Read about one of the most surprising political defeats in American history. The election of 1948 between President Harry Truman and Thomas Dewey was supposed to be a landslide. Find out about Truman's stand on policies, and read about...

A lesson plan from the producers of the 16-episode PBS series "Freedom: A History of US" designed to aid understanding of Susan B. Anthony's contributions to the women's suffrage movement. Students will look at the language of the...

From the U.S. Justice Department, this is a history of voting rights laws in the United States, including a discussion of the Fifteenth Amendment.

This website contains an interactive timeline about the history of voting rights in the United States.

Students will learn all about the history of suffrage for women and what influences were used to change people's attitudes. They will then use their understanding to create a modern-day election document of ephemera, for example, a...

Creating a powerful political imagery was crucial to establishing a political presence in the American public consciousness and in bringing about the acceptance of voting rights for women.

A brief discussion of Americans' right to vote and how federal elections happen.

In this activity, students view eleven different documents arguing both for and against women's right to vote. They must click and drag them in the order that they were created. As they work, they need to make a list of the arguments...

This collection provides a unique view of American History using items such as posters, business cards, flyers, catalogs, advertisements and leaflets. These items capture experiences from important turning points such as the American...

Read about how the ability to vote changed from requiring the ownership of property to almost complete enfranchisement of white males by 1840. There was disenfranchisment of women and free blacks in the same period of time.

This site provides a brief description of the term gerrymandering and where the term originated.

Given the voting rights amendments, students will create an annotated time line that illustrates how voting rights have been extended to various groups of people throughout the history of the United States.

This section from the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History's exhibition Separate Is Not Equal: Brown v. Board of Education gives the history of Jim Crow laws and how they affected not only the voting rights of...

Kids learn about the history of slavery in the United States on this site. The site includes information about slave codes, abolitionism, free states, and slave states.

Learn about the history of November 4, which is an election day in the United States. Includes a discussion of presidential elections in the nineteenth century, and women's struggle to obtain the right to vote.

Meet the prominent people engaged in fighting for woman's right to vote throughout Europe around the turn of the century. This unit provides circumstances leading to this fight, documents supporting the right, suggested writing...

[Free Registration/Login Required] After reading the background information about Attorney General Robert Kennedy's report on civil rights enforcement activities of the Department of Justice in 1962, read the full transcript of the...

This map shows population change among whites in US counties, 1840 to 2000. Each dot represents 500 people. Corresponding historical events and elections are included for each period of time.

An overview of voting and democracy in the early 1800s.

Discussion about the measure of government effectiveness as a reflection of the electorate involvement, participation and demand.

The study resource from Khan Academy provides an overview of Period 7: 1890-1945 in American History. The Nineteenth Amendment is discussed in this lesson. This resource is designed as a review for the AP US History Test.

[Free Registration/Login Required] This resource provides information about Martin Luther King, Jr.'s impact on American history. In addition, there are links to related topics.

The history of affirmative action was interwoven with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Read about how the federal government under both President Kennedy and President Nixon attempted to open up jobs to...

Rock the Vote engages youth in the political process by incorporating the entertainment community and youth culture into its activities. This site includes information about current campaigns, issues, voting, a voter registration form,...