91 items
African American Voting Rights from The Gilder Lehrman Institute on Vimeo .
Colonial Pennsylvania and the Paxton Massacre, 1763
Click here to download this four-lesson unit.
About This Lesson Plan Unit The four lessons in this unit explore a massacre in colonial Pennsylvania in which the Paxton Boys—immigrants from Ulster,...
Pilgrims, the Plymouth Colony, and Thanksgiving, 1608-1621
Click here to download this five-lesson unit.
Why Documents Matter: An Interactive Digital Edition
Welcome to Why Documents Matter: An Interactive Digital Edition —a selection of primary sources from the Gilder Lehrman Collection curated and annotated for K–12 classrooms (print edition available here ). Scroll through the entire...
Native American Cultures and the Impact of the Boarding Schools
Click to download this four-lesson unit.
What Does Liberty Look Like?
" We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ." Declaration of...
World War I, African American Soldiers, and America’s War for Democracy
Click to download this lesson plan.
Cuffee Saunders
Cuffee Saunders Revolutionary War Born into slavery, Cuffee Saunders secured his freedom by serving during the Revolutionary War. Image Source: Benjamin Huntington, Oath certifying Cuffee Saunders's purchase of freedom, 1821, Gilder Lehrman...
Joe Morris Sr.
Joe Morris Sr. World War II Joe Morris Sr. was one of four hundred “code talkers” who memorized a code that substituted traditional Navajo words for military phrases. The contributions of the Navajo code talkers were classified until 1968. Image...
John W. Rogers Sr.
John W. Rogers Sr. World War II In World War II, John W. Rogers was one of the original twenty-eight Black airmen recruited to the 99th Pursuit Squadron, also known as the Tuskegee Airmen. Rogers flew more than 120 missions in Europe. Image Source:...
Perry Watkins
Perry Watkins Cold War Perry Watkins served fifteen years in the Army as an openly gay man. Despite this, in 1980, the Army revoked his security clearance and had him discharged because he was gay, a discharge he successfully fought in court. Image...
Alan G. Rogers
Alan G. Rogers Iraq & Afghanistan Alan G. Rogers served in the Army during the Gulf and Iraq Wars. For his master’s thesis in policy management from Georgetown, Rogers wrote about the effect of the US military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on...
James Reese Europe
James Reese Europe World War I James Reese Europe, a bandleader in New York City, was an advocate for uniquely Black music. Europe enlisted during World War I and became a lieutenant in the 369th Regiment, known as the Harlem Hellfighters. Image...
Sharecropping Contracts in the Reconstruction-Era South, 1867-1870
Click here to download this three-lesson unit.
The History of Federal, State, and Tribal Powers, 1788–2020
Click here to download this five-lesson unit.
The US Government and Indigenous Peoples before the Trail of Tears, 1770-1839
Click to download this five-lesson unit.
Activist for Equality: Frederick Douglass at 200
Born to Harriet Bailey, an enslaved woman in Maryland in February 1818, Douglass lived twenty years as a slave and nearly nine years as a fugitive. From the 1840s to his death in 1895, he attained international fame as an...
The Trail of Tears
Historical Background In 1830, under President Andrew Jackson, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act directing the executive branch to negotiate for American Indian lands. The act set the tone for President Jackson in dealing with...
Children’s Attitudes about Slavery and Women’s Abolitionism as Seen through Anti-slavery Fairs
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...
Showing results 51 - 91