In this lesson plan, students will consider "Was There an Industrial Revolution? Americans at Work Before the Civil War." The plan includes worksheets and other student materials that can be found under the resource tab.

Newberry Library presents primary source materials from which students learn about the arguments made for abolition before the Civil War, how the appeals against slavery were framed, and what freedom would mean for the South and the...

Visit this virtual museum exhibit to learn about New York City's divided opinions about slavery before and during the Civil War. There are three themes covered: Pro-Southern City, Fighting Slavery, and Civil War. Students use a...

[Free Registration/Login Required] An informational text about the Congressional disagreements about slavery in the territories before the Civil War. A question sheet is available to help students build skills in reading comprehension.

For this lesson plan, learners will consider "African-American Communities in the North Before the Civil War." The plan includes worksheets and other student materials that can be found under the resource tab.

This site from the Indiana University offers an illustrated history of political cartoons before and during the Civil War including pictures of Abraham Lincoln and the elections of 1860 and 1864.

From H.L. Mencken's "The American Language," this site examines Webster's contribution to the study of language and spelling in the United States. Covers the history of Webster's works and summarizes his philosophy and advocacy for...

The years leading up to, during, and following the Civil War and Reconstruction (1850-1877) are most often remembered for the tension between North and South, the question of slavery, President Lincoln, and social and political changes...

This lesson helps students study life in the United States in the years before the Civil War. Students will gain a better understanding of why people grew willing to fight to defend their way of life. Many of the documents students will...

A lesson plan that addresses the "complex series of events" leading to the Civil War. Through this lesson, students will "gain an appreciation of everyday life in the North and South, changes occurring, and some of the major social and...

Read an overview of the pre-Civil War women's rights movement in a student essay in an historical journal from Loyola University. Find out about specific activists prominent during this time period and learn about their attempts to...

An extensive resource covering many aspects of the Spanish Civil War. First read an overview of the conflict before looking at the many primary sources related to the war.

Traces the life of the richest black man in New Orleans before the Civil War and after.

This article focuses on the study of immigrants in the early 19th century before the Civil War. Migration policy was primarily under state rather than federal control, and as long as slavery existed, there was no national definition of...

This article explores the reasons African Americans left the South and migrated north both before and after the Civil War, and many aspects of what their lives were like.

Before the American Civil War, the majority of hospital nurses or "stewards" were men. But the war created a medical crisis that demanded more volunteers, and a lot of the people who took up the call were women. Amid this desperate need...

Describes what the South was like after the Civil War ended. Many places were in ruins and people were desperately poor with many being homeless. Social structures had collapsed now that slaves had been freed. The Reconstruction era...

Students will be introduced to the first African American Regiment that fought in the Civil War through a memorial sculpture by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. They will compare and contrast the experiences of these soldiers through their...

Read the text of the 13th Amendment, adopted in January, 1865, even before the end of the Civil War, which ended slavery in the United States. Click on the image to see a larger picture of the document itself.

This autobiography of an African-American man relates his experiences as a free laborer in Georgia after the Civil War. You will see that he felt his conditions were not unlike the slavery that existed before the Civil War. From the...

Presents population maps of enslaved and free African Americans before the Civil War based on census population.

A very brief look at the "Peculiar Institution" of slavery in the South before the Civil War. Read about how slavery became so entrenced and why it drove a wedge between the North and South.

A retrospective of the two greatest generals of the Civil War, Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant. A side-by-side comparison of the two icons before, during, and after the war.

The Civil War that raged across the nation from 1861 to 1865 was the violent conclusion to decades of diversification. Gradually, throughout the beginning of the nineteenth century, the North and South followed different paths,...