, coupled with the impact of mechanization on...
Lesson Plan Native American Housing Geography 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 Historical Background American Indians (First Nations in Canada) constructed homes to conform to their needs and environment. Housing for some tribal groups was permanent, while other residences reflected the need to relocate, often...
Interactive Why Documents Matter: An Interactive Digital Edition Economics, Geography, Government and Civics, World History Welcome to Why Documents Matter: An Interactive Digital Edition —a selection of primary sources from the Gilder Lehrman Collection curated and annotated for K–12 classrooms (print edition available here ). Scroll through the entire...
Spotlight on: Primary Source A report from Spanish California, 1776 Foreign Languages, Government and Civics Fernando de Rivera y Moncada, military commander of Alta California, wrote this letter from Mission San Gabriel. Rivera y Moncada was instrumental in the development of missions in California and was in a sometimes-contentious...
Spotlight on: Primary Source The Monroe Doctrine, 1823 Economics, Geography, Government and Civics, World History President James Monroe’s 1823 annual message to Congress included a warning to European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere. This portion of the address is known as the Monroe Doctrine. The United States...
Classroom Resources Historical Context: Mexican Americans and the Great Depression Economics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ In February 1930 in San Antonio, Texas, 5000 Mexicans and Mexican Americans gathered at the city’s railroad station to depart the United States for settlement in Mexico. In August, a special train carried another 2000 to central...
Essay The United States and the Caribbean, 1877–1920 Jason Colby Between 1877 and 1920, the United States’ relationship with the Caribbean region underwent a profound change, which was closely tied to the transformation of the United States to an industrial and imperial power. Although the Civil...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Official photograph from the "Golden Spike" Ceremony, 1869 Economics, Geography, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ This iconic photograph records the celebration marking the completion of the first transcontinental railroad lines at Promontory Summit, Utah, on May 10, 1869, when Leland Stanford, co-founder of the Central Pacific Railroad,...