Lesson Plan Native American Cultures and the Impact of the Boarding Schools 3, 4, 5 Click to download this four-lesson unit.
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 Celebrating Labor Day Government and Civics 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 Essential Question To what extent have the conditions of American workers improved over the past 100 years? Background After the Civil War, the United States witnessed an accelerating movement of people westward, a rapidly increasing...
Essay Pioneering New Methods to Expand Voting, 1865–1920 Lisa Tetrault Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12 Paragraphs > Access this essay as a PDF , including key vocabulary terms and discussion questions, or read the text of the essay below. A new chapter in voting rights began when the Civil War ended in 1865....
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 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 Mary Elizabeth Lease: Populist Reformer Kelly A. Woestman Blaming Wall Street for the nation’s economic woes is not a new idea in American history. Over a century ago, Mary Elizabeth Lease, the best-known orator of the Populist era, asserted, "Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a...