Lesson Plan Black Women and the American Revolution 9, 10, 11, 12 Click to download this lesson plan.
Spotlight on: Primary Source Theodore Roosevelt supports women’s suffrage, 1912 Government and Civics 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 In this letter written in July 1912, during his campaign for a thrid term as president, Theodore Roosevelt informs the state and county chairmen of the Progressive Party of his plan to support women’s suffrage. The document shows the...
Lesson Plan What Does Liberty Look Like? Government and Civics " We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ." Declaration of...
Lesson Plan The American Revolution: The Boston Massacre, “Yankee Doodle,” and the Declaration of Independence, 1770-1776 Art 3, 4, 5 Click here to download this four-lesson unit.
Spotlight on: Primary Source Cotton Mather’s account of the Salem witch trials, 1693 Government and Civics, Literature, Religion and Philosophy Most Americans’ knowledge of the seventeenth century comes from heavily mythologized events: the first Thanksgiving at Plymouth, Pocahontas purportedly saving Captain John Smith from execution in early Virginia, and the Salem witch...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Sharecropper contract, 1867 Economics, Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Immediately after the Civil War, many former slaves established subsistence farms on land that had been abandoned by fleeing white Southerners. President Andrew Johnson, a Democrat and a former slaveholder, soon restored this land to...
Spotlight on: Primary Source De Soto's discovery of the Mississippi, 1541 Art, Geography, World History 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ In 1539, Hernando de Soto led the first major European expedition into the interior of the southeastern North America, an area then known as La Florida. De Soto landed near Tampa Bay, Florida, with more than 600 men, and hoped to find...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Landing of Henrick Hudson, 1609 Geography 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ In 1609, Henry Hudson was chosen by the Dutch East India Company to search for a passage to Asia. In September of that year, Hudson landed on the shores of the river that would be named for him and claimed the lands along it for the...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Anti-corporate cartoons, ca. 1900 Art, Economics, Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ These cartoons illustrate the growing hostility toward the practices of the big businesses that fueled the industrial development of the United States. In "The Protectors of Our Industries" (1883), railroad magnates Jay Gould and...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Civilian Conservation Corps poster, 1938 Art, Economics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ The Civilian Conservation Corps directly addressed two of the most pressing problems during the Depression: male youth unemployment and environmental degradation. The CCC, based on a military model of everyday life, put thousands of...