29 items
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Frederick Douglass: What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?
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The Transcontinental Railroad in Images and Poetry
Unit Objectives Students will analyze a variety of primary sources related to the completion of the transcontinental railroad. investigate celebratory images and a poem to discover some of the key outcomes that arose from the ability...
How Hamilton Solved the Economic Problems Facing the United States
Lesson Overview In this lesson students will develop an understanding of the economic challenges facing the newly independent United States. Those challenges included the lack of a national currency, the national government’s...
“A City upon a Hill” from John Winthrop’s “A Modell of Christian Charity,” 1630
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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...
Who Was John Brown?
"Did John Brown fail? John Brown began the war that ended American slavery and made this a free Republic." —Frederick Douglass Background The late 1840s and the 1850s were a turbulent and complex time in American history as the...
Children’s Attitudes about Slavery and Women’s Abolitionism as Seen through Anti-slavery Fairs
Overview Over two days, students will examine the attitudes that children from northern states had about slavery during the 1830s to 1860s and how abolitionists tried to change their way of thinking. They will also explore how woman...
A Look at Slavery through Posters and Broadsides
Overview Students will examine posters and broadsides from the 1800s to examine attitudes about slavery in the United States at that time. Materials Overhead or copies for all students of the poster packet (PDF) Poster Inquiry Sheet...
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...
Nonviolent Direct Action at Southern Lunch Counters
Background On February 1, 1960, four black students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro, North Carolina, walked into a Woolworth’s store and quietly sat down at the lunch counter. This seemingly...
Dashes and Dots: A Product of the Nineteenth Century
Overview Students will examine primary sources including letters, a patent, photos, and diagrams to identify and describe the technological invention and development of the telegraph that evolved during the nineteenth century....
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...
The Battle over the Bank: Hamilton v. Jefferson
Background After months of battling and compromises, the US Constitution was finally sent to Congress by the Constitutional Convention on September 17, 1787. Through the ratification process and the first decade under the new...
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...
Comparison of Ideas: Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois
Essential Question Which of the two views presented below, W.E.B. Du Bois’ or Booker T. Washington’s, offered a better strategy to put our nation on a quicker path to equality for African Americans at the turn of the twentieth century...
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...
Religion and Literacy in Colonial New England
Historical Background Puritans believed that reading the Bible was important to achieving salvation and, therefore, teaching children to read was a priority in their colonial centers. The New England Primer , first published in Boston...
Jefferson and Slavery
Background Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence invokes the ideals of democracy and freedom. Yet he remains a slaveholder for his entire adult life, and (unlike George Washington) does not free his slaves in his will....
The Great Awakening
Historical Background The most important religious development in colonial America was the introduction of religious revivals known as the Great Awakening. Religious revivals first appeared in England, Scotland, and Germany, and...
Mass Production, Suburbia & Conformity in the 1950s
Essential Question How did conformity apply as a value to the living choices of Americans during the 1950’s? Materials Postwar Society Data and Questions (PDF) Little Boxes , written by Malvina Reynolds (1962) (Lyrics) Two Photos &...
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 Big Bang! The Birth of Rock and Roll
Overview In the early 1950s, a new form of music exploded onto the scene, exciting a growing teenage audience while startling many others who preferred the music of Bing Crosby and Patti Page. Popularized by disc jockey Alan Freed in...
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