Teaching Resources

Art, Music, and Film

Over the past fifteen years, the Gilder Lehrman Institute has worked closely with master educators across the country. Many of them have developed unique lesson plans and activities related to this historical era. These resources are included here along with pedagogical videos and other general teaching tools that can be adapted for a variety of time periods and themes in American history.

A Look at Slavery through Posters and Broadsides

Curriculum Subjects: Art Grade Levels: 6, 7, 8

African American soldiers at the Battle of Fort Wagner, 1863

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

All Shook Up: How Rock ’n’ Roll Changed America

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

America the Beautiful, 1893

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

American Culture in the 1950s

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American Moderns: Bohemian New York and the Creation of a New Century

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American Music Goes to War

Curriculum Subjects: Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Grade Levels: 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

American Slavery and Abolition through Hollywood

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels: 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Analyzing Protest Songs of the 1960s

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

Anti-corporate cartoons, ca. 1900

Curriculum Subjects: Art, Economics, Government and Civics Grade Levels: 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Assessing Change: Women's Lives in the American Revolutionary Era

Curriculum Subjects: Art Grade Levels: 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Beyond Rosie the Riveter: Women's Contributions During World War II

Curriculum Subjects: Art, Economics, Government and Civics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Grade Levels: 9, 10, 11, 12

Birth of a Nation

Curriculum Subjects: Art, Geography, Government and Civics, Literature Grade Levels: 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Birth of a Nation, 1915

Curriculum Subjects: Government and Civics Grade Levels:

Building Carnegie Hall, 1889

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Building Mount Rushmore, 1926

Curriculum Subjects: Art Grade Levels:

Civilian Conservation Corps poster, 1938

Curriculum Subjects: Art, Economics Grade Levels: 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Colonists Divided: A Revolution and a Civil War

Curriculum Subjects: Government and Civics Grade Levels: 6, 7, 8

De Soto’s discovery of the Mississippi, 1541

Curriculum Subjects: Art, Geography, World History Grade Levels: 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Early Encounters between Native Americans and Europeans

Curriculum Subjects: Art Grade Levels: 9, 10, 11, 12

Essential Questions in Teaching American History

Curriculum Subjects: Art, Economics, Foreign Languages, Geography, Government and Civics, Literature, Religion and Philosophy, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, World History Grade Levels: K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Harriet Beecher Stowe sends Uncle Tom’s Cabin to Victoria and Albert, 1852

Curriculum Subjects: Literature Grade Levels:

High-Tech History: Bringing History to Life with Digital Storytelling

Curriculum Subjects: Art, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Grade Levels: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Hollywood and the American Revolution

Curriculum Subjects: Art Grade Levels: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

How We Got Here: The 70’s, the Decade That Brought You Modern Life (for Better or Worse)

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

Immigration in the Gilded Age: Using Photographs as Primary Sources

Curriculum Subjects: Geography, Government and Civics Grade Levels: 6, 7, 8

Impossible to Hold: Women and Culture in the 1960’s

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John Philip Sousa critiques modern music, 1930

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Landing of Henrick Hudson, 1609

Curriculum Subjects: Geography Grade Levels: 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Lazy B: Growing Up on a Cattle Ranch in the American Southwest

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Movies and Migration

Curriculum Subjects: Art Grade Levels: 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

My Country, ’Tis of Thee

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National Jazz Museum in Harlem

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New Deal Network

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Nothing Like It in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad, 1863–1869

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Our Victorious Fleets in Cuban Waters, 1898

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Perspectives on the Fourth of July

Curriculum Subjects: Art, Government and Civics, Literature, Religion and Philosophy Grade Levels: 6, 7, 8

Photograph of an abandoned farm in the Dust Bowl, 1938

Curriculum Subjects: Art, Economics, Geography Grade Levels: 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Screening Out the Past: The Birth of Mass Culture and the Motion Picture Industry

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

Secotan, an Algonquian village, ca. 1585

Curriculum Subjects: Art Grade Levels: 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Singing for Freedom

Curriculum Subjects: Literature Grade Levels: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Songs of Peace, Freedom, and Protest

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

Sounds of Change: The Influence of Jazz on the Beat Generation

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels: 9, 10, 11, 12

Symbols of the 1920s: New York City Skyscrapers in Photographs and Paintings

Curriculum Subjects: Art Grade Levels: 9, 10, 11, 12

Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s

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The 1950s

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The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth

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The Autobiography of Frederick Douglass

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels: 9, 10, 11, 12

The Big Bang! The Birth of Rock and Roll

Curriculum Subjects: Art, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Grade Levels: 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

The Big Tomorrow: Hollywood and the Politics of the American Way

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The Fifties in America

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The Great West Illustrated, 1869

Curriculum Subjects: Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Grade Levels:

The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society, and Politics

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The Songs That Fought the War: Popular Music and the Home Front, 1939–1945

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The Sounds of Social Change: Studies in Popular Culture

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Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello

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Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, 1911

Curriculum Subjects: Economics, Foreign Languages, Literature, Religion and Philosophy Grade Levels:

Using Works of Art in Teaching American History

Curriculum Subjects: Art, World History Grade Levels: K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

What’s That Sound? Teaching the 1960s through Popular Music

Curriculum Subjects: Art Grade Levels: 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

World War II: Commemorating Pearl Harbor, 1941

Curriculum Subjects: Art Grade Levels: