Lesson Plan The Battle of Gettysburg through Union and Confederate Eyes 5 Click here to download this two-lesson unit.
Essay National Expansion and Reform, 1815–1860 Joyce Appleby Economics, Geography, Government and Civics 5, 6, 7, 8 A good way to understand the men and women who created America’s reform tradition and carried it across the Mississippi in the years before the Civil War is to look at the political heritage their parents and grandparents left to them...
Lesson Plan The History of the Supreme Court, 1787 to 1937 Government and Civics 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 Click here to download this five-lesson unit.
Essay The Declaration of Independence and the Long Struggle for Equality in America: An Introduction Louis P. Masur Government and Civics Whatever else the Declaration of Independence encompassed—a proclamation of political sovereignty, an indictment against the King of England, an appeal for allies—its assertion that “all men are created equal” shines as the polestar...
Essay An Introduction to Juneteenth Graham Hodges Juneteenth is the most widely recognized, long-lived Black commemoration of slavery’s demise. Juneteenth marks June 19, 1865, when federal troops commanded by General George Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, to proclaim freedom to...
Essay The Politics of Reform Julie Des Jardins At the turn of the twentieth century there was a resurging impulse toward social and political reform. In some ways it continued tendencies already apparent since the industrial revolution of the early nineteenth century, in which...
Essay "The Merits of This Fearful Conflict": Douglass on the Causes of the Civil War David W. Blight In the spring of 1871, Frederick Douglass was worried. Six years after Robert E. Lee had surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, Grant was now President of the United States, the Union of northern and southern states was...
Essay Admiration and Ambivalence: Frederick Douglass and John Brown David W. Blight Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ John Brown did not make it easy for people to love him—until he died on the gallows. Frederick Douglass, from his first meeting with Brown in 1847, through a testy but important relationship in the late 1850s, had long viewed the...
Lesson Plan Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" Speech Government and Civics 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 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,...
Lesson Plan Religion and Literacy in Colonial New England Religion and Philosophy 5, 6, 7, 8 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...