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A "Great Cause for Better Citizens"? Attitudes Towards the New Deal
In this activity students read letters from ordinary people to government leaders in the Roosevelt Administration. Then they interpret the range of attitudes about the changing role of the federal government during the New Deal. The letters for [...]
Colonial New York Slave Codes: Pedro's Walk
In this lesson students read a description of a slave's walk through colonial New York City and determine which laws he broke and which laws he followed. Students then write a journal entry from the perspective of either a slave or a slaveowner [...]
Social Reform and Issues of Race and Class
In this activity students explore how Progressive Era reforms did not apply universally, but rather varied depending on issues like race and class. Students watch the 30-minute film Heaven Will Protect the Working Girl and read an article that [...]
Create a Magic Lantern Show: Freedpeople in the Reconstruction South
In this activity students create a "magic lantern show," or presentation that illustrates how African American defined freedom for themselves after emancipation and the challenges and threats they faced. Students use primary sources from the [...]
Slavery: Acts of Resistance
In this activity students compare an excerpt of a WPA interview with an ex-slave with a more famous statement by Frederick Douglass to arrive at their own interpretations of slave resistance. This lesson is designed to work with the film Doing As [...]
Qualifying to Vote Under Jim Crow
In this activity students learn about literacy tests and other barriers that kept black Southerners from being able to vote. Students also take a 1960s literacy test from Alabama.
Running for Freedom: The Fugitive Slave Law and the Coming of the Civil War
This activity compares a runaway slave ad and an abolitionist poster to explore the causes and effects of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law. The law changed how many northerners viewed slavery and intensified conflicts that brought the nation closer to [...]
Adding to the Picture: The 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
In this activity, students examine three documents to better understand the goals, participants, and leaders of the 1963 March on Washington.
Social Movements and Constitutional Change: Women's Suffrage
In this activity, students analyze documents to arrange events on a timeline of women's suffrage. The timeline and documents will help students understand the intersection of social movements and constitutional change. This activity can be modified [...]
What This Cruel War Was Over: Slavery and the Civil War
In this activity students will examine how attitudes towards slavery and the Civil War changed between 1860 and 1865. What began in the minds of President Lincoln and most northerners as a war to preserve the union changed, over the course of the [...]