National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Teacher Serve: Islam in America
This National Humanities Center essay about the growth and diversity of Islam in America suggests ways for teachers to introduce a basic understanding of the religion.
Georgetown University
Georgetown: Georgetown Slavery Archive I Know That My Bennett Ancestors
Chapter two of Louis Diggs, Surviving in America: Histories of 7 Black Communities in Baltimore County, Maryland (Uptown Press, 2002), includes fascinating interviews with African Americans in Granite, Maryland, including several...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: America in 1850: Daniel Webster: Speech to the u.s. Senate, March 7, 1850
Links to Senator Daniel Webster's famous plea, amidst the turmoil of sectional conflict, for national unity and his support of the Compromise of 1850.
PBS
Pbs: Cet: Africans in America: The Underground Railroad
This PBS site provides a general history of the Underground Railroad, including a focus on notable participants or "conductors." Click on Teacher's Guide for teacher resources.
PBS
Pbs Who Made America? Eli Whitney
In popular mythology, Eli Whitney has been deemed the "father of American technology," for two innovations: the cotton gin, and the idea of using interchangeable parts.
Other
Vox: 37 Maps That Explain the American Civil War
April 1865 was a momentous month in American history. On April 9, the Confederate army under Robert E. Lee surrendered to the Union forces of Ulysses S. Grant, effectively ending the Civil War. Then on April 14, the victorious President...
PBS
Africans in America: American Colonization Society
Learn about the views of the American Colonization Society (ACS) and about their efforts to send free blacks to Liberia. This website briefly overviews how the ACS started and how their efforts lead to the emigration of thousands.
PBS
Pbs's Africans in America: Equiano's Autobiography
Chapter two of "The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano," the autobiography of a man abducted from Africa and forced into slavery before later obtaining his freedom. This chapter details his capture and eventual journey...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Harriet B. Stowe, Triumph of Nationalism: America, 1815 1850
A fictional depiction of the turmoil over the existence of slavery-and its human impact.
![Virginia History Series: Virginia Antebellum (1800 1860) [Pdf] PPT](https://static.lp.lexp.cloud/images/attachment_defaults/resource/large/FPO-knovation.png "Virginia History Series: Virginia Antebellum (1800 1860) [Pdf] PPT")
Virginia History Series
Virginia History Series: Virginia Antebellum (1800 1860) [Pdf]
From 1800-1860, America went through rapid growth and development. View this slideshow to see pictures, charts, maps,primary source documents and a detailed timeline of Virginia during the Antebellum Era.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Making of African American Identity: V. 1, 1500 1865
One hundred and sixty primary sources-historical documents, literary texts, and visual images-that explore the conditions of slavery, the search for identity, the development of a sense of community while enslaved, and the struggles for...
PBS
Pbs: African American Migration Story: Many Rivers to Cross
A detailed presentation illustrating the history of Africans migrating to the Americas from as early as 1500 through the late 1860's. Review the distribution of Africans in North and South America, the initial settlements, escaped and...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Triumph of Nationalism: America, 1815 1850: Religion
A collection of nine primary resources including historical documents, literary texts, visual images, and maps illuminated and contextualized by notes, thematic questions, and text-specific discussion questions for classroom instruction...
BBC
Bbc News: Timeline Jamaica
This BBC site follows the history of Jamaica from 1494 when Columbus first sighted it, to the present. Links to news stories are also available.
Curated OER
Loc: For Teachers: From Slavery to Civil Rights: Male Slave in Chains
"Large, bold woodcut image of a supplicant male slave in chains appears on the 1837 broadside publication of John Greenleaf Whittier's antislavery poem, 'Our Countrymen in Chains.'"
Other
Online Archive of 19th Century u.s. Women's Writings: Emancipated Slaveholders
Writing in the 1840s, Lydia M. Child tells the story of ex-slavers living in Virginia. Demonstrates the complexity of the abolition debate in Pre-Civil War America.
Oregon State University
History of Western Philosophy: Bartolome De Las Casas (1484 1566)
Famous for early advocacy for indigenous peoples of America, he attempted to outlaw the econmienda system enjoyed by the Spanish colonists. Included is a time line of his activities.
ClassFlow
Class Flow: Colonies
[Free Registration/Login Required] This flipchart describes and gives background on life in the original colonies. Regional differences between the colonies are discussed. Activities include graphic organizers, charts and reading passages.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: English I, American Beginnings: 1492 1690
Portraits of early New Englanders as well as four buildings from seventeenth-century New England that accompany accounts in those British colonies of struggles, Indian hostilities, and economic success.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Gold Coast, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Two documents, separated by 200 years, depicting the lives of enslaved Gold Coast Africans in 1450 and 1657, and three original accounts by Europeans of the cultural practices of Gold Coast Africans.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Sale, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Two nineteenth century depictions of the emotional brutality of slave auctions-by an enslaved (formerly free) black man and by former slaves-and several recollections of being sold by former slaves recorded during Depression era...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: New World: Part I: American Beginnings: 1492 1690
A variety of paintings and drawings that display European images of their first encounters with the land, plants, animals, and native peoples of the western hemisphere. With questions for discussion.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Resistance, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Recollections of slave resistance by observers like Frederick Douglass, narratives of slave resistance collected during the Depression, and mid-nineteenth century accounts by former slaves calling for resistance to and overthrow of the...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Civil War I: Slaves, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Photographs of slaves during the Civil War and war memories of former slaves during that conflict. Links to two separate resources can be found here, each focusing on the war memories of former slaves.