PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Primary Source Set: The Great Migration
This collection uses primary sources to explore the Great Migration.
Digital History
Digital History:the Great Migration
The Great Migration for African Americans began during World War I as blacks left the segregated south to find jobs in the north. Read about how segregation followed them into their northern neighborhoods. See also how the Harlem...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Teacher Serve: African American Christianity Pt Ii: From Civil War to the Great Migration
Essay focussing on African American Christianity from emancipation to the great migration. Site offers photos, student discussion guidelines, historian debate and links to related material.
University of Chicago
University of Chicago Library: The Great Migration
Read about the African American migration north in the early 20th Century through a collection of migrant letters and a lecture by scholar James Grossman.
Other
Metrocosm: Visualizing the Great Migration
The Great Migration had a profound impact on many aspects of American life. Watch this map to see how the growth of African Americans living in the north grew from 1910-1970. Read the reasons for the migration and the challenges they...
Digital Public Library of America
Dpla: The Great Migration
This collection uses primary sources to explore the Great Migration of African Americans to the Northern and Midwestern states in the early 1900s. Set includes an overview, primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide.
Curated OER
History Matters: Seven Letters From the Great Migration
These seven letters to the Chicago "Defender," a black newspaper, offer accounts from individuals who chose to leave the South from 1916-1921 in search of better opportunities as a part of what is now known as the Great Migration.
Chicago History Museum
Encyclopedia of Chicago: Great Migration
Read this historical account of events that became known as the Great Migration, the movement of African Americans from the South to the North, and the effect this had on Chicago and other urban northern cities.
Other
Amistad Digital Resource: The Great Migration
Read about the reasons for the Great Migration of African Americans from the Deep Sourth to northern cities in the first few decades of the 20th century. After the Great Depression, the migration numbers increased again. Find out what...
Columbia University
Columbia University: "The Migration Series" by Jacob Lawrence
This is a four slide-show examination of the pictorial series that the Harlem Renaissance artist Jacob Lawrence created in paint to tell the story of the "The Great Migration" of African-Americans from the Southern United States to the...
Stanford University
Stanford History Education Group: Great Migration
[Free Registration/Login Required] Using primary sources, students will form their own conclusions as to why African-Americans moved north in large numbers during the early 1900's. Included in this lesson plan is a PowerPoint to use for...
OpenStax
Open Stax: Urbanization 1870 1900: Great Migration and New European Immigration
What caused the influx of African Americans and European immigrants into urban centers in the late 19th century? Learn about some of the discriminatory and anti-immigrant laws that were enacted to restrict their rights. Includes a chart...
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Mit: Open Course Ware: The Places of Migration in United States History
MIT provides and extensive list of reading and viewing materials in regard to the migration within the United States. Lecture notes and possible assignments included.
New York Public Library
The Great Migration: Two American Tales Lesson Plan: The Immigrants' Experiences
Part of an online exhibit that describes the experiences of migrants to the cities of the United States. Two American Tales asks students to compare and contrast the nearly contemporaneous experiences of European immigrants and...
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: The African American Migration Story
From the transatlantic slave trade to today's New Great Migration, learn about the major African-American migrations and how those movements changed the course of American history.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Making of African American Identity: Volume Iii, 1917 1968: Migrations
Collection of 11 primary resources exploring the migrations made by African Americans in the 20th Century and the effects they had. Includes text links, notes and questions for discussion.
Library of Congress
Loc: African American Mosaic: Chicago: Destination for the Great Migration
Discusses the housing arrangements of African Americans and those with incomes in the Chicago area. Includes several pictures and links to further related information.
Hartford Web Publishing
Hartford Black History Project: Citizens of Color: Black Society After Civil War
Discusses the history of the African American community in Hartford, Connecticut, in terms of the migration of former slaves to the city right after the end of the Civil War. Also discusses a second wave of migration as African Americans...
Other
Winthrop Society
At the online home of the Winthrop Society find information on the early settlers of Massachusetts, the ships that brought them to America, the documents that the colonists lived by, and the Great Migration of Puritans to the New World.
Digital Public Library of America
Dpla: Exodusters: African American Migration to the Great Plains
The resources here, including letters, photographs, official documents, and maps, represent the exodus of African Americans from the South to the Great Plains in the late 1800s.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Writing for Help, Making of African American Identity: V. 3
Letters by African Americans seeking help to leave the South. They explore issues including identity, family, community, and the struggles induced by the need to migrate north.
Calisphere: University of California Libraries
University of California: Calisphere: Great Depression: Dust Bowl Migration
Primary source photos showing the devastation of the Dust Bowl and refugee migration to California.
Library of Congress
Loc: Lesson Plans: The Great Depression
Students will gain a strong understanding of the Great Depression with these lesson plans for a variety of academic levels. Topics include literature, government and migration.
Library of Congress
Loc: Immigration and Migration:today/during the Great Depression
Students address these questions through activities using oral history methods and investigating life in the 1930s. They compare the immigration/migration experiences of their families to those of people living through the Great...