Search

Background Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence invokes the ideals of democracy and freedom. Yet he remains a slaveholder for his entire adult life, and (unlike George Washington) does not free his slaves in his will....

Click here to download this five-lesson unit.

Historical Background While the dominant narrative of the American Revolution focuses on its political causes, the factor of religion cannot be ignored. Many settlers came to the North American colonies seeking the freedom to practice...

Historical Background The most important religious development in colonial America was the introduction of religious revivals known as the Great Awakening. Religious revivals first appeared in England, Scotland, and Germany, and...

Background In January 1969, America’s recently elected conservative president Richard Nixon took office, young Americans were engaged in a radical and vivacious counterculture, and a devastating war in Vietnam continued amidst a...

Overview Students will be introduced to the concept of imperialism, and specifically the three justifications US foreign policy leaders used to justify US Imperialism at the turn of the twentieth century. Warm Up Define Imperialism....

In 1898, the US Navy was small—especially compared to the navies of the European powers. The Navy had shrunk in the years after the Civil War, from more than 600 vessels at that conflict’s close to just forty-eight ready but aging...

President Theodore Roosevelt wrote this letter to William H. Hunt, the governor of Porto Rico (as Puerto Rico was known at the time), just twelve days after he assumed the presidency following President William McKinley’s...

The Patrons of Husbandry, or the Grange, was founded in 1867 to advance methods of agriculture, as well as to promote the social and economic needs of farmers in the United States. The financial crisis of 1873, along with falling crop...

This September 1926 report by the sculptor Gutzon Borglum to the Harney Peak Memorial Association anticipates the construction of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Borglum’s report offers a look...