209 items
Aim What can the statistics tell us about the rise and fall of the second two-party system? How did the breakdown of this system contribute to the onset of the Civil War? Overview The purpose of this lesson is to examine the...
Every Four Years: Qualifications for the Office of President and Electing the President
Overview Students will examine aspects of Article II of the Constitution for specific information related to the requirements for and method of electing the president. Materials (attached) KWL Chart (PDF) The United States...
Martin Luther King Jr.: His Legacy as Seen Through the Mississippi Summer Freedom Project
Background Martin Luther King Jr. Day, January 21, is celebrated by Americans each year to remember and recognize the life and work of the man. Martin Luther King Jr., however, represents far more than the contributions of a single...
Celebrating Labor Day
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...
Abraham Lincoln on Slavery and Race
Background Slavery played a prominent role in America’s political, social, and economic history in the antebellum era. The "peculiar institution" was at the forefront of discussions ranging from the future of the nation’s economy to...
Lincoln’s Reconstruction Plan
Essential Question To what degree was Abraham Lincoln successful in achieving his goals? Background The Civil War was perhaps the most momentous event that the United States endured in its history. Author and historian Shelby Foote...
Challenging Segregation in Public Education
Background The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, during the congressional Reconstruction era. The amendment’s most significant provision —"No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or...
Securing the Right to Vote: The Selma-to-Montgomery Story
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...
Native American Policy
Background: Two conflicting policies have governed this country’s treatment of Native Americans—assimilation and removal. As the United States expanded, it became necessary to issue formal policy statements and make treaties with...
George Pullman: His Impact on the Railroad Industry, Labor, and American Life in the Nineteenth Century
Background George Mortimer Pullman was an influential industrialist of the nineteenth century and the founder of the Pullman Palace Car Company. His innovations brought comfort and luxury to railroad travel in the 1800s with the...
Philadelphia and the Constitutional Convention "Heat Up"
Background Little did William Penn know that his plans for a "Great Towne," set up in rectangular form between the Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers, would become the site of some of the most important meetings in our nation’s founding,...
Alamo Simulation
Overview Through a simulation, in which Canadians try to seize the state of Maine, students will gain an understanding of the circumstances surrounding the Battle of the Alamo, February 23–March 6, 1836, between approximately 200...
The Supreme Court and the Fourteenth Amendment
Overview: The Founding Fathers created the Supreme Court in Article III of the Constitution of the United States. The most influential role of the Court, however, was defined later through the appeal process, in cases involving the...
Ratification Debates: A New York Case Study
Historical Background The Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 was full of conflict and compromise. Yet as the convention drew to a close, some of the biggest debates were just beginning. According to the...
An "Unconstitutional" Act? The Suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus
Background At the beginning of the Civil War, as the number of dead increased daily, a force of opposition to the war efforts began to intensify in the Congress and in the voices of the American people. Abraham Lincoln, in an effort...
"Father" of Our Country v. "Father" of the Bill of Rights
Essential Questions To what extent does the Bill of Rights provide a "blanket of protection" for American citizens? Why do many Americans believe that the Bill of Rights is especially relevant today? Objectives Students will be able...
Beyond Rosie the Riveter: Women's Contributions During World War II
Overview Although often understated, the social, economic, and political contributions of American women have all had profound effects on the course of this nation. For evidence of this, one needs to look no further than the many...
Japanese Internment Camps of WWII
Overview Since Japanese people began migrating to America in the mid-nineteenth century, there has been resentment and tension between Americans and Asian immigrants. In California at the turn of the century laws were passed making it...
The Supreme Court, Title IX and Gender Equity
Background The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the federal judicial system and has both original and appellate jurisdiction. Historically, the Supreme Court’s most influential role has been through the...
Traitors and Spies in the Time of War: How the Supreme Court Determined Who Would Live and Who Would Die
Overview In April 1865 over 600,000 Americans lay dead from battle wounds and other causes directly related to their service in the armies of the Confederacy and Union during the four-year Civil War. If we adjusted the number of dead...
Theodore Roosevelt: A Bully Reformer
Introduction Theodore Roosevelt was the twenty-sixth president of the United States. His presidency would become the symbol of strong leadership, reform, and a square deal for Americans in the new century. When Roosevelt was...
Theodore Roosevelt and the Trusts
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...
Lincoln and Civil Liberties
Overview The tension between individual rights and a government’s need to preserve and protect national security during times of war has represented a constant theme throughout American history. During the John Adams administration, a...
Abraham Lincoln: A Man for All Seasons
Overview At one time in our country’s history we stood divided as a nation over the issue of slavery. It was Abraham Lincoln’s ideology and sense of purpose that helped to unite our country and set us on a path toward realizing the...
