Lesson Plan Frederick Douglass: What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? 7, 8, 9, 10 Click to download this five-lesson unit :
Lesson Plan Rural America: The Westward Movement Geography 7, 8 Unit Objective This unit is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based teaching resources. These units were developed to enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original texts of historical...
Lesson Plan The Monroe Doctrine Government and Civics, World History 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Unit Objective This unit is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based teaching resources. These units were written to enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original texts of historical...
Spotlight on: Primary Source "Bleeding Kansas" and the Pottawatomie Massacre, 1856 In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act overturned the Missouri Compromise, which stated that slavery would not be allowed north of latitude 36°30′. Instead, settlers would use the principle of popular sovereignty and vote to determine...
Spotlight on: Primary Source A plea to defend the Alamo, 1836 Government and Civics A decade of conflict between the Mexican government and US settlers in Texas culminated in 1836 with the siege of the Alamo and the Texas Declaration of Independence. On February 23, 1836, Lieutenant Colonel William Travis, Jim Bowie,...
Lesson Plan The National Game. Three "Outs" And One "Run" Overview A pro-Lincoln satire, deposited for copyright weeks before the 1860 presidential election. The contest is portrayed as a baseball game in which Lincoln has defeated (left to right) John Bell, Stephen A. Douglas, and John C....
Spotlight on: Primary Source Slave auction catalog from Louisiana, 1855 On March 13 and 14, 1855, the firm of J. A. Beard & May placed on the auction block 178 enslaved men, women, and children at the Banks Arcade in New Orleans, Louisiana. They were part of the estate of William M. Lambeth, who had...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Patriotic Postal Covers: "Lincoln & Davis in 5 Rounds," 1861 Art Patriotic postal covers are an important part of the material culture of the Civil War era. People often collected these covers in special keepsake albums. Such decorative envelopes were used as advertisements and to promote various...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Politics and the Texas Revolution, 1836 Government and Civics Texas’s fight for independence from Mexico was an uphill battle from the very beginning. Texians were outnumbered and outmatched by the much more powerful Mexican military, and the province was plagued by quarrels within its own...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Temperance movement cartoon: The Drunkard’s Progress, 1826 Art Numerous reform movements to improve society sprang up in the United States in the first half of the nineteenth century. The temperance movement attracted reformers who identified excessive drinking as the principal cause of domestic...