Lesson Plan The Soldier's Experience: Letters from Four American Wars 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 Click to download this four-lesson unit.
Spotlight on: Primary Source A perspective on the San Francisco earthquake, 1906 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ At 5:12 a.m. on April 18, 1906, a great earthquake broke loose, with an epicenter near San Francisco. Violent shocks punctuated the shaking, which lasted some 45 to 60 seconds. The earthquake was felt from southern Oregon to south of...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Eyewitness account of the sinking of the Titanic, 1912 Geography, World History 6, 7, 8, 9 Shortly before midnight on April 14, 1912, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg roughly 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland. Two and a half hours later, at 2:20 a.m., the ship sank with approximately 1500 people still on board. This...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Anti-corporate cartoons, ca. 1900 Art, Economics, Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ These cartoons illustrate the growing hostility toward the practices of the big businesses that fueled the industrial development of the United States. In "The Protectors of Our Industries" (1883), railroad magnates Jay Gould and...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Disfranchisement of African American voters in Virginia, 1901 Government and Civics In February 1901, the Virginia General Assembly authorized a constitutional convention to draft election reforms. The convention, supported vehemently by Democrats, aimed to disfranchise African Americans without violating the...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Lynching in America, ca. 1926 Government and Civics The number of violent acts against African Americans accelerated during the first quarter of the twentieth century. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) began compiling lynching statistics in 1912,...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Birth of a Nation, 1915 Government and Civics This "Advice Sheet" flyer was distributed with D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation to theaters when the film was released in 1915. Significantly, the distributors are adamant that "NEGROES MUST NOT BE ADMITTED . . . under any...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Frederick Douglass on the disfranchisement of Black voters, 1888 Government and Civics Frederick Douglass, a former enslaved man and premier champion of civil rights for African Americans and women, was the nineteenth century’s most famous Black leader. In this letter, written in December 1888, he protests the...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, 1911 Economics, Foreign Languages, Literature, Religion and Philosophy On March 25, 1911, a devastating fire started at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City. Workers had been locked in the factory to discourage theft and prevent labor organization, and they were unable to escape when the fire...