Library of Congress
Loc: Teachers: America at the Centennial
A lesson plan requiring student to analyze primary documents from the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876. Learners interpret what these historical artifacts say "about the lives and values of Americans in 1876" among other things.
Library of Congress
Loc: Teachers: The Immigrant Experience: Down the Rabbit Hole
Through a series of six activities, learners read about, connect to, and draw conclusions about the immigrant experience, via personal experience and a collection of resources, including Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland," oral...
Library of Congress
Loc: Nineteenth Century Women: Struggle and Triumph Lesson Plan
Journals, letters, and narratives reveal a part of America's history not revealed in textbooks, the story of women, namely the women of the 1800s. With this lesson, young scholars gain understanding of women and history through various...
Library of Congress
Loc: Teachers: The American Dream
With the help of digitized primary documents -- pictures, photograph, recordings, and written accounts -- students will explore and define what the "American Dream" meant for people over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth...
Library of Congress
Loc: Creating a Primary Source Archive: All History Is Local
A lesson plan where students collect local primary documents and examine the interplay between national, state, local, and personal history.
Library of Congress
Loc: Teachers: Civil War Photographs: The Mathew Brady Bunch
Students browse a collection of over one thousand Civil War photos, and then choose one to examine in-depth. The resulting assignment is a news article based on the photo's events and subject matter.
Library of Congress
Loc: Teachers: New Deal Programs: Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
Photographs and life histories aid young scholars in examining the lives of real people during the Great Depression, specifically those impacted by the New Deal programs and agencies. The culminating student products of this lesson will...
Library of Congress
Loc: Teachers: Mark Twain's Hannibal
Primary texts, such as music, photographs, and maps, allow young scholars to examine how Mark Twain's life in Hannibal, Missouri, influenced his popular written works, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer."
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Loc: After Reconstruction: Problems of African Americans
After reading a collection of primary texts, students will identify problems facing African Americans in the South following Reconstruction and propose solutions to those problems. In addition to providing guidelines for teachers leading...
Library of Congress
Loc: Teachers: Local History: Mapping My Spot in History
Through interpreting and investigating historical maps, students gain new perspective not only of their local communities but also of their own homes. Student activities include collecting data about their homes, reporting on the...
Library of Congress
Loc: American Memory Timeline: Colonial Settlement,1600s 1763
Read about the colonization in the New World by many European countries. Hyperlinks to you to more specific topics.
Library of Congress
Loc: Rise of Industrial America: Railroads in the Late 19th Century
A compilation of primary source documents addressing building and running the railroad system in the late 19th century.
Library of Congress
Loc: Political Cartoons: Finding Point of View
A careful analysis of political cartoons can provide a glimpse into key moments of U.S. political history. In this activity, students will closely examine political cartoons about the Stamp Act; make inferences about the political,...
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Loc: Twentieth Century Entertainment: When Work Is Done
An analysis of leisure time activity in the early 20th century.
Library of Congress
Loc: The American West: Images of Its People
Different peoples have contributed to the history of the western United States. To gain an understanding and appreciation of this history, middle schoolers investigate the region's cultures and identify the contributions that each make...
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Loc: African American Identity in the Gilded Age
Examine the tension experienced by African-Americans as they struggled to establish a vibrant and meaningful identity based on the promises of liberty and equality in the midst of a society that was ambivalent towards them and sought to...
Library of Congress
Loc: The Titanic: Shifting Responses to Its Sinking
In 1912, popular media headlined the sinking of the world's largest luxury passenger ocean liner while on its maiden voyage. Newspapers captivated the world's attention with stories from survivors and about victims who did not survive....
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Loc: The Great Gatsby: Primary Sources From the Roaring Twenties
In order to appreciate historical fiction, students need to understand the factual context and recognize how popular culture reflects the values, mores, and events of the time period. Since a newspaper records significant events and...
Library of Congress
Loc: A Russian Settlement in Alaska
In the early 19th century, most of the land that is now Alaska was claimed by the Russian empire, and its most significant community was Novo-Arkhangelsk, which today is called Sitka. From 1808 until the sale of Alaska to the United...
Library of Congress
Loc: Migration During the Great Depression: Living History
Most people in Central Florida came from somewhere else. Students first analyze life histories from American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940 to learn oral history techniques. They then interview...
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Loc: Natural Disasters: Nature's Fury
People have always tried to understand the natural world in which they live. In early times, they created myths to explain their experiences with fire, flood and other violent forces. Over the centuries, new scientific discoveries added...
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Loc: Child Labor and the Building of America
Young scholars are immersed in primary source materials that relate to child labor in America from 1880-1920 to gain a personal perspective of how work affected the American child within a rapidly growing industrial society. This project...
Library of Congress
Loc: Found Poetry With Primary Sources: The Great Depression
Students explore poetry using American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940 collection of American Memory, which covers personal stories collected by the Works Progress Administration. In particular,...
Library of Congress
Loc: The Huexotzinco Codex
Students will analyze a set of pictograph documents created by native peoples of Puebla, Mexico in 1531. Students will take on the role of historians, study the documents, and create a scenario to explain what these documents were for,...