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Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady for Social Justice: A Common Core Unit (Grades 9–12)
Objectives Students will be asked to read and analyze primary and secondary sources about Eleanor Roosevelt and the work she did to support social justice issues both in the United States and around the world. They will look at the...
The Virginia Colony
Objective In presenting to students documents dating from the earliest European contact with the Americas, teachers are faced with problems of accessibility. The language is often daunting, and the relevance for students of American...
The French and Indian War
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...
Pioneering New Methods to Expand Voting, 1865–1920
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> 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....
The Rise of Industrial America, 1877-1900
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...
The Civil War and Reconstruction in the American West
The histories of the Civil War and of the emerging West were tangled together from their beginnings. Although the war was fought mostly in the East, the events that set it off were born of the expansion of the 1840s, and in turn the...
The First Age of Reform
"In the history of the world," Ralph Waldo Emerson declared in 1841, "the doctrine of Reform had never such scope as at the present hour." [1] Not much a joiner of causes himself, Emerson had in mind a remarkable flowering of reform...
The Social and Intellectual Legacy of the American Revolution
"We can see with other eyes; we hear with other ears; and think with other thoughts, than those we formerly used. We are now really another people, and cannot again go back to ignorance and prejudice. The mind once enlightened cannot...
Letter from Christopher Columbus on Returning from His First Voyage to the Americas, 1493
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The Mexican-American War: Arguments for and against Going to War
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The History of Federal, State, and Tribal Powers, 1788–2020
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Woman Abolitionists
Background Women always played a significant role in the struggle against slavery and discrimination. White and black Quaker women and female slaves took a strong moral stand against slavery. As abolitionists, they circulated...
A Different Perspective on Slavery: Writing the History of African American Enslaved Women
Introduction The accounts of African American slavery in textbooks routinely conflate the story of enslaved men and women into one history. Textbooks rarely enable students to grapple with the lives and challenges of women constrained...
Alice Paul: Suffragist and Agitator
Background The American women’s suffrage movement has always been identified with its two founders, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, whose strong, enthusiastic leadership defined the movement. When they retired from active...
Examining Women’s Roles through Primary Sources and Literature
Essential Question: How were the ever-changing roles of women in American society chronicled? Background Joseph Heller writes in his book The Feminization of Quest-Romance that "American Literature equates the very essence of what it...
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...
The Textile Industry and the Triangle Factory Fire
Overview Dramatic change characterized the rapid industrialization of nineteenth-century America. The economy, politics, society and specifically women were all affected. In the early stages of this economic revolution, manufacturing...
Democracy in Early America: Servitude and the Treatment of Native Americans and Africans prior to 1740
Essential Questions How did European explorers and colonists who came to the New World for "Gold, Glory and/or God" justify their treatment of Native Americans, enslaved Africans, and indentured servants? To what extent were there...
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...
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...
Women in the Great Depression: Investigating Assumptions
Introduction The greatest economic calamity in the history of the United States occurred in the third decade of the twentieth century. When the stock market crashed in 1929 and the economy plummeted over the next few years, the nation...
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