Lesson Plan Environmentalism, Love Canal, and Lois Gibbs, 1953-1997 Economics, Government and Civics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math 9, 10, 11, 12 Click here to download this four-lesson unit
Lesson Plan Theodore Roosevelt and the Trusts Economics, Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12 Background Thick dark smoke billowing out of smokestacks several stories high proliferated across city skylines, heralding America's rise to world prominence and industrial supremacy. After the Civil War, Americans embraced the smog...
Spotlight on: Primary Source The struggle for married women’s rights, circa 1880s Government and Civics In the early nineteenth century, married women in the US were legally subordinate to their husbands. Wives could not own their own property, keep their own wages, or enter into contracts. Beginning in 1839, states slowly began to...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Buying Frederick Douglass’s freedom, 1846 Economics After he had escaped from slavery in 1838, Frederick Douglass became a well-known orator and abolitionist. He wrote an autobiography in 1845, but because he was a runaway slave, its publication increased the chances that he would be...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Phillis Wheatley’s poem on tyranny and slavery, 1772 Government and Civics, Literature, Religion and Philosophy Born in Africa, Phillis Wheatley was captured and sold into slavery as a child. She was purchased by John Wheatley of Boston in 1761. The Wheatleys soon recognized Phillis’s intelligence and taught her to read and write. She became...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Eleanor Roosevelt’s four basic rights, 1944 Government and Civics First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, a lifelong advocate of equal rights, used her position as First Lady to advocate against discrimination in the United States. However, Mrs. Roosevelt’s ideas were not embraced by everyone in the pre-civil...
Lesson Plan Securing the Right to Vote: The Selma-to-Montgomery Story Government and Civics 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Essential Question What conditions created the need for a protest march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965, and what did that march achieve? Background Throughout American history, African Americans have struggled to gain...
Classroom Resources Historical Context: "Birth of a Nation" Art, Geography, Government and Civics, Literature 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ In 1915, fifty years after the end of the Civil War, D. W. Griffith released his epic film Birth of a Nation . The greatest blockbuster of the silent era, Birth of a Nation was seen by an estimated 200 million Americans by 1946. Based...
Classroom Resources Historical Context: The Post-World War I Red Scare Economics, Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ The end of World War I was accompanied by a panic over political radicalism. Fear of bombs, Communism, and labor unrest produced a “Red Scare.” In Hammond, Indiana, a jury took two minutes to acquit the killer of an immigrant who had...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Emma Goldman on the restriction of civil liberties, 1919 Government and Civics 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Emma Goldman was born to a Jewish family in Kovno, Russia (present-day Lithuania). In 1885, at the age of sixteen, she emigrated to the United States, becoming a well-known author and lecturer promoting anarchism, workers’ rights,...