Primary
PBS

Pbs Learning Media: Primary Source Set: 19th Century Schools for the Deaf, Blind

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
This collection uses primary sources to explore the development of schools for deaf and blind students in the nineteenth century.
Unit Plan
Annenberg Foundation

Annenberg Learner: America's History in the Making: Antebellum Reform

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Nineteenth century United States saw the creation of reform movements: temperance, abolition, school and prison reform, as well as others. This unit traces the emergence of reform movements instigated by the Second Great Awakening and...
Article
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Teacher Serve: 19th Century: Evangelicalism, Revivalism, and the Second Great Awakening

For Students 9th - 10th
The National Humanities Center offers a thorough text describing the roots and results of the Second Great Awakening. Additional web links and guide for student discussion.
Website
Other

Binghamton: Appeal of Moral Reform to the Antebellum Northern Women

For Students 9th - 10th
This site discusses how women were involved in the moral reform of the 1830s and 1840s. Links to original documents.
Handout
University of Groningen

American History: Outlines: Stirrings of Reform

For Students 9th - 10th
The democratic upheaval in politics exemplified by Jackson's election was merely one phase of the long American quest for greater rights and opportunities for all citizens. Another was the beginning of labor organization, primarily among...
Graphic
National Women’s History Museum

National Women's History Museum: Pathways to Equality

For Students 9th - 10th
Explore the various reform movements American women participated in during the 19th century.
Lesson Plan
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: America in Class: Women, Temperance Reform, and the Cult of Domesticity

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Lesson on how women's role in the campaign against alcohol consumption in 19th-century America reflected the strengths and limitations of the cult of domesticity. Complete set of resources for a comprehensive study.
Website
Independence Hall Association

U.s. History: Institutionalizing Religious Belief: The Benevolent Empire

For Students 5th - 8th
Many social movements in the early 19th century had a religious foundation. Read about the Benevolent Empire, a loose coalition of Protestant denominations that addressed social issues of the time.
Lesson Plan
US National Archives

Nara: Teaching With Documents: Petition of Amelia Bloomer Regarding Suffrage

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Amelia Bloomer was a prominent advocate of women's rights in the 19th century. She invented bloomers to replace the skirt hoop, in an effort to free women from much of their cumbersome apparel. She later used her newspaper, The Lily, to...
Website
University of Virginia

Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture: The Woman's Rights Movement

For Students 9th - 10th
Read about the 19th century women's reform movement as well as primary resources including the Seneca Falls Declaration & Resolutions, an editorial by Frederick Douglass, and excerpts form "History of Woman Suffrage."
Handout
Other

Smith College: Across the Generations:exploring Us History Through Family Papers

For Students 9th - 10th
The reform movement during the nineteenth century is explored through original documents. This site gives an overview of the social history of this time period.
Website
Other

Wake Forest University: The Social Gospel, Part Ii

For Students 9th - 10th
A continuation of Part I of "The Social Gospel", the underlying causes for the reform movements in the last part of the 19th century and early 20th century.
Website
Other

U.s. History Timeline: 1865 1900

For Students 9th - 10th
A thumbnail look at the many things occurring in the United States in the last half half of the 19th century. The topics covered are Gilded Age Politics, the "New Imperialism," Industrial America, Growth of Labor, Urbanization,...
Handout
Digital History

Digital History: Pre Civil War Reform: Assisting the Disabled

For Students 9th - 10th
The early 19th century saw giant strides in social reform. Read about those who advocated for the mentally ill, deaf, and blind from the Digital textbook from University of Houston.
Handout
University of Groningen

American History: Outlines: Westward Expansion

For Students 9th - 10th
This article offers a detailed history of early 19th century westward migration and the social diversity of the pioneers moving west.
Lesson Plan
Library of Congress

Loc: Teachers: Suffragists and Their Tactics Lesson Plan

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Students work with two document collections, "Votes for Women: Suffrage Pictures: 1850-1920" and "Votes for Women: 1848-1921", to understand how the suffragists changed the requirements for voting in America.
Handout
National Women’s History Museum

National Women's History Museum: Sojourner Truth

For Students 9th - 10th
A former slave, Sojourner Truth was an advocate for abolition, temperance, and civil and women's rights in the 19th century.
Handout
National Women’s History Museum

National Women's History Museum: Dorothea Dix

For Students 9th - 10th
Dorothea Dix was an early 19th century activist who drastically changed the medical field during her lifetime.
Lesson Plan
University of California

The History Project: Ideas and Strategies of the Woman Suffrage Movement

For Teachers 11th - 12th
Although the campaign for Woman Suffrage in the United States began with the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, six decades later the leaders of the movement could claim victories in only four, sparsely-populated Western states, Colorado,...
Article
A&E Television

History.com: Labor Movement

For Students 9th - 10th
Article takes a look at the history of the Labor Movement and labor unions through videos, pictures, speeches and more.
Lesson Plan
Alabama Learning Exchange

Alex: A Monumental Idea

For Teachers 9th - 10th
This is a small-group project utilizing web research, cooperation, creativity and hands-on production in order to fully understand the impact of social reformers of the 19th century. Students will be responsible for building a monument...
eBook
Quia

Quia: Federal Indian Policy Oder Quiz

For Students 9th - 10th
Take this quiz on the women and reform movements of the 19th century.
Handout
Social Studies Help Center

Social Studies Help Center: Individual's Impact on the Nation's Problems

For Students 9th - 10th
Find out about the impact of social reformers in the 19th century including women's rights, temperance, care for the mentally ill, and education.
Handout
US Department of State

Biographies of the Secretaries of State: William Learned Marcy (1786 1857)

For Students 9th - 10th
Brief biography of William Learned Marcy explains his rise to prominence and influence on 19th Century American diplomacy.