The Scottsboro Trial
Background In 1932, times were hard for many as jobs were not easy to find and people had difficulty putting food on the table. In March of that year, nine black boys ventured out looking for work only to find themselves caught in a...
Revolutionary Propaganda: Persuasion and Colonial Support
Background Many students misconstrue the American Revolution as a period of unanimous support for independence from Great Britain. However, colonists generally considered themselves loyal British citizens, asserting rightful...
The Nullification Crisis
Background The relationship between the North and the South was tenuous when Andrew Jackson came to office in 1828. Ever since the Constitutional Convention of 1787, northerners and southerners had fought over slavery and tariffs....
The Erie Canal and the Rise of the Market Economy
Objectives Students will examine primary documents and secondary sources to analyze effects of technology on economic growth in the first half of the nineteenth century. Students will be able to identify the major economic trends of...
New Amsterdam: The Center of the Dutch Settlement
Teaching with Russell Shorto’s book Island at the Center of the World Objectives Students will examine primary documents and secondary sources to analyze the effects of the Dutch West India Company settlement in North America....
The Great Depression and The New Deal
Essential Questions What should be the role of government in solving a national crisis? How effective were the responses of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration to the problems of the Great Depression? Objectives Write a Document...
The Promise of Democracy
Source JFK’s Radio and Television Report to the American People on Civil Rights, June 11, 1963 , John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum (full text and audio available) Background Information This document will be used to...
First Day of Integration at Central High School, Little Rock, Arkansas
Sources Students Entering School Building , National Park Service Book: Daisy Bates, The Long Shadow of Little Rock (1962), or online at Civil Rights Teaching Background Information On the first day of integration at Central High...
Evaluating Lyndon B. Johnson’s Character and Efforts during the Civil Rights Era
Background Information In 1969 Thomas Baker conducted an interview with Roy Wilkins, executive directory of the NAACP, based on Wilkins’s experiences with Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. This abridged version of the...
Articles of Confederation
Essential Question How could our Founding Fathers best meet the governing needs of the various factions after the Revolutionary War? Materials Articles of Confederation (PDF). Source: Transcript of the Articles of Confederation , 100...
Analyzing the Great Compromise, 1787
Essential Question How could our Founding Fathers balance the needs of the states as we created a national government? Materials The Virginia Plan, 1787 (PDF). Source: Virginia (Randolph) Plan as Amended (National Archives Microfilm...
How to Analyze Primary Source Documents / F.D.R. & The Great Depression
Essential Question How effective was President Franklin Roosevelt in communicating with the American public during this time of crisis? Objectives Understand the importance of thinking critically about historical events. Be able to...
Making a Covenant with Death: Slavery in the Constitutional Structure
Materials US Constitution , Our Documents Finkelman, Paul. Slavery and the Founders: Race and Liberty in the Age of Jefferson . New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 2001. Essential Question Why did the Founders find it necessary to provide...
The Folly of Empire (Condensed Version)
O verview Students will be introduced to a book written by John B. Judis entitled, The Folly of Empire: What George Bush Could Learn From Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. This book compares recent foreign policy to the foreign...
The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine
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...
Andrew Jackson's Message to Congress Concerning the Indian Removal Act of 1830
View a copy of Jackson’s Message to Congress in the Gilder Lehrman Collection by clicking here . For additional resources click here . Unit Objective This unit is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based...
Washington's Farewell Address
View a copy of Washington’s Farewell Address in the Gilder Lehrman Collection by clicking here . For a resource regarding the possibility of Washington staying on for a third term click here . Click here to download this five-lesson...
The Declaration of Independence
View the Declaration in the Gilder Lehrman Collection by clicking here and here . For additional primary resources click here and here . Unit Objective This unit is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based...
Students’ Constitutional Rights in Public School
Essential Question When may the rights of students in school be restricted? Materials Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District, 1969 , Boston College New Jersey v. T.L.O., 1985 , Legal Information Institute, Cornell University...
Ronald Reagan on Reducing the Size of Government
Essential Questions How can the powers of government be divided to best run our nation in this modern era? What role should the federal government play in shaping our economy? Document Ronald Reagan’s State of the Union Message,...
Dwight D. Eisenhower's Domestic Leadership
Essential Questions What constitutes great presidential leadership? How did Eisenhower demonstrate great leadership through his support of the Federal-Aid Highway Act (1956) and his warning about the growth of the Military-Industrial...
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s First Inaugural Address
View this item in the Gilder Lehrman Collection. 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...
Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" Speech
Unit Overview This unit is part of the Gilder Lehrman Institute’s Teaching Literacy through History resources, designed to align to the Common Core State Standards. These units were developed to enable students to understand,...
The Cold War: Discussing the Speech of President Kennedy in 1963
Introduction The Cold War is the term for the rivalry between the two blocs of contending states that emerged following the Second World War. It was a series of confrontations played out on the world stage between the non-Communist...
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