Need for Reconstruction: Devasation and Liberation in the South

Did you know that many women were Confederate spies during the Civil War? The resource focuses particularly on the important role women played for both the Union and Confederacy. It uses exercises such as a discussion, video, analyzing...

What, if anything, makes a war "just"? This is an interesting and important question to explore with your class, and you can utilize an excellent lesson plan to support your group inquiry. The American Revolution and the War of 1812...

Complete with territory maps, photos, and interesting anecdotes, this video covers the major events of American History, roughly from 1754 to 1865. Plymouth and Jamestown are mentioned at the beginning of the video, but the speaker...

North and South: two opposite directions and two opposite economic and social systems in time of the Civil War. Pupils peruse census websites and primary source photographs to understand what life was like for the everyday person before...

North is to factory as South is to plantation—the perfect analogy for the economy that set up the Civil War! The first instructional activity in a series of five helps teach beginners why the economy creates a driving force for conflict....

Women's lifestyles before the Civil War made a huge impact as a point of causation. Give middle schoolers the opportunity to view firsthand the lives of women before the Civil War. They analyze primary source documents, view photographs,...

Discuss the differences between the North and the South and how those differences led to the Civil War. Middle schoolers examine and analyze a famous speech or writing by President Lincoln in order to better understand the speaker's...

American life before the Civil War was very different from American life today. To show this difference in a full spectrum, learners compare two communities that illustrate the differences between Northern and Southern life. Throughout...

Engage your scholars by having them create "magic lantern shows" inspired by the film Dr. Toer's Amazing Magic Lantern Show: A Different View of Emancipation. As they study the South's Reconstruction through primary...

When slavery ended, what did the government do to help African American during Reconstruction? An interesting instructional activity uses primary sources such as newspaper articles to help scholars analyze Reconstruction policies and how...