Video: Inside The Vault Inside the Vault: Lucy Knox 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ During the siege of Boston in 1775, 19-year-old Lucy Knox gave up everything she knew and left Boston with her husband’s sword hidden in her clothes. She would never see her parents or siblings again. Lucy’s letters to her husband,...
Video: Inside The Vault Inside the Vault: Civil War Diaries of William Woodlin, 8th USCT, & Cyrena Hammond 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ During the Civil War, 22-year-old William Woodlin, a musician in the 8th United States Colored Troops, and 18-year-old Cyrena Hammond, from Clarendon, New York, kept diaries about their experiences and observations. They recorded the...
Video: Read Along "A Ride to Remember: A Civil Rights Story" A Ride to Remember tells how a community came together—both Black and White—to make a change. When Sharon Langley was born in the early 1960s, many amusement parks were segregated, and African American families were not allowed entry...
Video: Read Along "Exquisite: The Poetry and Life of Gwendolyn Brooks" Literature Gwendolyn Brooks (1917–2000) is known for her poems about “real life.” She wrote about love, loneliness, family, and poverty—showing readers how just about anything could become a beautiful poem. Exquisite follows Gwendolyn from...
Video: Read Along "The Voice That Won the Vote: How One Woman's Words Made History" In August of 1920, women’s suffrage in America came down to the vote in Tennessee. If the Tennessee legislature approved the Nineteenth Amendment it would be ratified, giving American women the right to vote. The historic moment came...
Video: Read Along "Martin & Anne: The Kindred Spirits of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Anne Frank" Anne Frank and Martin Luther King Jr. were born the same year a world apart. Both faced ugly prejudices and violence, which both answered with words of love and faith in humanity. This is the story of their parallel journeys to find...
Video: Read Along "Eliza: The Story of Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton" This is a beautiful and informative biography featuring extensive back matter–including information about America’s revolution, the historical relevance of letter writing, and a timeline–and exquisite, thoroughly researched art that...
Video: Read Along "i see the rhythm" Beginning with the roots of Black music in Africa and continuing on to contemporary hip hop, i see the rhythm takes us on a musical journey through time. We are invited to feel the rhythm of work songs on a southern plantation, to...
Video: Read Along "Before She Was Harriet" This lush, lyrical biography in verse begins with a glimpse of Harriet Tubman as an old woman, and travels back in time through the many roles she played through her life: spy, liberator, suffragist, and more. Illustrated by James...
Video: Read Along "The Storyteller's Candle / La velita de los cuentos" Government and Civics This is the story of librarian Pura Belpré, told through the eyes of two young children who are introduced to the library and its treasures just before Christmas. Lulu Delacre's lovely illustrations evoke New York City at the time of...
Spotlight on: Primary Source A family torn apart by war, 1777 The Revolutionary War divided families. In 1774, eighteen-year-old Lucy Flucker married twenty-four-year-old Henry Knox. Lucy’s parents were powerful, wealthy Tories, and they were not happy with the match. Henry Knox was the son of...
Video: Book Breaks Amanda Bellows - "The Explorers: A New History of the United States in Ten Expeditions" World History Amanda Bellows’s writing has appeared in the New York Times , the Washington Post , and Talking Points Memo . She currently teaches at The New School in New York City. Order The Explorers at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an...
Lesson Plan Children’s Attitudes about Slavery and Women’s Abolitionism as Seen through Anti-slavery Fairs 6, 7, 8 Overview Over two days, students will examine the attitudes that children from northern states had about slavery during the 1830s to 1860s and how abolitionists tried to change their way of thinking. They will also explore how woman...
Video: Citizenship Exam What did Susan B. Anthony do? Government and Civics What did Susan B. Anthony do? Explained by Sara Charles Educator from New York Question 77
Video: Read Along "Dancing Hands: How Teresa Carreno Played the Piano for President Lincoln" Government and Civics As a little girl, Teresa Carreño loved to let her hands dance across the beautiful keys of the piano. If she felt sad, music cheered her up, and when she was happy, the piano helped her share that joy. Soon she was writing her own...
Lesson Plan Prominent Latinos and Latinas in the Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century United States 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 About This Lesson Plan Unit The objective of the unit is to have students recognize the economic, social, and political challenges faced by Latinas and Latinos throughout the United States from the 1930s through the 1960s, as...
Lesson Plan The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere: Literature v. History Literature 3, 4, 5 About this Lesson Plan Unit Over the course of three lessons, students will compare and contrast two documents describing one of the most iconic events in American history: Paul Revere's ride of April 18–19, 1775. They will...