Teaching Resources

Women’s History

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 Different Perspective on Slavery: Writing the History of African American Slave Women

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

A Necessary Spectacle: Billie Jean King, Bobby Riggs, and the Tennis Match That Leveled the Game

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

A northerner’s view of southern slavery, 1821

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

A Very Dangerous Woman: Martha Wright and Women’s Rights

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

Alice Paul: Suffragist and Agitator

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

Amelia Earhart to her former flight instructor, Neta Snook, 1929

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

American High: The Years of Confidence, 1945-1960

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

American Music Goes to War

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

America’s First Ladies on Twentieth-Century Issues: A Common Core Unit

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels: 8

Arguments for educating women, 1735

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

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

Bitter Fruit: African American Women in World War II

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Cadet Nurse Corps, 1943

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Carrie Catt: Feminist Politician

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Children’s Attitudes about Slavery and Women’s Abolitionism as Seen through Anti-slavery Fairs

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels: 6, 7, 8

Civil Wars: Women and the Crisis of Southern Nationalism

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Confederate reaction to “Beast” Butler’s orders, 1862

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Conflict and Captivity in the Colonies

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

Cotton Mather’s Account of the Witch Trials, 1693

Curriculum Subjects: Government and Civics, Literature, Religion and Philosophy Grade Levels:

Declarations of Independence

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

Declarations of Independence: Women's rights and the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions

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

Discontented America: the United States in the 1920s

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Disorderly Women: Sexual Politics & Evangelicalism in Revolutionary New England

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Early Contacts: Native American and European Women in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

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

Eleanor Roosevelt’s four basic rights, 1944

Curriculum Subjects: Government and Civics Grade Levels:

Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

Erin’s Daughters in America: Irish Immigrant Women in the Nineteenth Century

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

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+

Examining Women’s Roles through Primary Sources and Literature

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

Facts about the Slave Trade and Slavery

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

Fanny Kemble’s Civil Wars

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

Feminism and Suffrage: The Emergence of an Independent Women’s Movement in America, 1848–1869

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First Generations: Women in Colonial America

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First Generations: Women in Colonial America

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Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern

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For Freedom’s Sake: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer

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For the Public Record: A Documentary History of the League of Women Voters

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

From Equal Suffrage to Equal Rights: Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party, 1910–1928

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

Guided Readings: Major Social Issues of the 1960s

Curriculum Subjects: Government and Civics Grade Levels: 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Guided Readings: The Changing Status of Women

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

Hasty Pudding, Johnnycakes, and Other Good Stuff: Cooking in Colonial America

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

Henry Knox on the British invasion of New York, 1776

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Home Lands: How Women Made the West

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Horace Greeley on a woman’s reform newspaper, 1851

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

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

Impact of the Revolution: Guided Readings

Curriculum Subjects: Government and Civics Grade Levels: 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

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

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In Uncle Sam’s Service: Women Workers with the American Expeditionary Force, 1917–1919

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Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy: A Life

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Justice Sandra Day O'Connor: Strategist on the Supreme Court

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Life on the Trail

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

Lucy Knox on the home front during the Revolutionary War, 1777

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

Lucy Stone: Speaking Out for Equality

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Lydia Maria Child on women’s rights, 1843

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Madam President: Women Blazing the Leadership Trail

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Maritcha: A Nineteenth-Century American Girl

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Martha Washington on life after the Revolution, 1784

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Mary McLeod Bethune: A Biography

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Mary Todd Lincoln on life after the White House, 1870

Curriculum Subjects: Economics Grade Levels:

More Than a Game: One Woman’s Fight for Gender Equity in Sport

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

Personal Politics: The Roots of Women’s Liberation in the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

Phillis's Big Test

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Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism: A Woman’s Crusade

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Pushing the Limits: American Women, 1940–1961

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Rebellion against Victorianism: The Impetus for Cultural Change in 1920s America

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

Reform Movements of the Progressive Era

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

Sampler View Of Colonial Life

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

Sandra Day O’Connor: How the First Woman on the Supreme Court Became its Most Influential Justice

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Sandra Day O’Connor: Justice in the Balance

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Sex and Citizenship in Antebellum America

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Sharecropper contract, 1867

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

Something Happened: A Political and Cultural Overview of the Seventies

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

Study Aid: Great Society Legislation

Curriculum Subjects: Government and Civics Grade Levels: 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Susan B. Anthony on suffrage and equal rights, 1901

Curriculum Subjects: Government and Civics Grade Levels:

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

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

The Changing Lives of American Women

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

The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family

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The Ladies of Seneca Falls: The Birth of the Woman’s Rights Movement

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The Last Sure Thing: The Life and Times of Bobby Riggs

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The Limits of Sisterhood: The Beecher Sisters on Women’s Rights and Woman’s Sphere

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The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815–1846

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The Origins of the Equal Rights Amendment: American Feminism between the Wars

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The Plantation Mistress: Woman’s World in the Old South

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The price of war: a letter from Mary Kelly to Sarah Gordon

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The Road to Seneca Falls: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the First Woman’s Rights Convention

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The Role of Women in the 1950s

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

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

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

The Supreme Court, Title IX and Gender Equity

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

The Textile Industry and the Triangle Factory Fire

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

The Weight of Their Votes: Southern Women and Political Leverage in the 1920s

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

This Little Light of Mine: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

Title IX

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

TITLE IX: Striving for Gender Equity in Athletics

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

To Serve My Country, to Serve My Race: The Story of the Only African American WACS Stationed Overseas During World War II

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, 1911

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

Two Paths to Equality: Alice Paul and Ethel M. Smith in the ERA Debate, 1921–1929

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

Virginia Minor and Women's Right to Vote

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Vote and Voice: Women’s Organizations and Political Literacy, 1915–1930

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

What Does Liberty Look Like?

Curriculum Subjects: Government and Civics Grade Levels:

When the Nation Was in Need: Blacks in the Women’s Army Corps during World War II

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Winning Faith: The Margaret Court Story

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Woman Abolitionists

Curriculum Subjects: Government and Civics Grade Levels: 9, 10, 11, 12

Woman Suffrage before 1920

Curriculum Subjects: Government and Civics Grade Levels:

Women and Gender in the American West

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

Women and the Civil War

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

Women and the Work of Benevolence: Morality, Politics, and Class in the Nineteenth-Century United States

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Women at War with America: Private Lives in a Patriotic Era

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

Women in the Great Depression: Investigating Assumptions

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

Women of the West

Curriculum Subjects: Government and Civics Grade Levels: 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Women’s suffrage poster, 1915

Curriculum Subjects: Government and Civics Grade Levels:

Women’s Suffrage: 140 Years of Struggle

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

You Want Women to Vote, Lizzie Stanton?

Curriculum Subjects: Grade Levels:

“Contagious Liberty”: Women in the Revolutionary Age

Curriculum Subjects: Government and Civics Grade Levels:

“Daughters of Jefferson, Daughters of Bootblacks”: Racism and American Feminism

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