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Spotlight on: Primary Source

The Supreme Court upholds national prohibition, 1920

Economics, Government and Civics

After more than a century of activism, the temperance movement achieved its signal victory with the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment to the US Constitution in 1919. The amendment abolished "the manufacture, sale, or...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

Civil War condolence letter for General Paul Semmes, 1863

By 1863, thousands of Northern and Southern women had volunteered in hospitals to help care for sick and wounded soldiers. In cities and towns near battlefields, wounded soldiers were often placed in private homes and other buildings...

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The origins of FDR’s New Deal, 1932

Economics, Government and Civics

When the nation fell into the Great Depression following the stock market crash of 1929, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was serving as New York’s governor and was responsible for shaping the state’s response to the crisis. The origins of...

Lesson Plan

The Boston Massacre (Grades 4–6)

Art, Government and Civics, World History

4, 5, 6

View the engraving The Bloody Massacre in King Street in the Gilder Lehrman Collection by clicking here . Unit Objective This unit is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based teaching resources. These units...

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Lowell Mill Girls and the factory system, 1840

Economics

Lowell, Massachusetts, named in honor of Francis Cabot Lowell, was founded in the early 1820s as a planned town for the manufacture of textiles. It introduced a new system of integrated manufacturing to the United States and...

Lesson Plan

The French and Indian War

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Unit Objective This unit is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based teaching resources. These units were developed to enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original texts of historical...

Lesson Plan

The National Bank Debate

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Objective This lesson is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based teaching resources. These resources were developed to enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original texts of historical...

Lesson Plan

The Preamble to the US Constitution, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the Declaration of Independence

Government and Civics

K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Lesson Plan

The Evolution of the US Constitution: The Preambles to the Articles of Confederation and the US Constitution

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Objective This lesson plan is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based teaching resources. These resources were developed to enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original texts of...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

Remember the Maine, 1898

Government and Civics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, World History

On February 15, 1898, the battleship USS Maine exploded in Havana’s harbor in Cuba, killing nearly two-thirds of her crew. The tragedy occurred after years of escalating tensions between the United States and Spain, and the “yellow...

Lesson Plan

Founding Fathers: Franklin, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Madison

Government and Civics

4, 5, 6

Unit Objective This unit is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based units. These units were developed to enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original texts of historical significance....

Lesson Plan

Survival in the American Wilderness: Fiction v. Nonfiction

7, 8

Lesson Plan

Rural America: The Westward Movement

Geography

7, 8

Lesson Plan

Hubert Humphrey’s Speech to the 1948 Democratic National Convention

Government and Civics

11, 12, 13+

Unit Introduction As the United States moved into the post-WWII world, it faced struggles over diversity and race relations. Soldiers returning from Europe recognized the disparities between races in the United States and, by the late...

Lesson Plan

The Monroe Doctrine

Government and Civics, World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Unit Objective This unit is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based teaching resources. These units were written to enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original texts of historical...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

"Bleeding Kansas" and the Pottawatomie Massacre, 1856

In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act overturned the Missouri Compromise, which stated that slavery would not be allowed north of latitude 36°30′. Instead, settlers would use the principle of popular sovereignty and vote to determine...

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The Whiskey Rebellion, 1794

Economics, Government and Civics

In 1791, the federal government imposed a tax on distilled spirits to pay off the nation’s debts from the American Revolution. The tax, which was payable only in cash, was particularly hard on small frontier farmers, who bartered and...

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A plea to defend the Alamo, 1836

Government and Civics

A decade of conflict between the Mexican government and US settlers in Texas culminated in 1836 with the siege of the Alamo and the Texas Declaration of Independence. On February 23, 1836, Lieutenant Colonel William Travis, Jim Bowie,...

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A report from Spanish California, 1776

Foreign Languages, Government and Civics

Fernando de Rivera y Moncada, military commander of Alta California, wrote this letter from Mission San Gabriel. Rivera y Moncada was instrumental in the development of missions in California and was in a sometimes-contentious...

Lesson Plan

The National Game. Three "Outs" And One "Run"

Overview A pro-Lincoln satire, deposited for copyright weeks before the 1860 presidential election. The contest is portrayed as a baseball game in which Lincoln has defeated (left to right) John Bell, Stephen A. Douglas, and John C....

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Receipt for land purchased from the Six Nations, 1769

Government and Civics

This document records that the representatives of the Six Nations, who signed using totems to designate individuals and tribes, received $10,000 as payment from the Penns for land the tribes had ceded in the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in...

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Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1863

Government and Civics

In 1621, settlers in Massachusetts celebrated what has come to be regarded as the first thanksgiving in the New World. On October 3, 1789, George Washington issued a proclamation creating the first Thanksgiving Day designated by the...

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"Reelect Roosevelt—Friend of Labor," 1936

Economics, Government and Civics

This Democratic Party campaign poster from 1936 outlines some of the agencies and regulations Franklin Roosevelt put in place to try to solve the most urgent problems of the Great Depression. While it reminds laborers of how they have...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

John Adams describes George Washington’s ten talents, 1807

Eight years after George Washington’s death, John Adams penned this letter to Benjamin Rush explaining why George Washington was considered a hero by the American people. He wrote it on November 11, 1807, in response to a letter from...

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The Haymarket Affair, 1886

Economics, Government and Civics

The Haymarket Affair is considered a watershed moment for American labor history, at a time when fears about the loyalties and activities of immigrants, anarchists, and laborers became linked in the minds of many Americans. On May 3,...

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