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Spotlight on: Primary Source

Ratification of the US Constitution in New York, 1788

Government and Civics

This unique copy of the US Constitution was printed by Claxton and Babcock in Albany, New York, between February 11 and March 21, 1788. Copies of the Constitution were widely distributed following the document’s signing by the members...

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Aaron Burr, fugitive and traitor, 1804

On July 11, 1804, Vice President Aaron Burr shot former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton in a duel in Weehawken, New Jersey. Nine days later he wrote this cryptic letter (partially in cipher) to his son-in-law, Joseph...

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The surrender of Robert E. Lee, 1865

Left with no route of escape after the fall of Petersburg, Virginia, on April 2, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee was faced with a difficult choice: keep fighting in an increasingly hopeless war or surrender to Ulysses S. Grant...

Lesson Plan

How We Elect a President: The Electoral College (Grades 4–6)

Government and Civics

4, 5, 6

Click to download this lesson plan.

Lesson Plan

How We Elect a President: The Electoral College (Grades 7–9)

Government and Civics

6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Objective This lesson on the Electoral College is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based teaching resources. These resources were written to enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original...

Lesson Plan

How We Elect a President: The Electoral College (Grades 10–12)

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

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Hamilton’s Report on the Subject of Manufactures, 1791

Economics, Government and Civics

When George Washington became president in 1789, he appointed Alexander Hamilton as his secretary of the Treasury. Hamilton’s vision for the economic foundation of the United States included three main programs: 1) the federal...

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Harry S. Truman responds to McCarthy, 1950

Government and Civics

In February 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy alleged in a speech in West Virginia that more than 200 staff members at the Department of State were known to be members of the Communist Party. During Harry Truman’s press conference on...

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The British evacuation of Boston, 1776

Art, Government and Civics

3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

On March 25, 1776, only eight days after the British evacuation of Boston, the Continental Congress authorized a medal, “George Washington before Boston,” to commemorate the event. During the war, Congress commissioned eleven medals...

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Campaigning for the African American vote in Georgia, 1894

Economics, Government and Civics

In the gubernatorial and local elections of 1894, the Democrats and the newly formed People’s Party or Populist Party vied for black votes in Georgia. Neither the Democrats nor the Populists called for racial equality in their...

Classroom Resources

Presidential Election Results, 1789–2020

Government and Civics

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Introduction The Electoral College consists of 538 electors, who are representatives typically chosen by the candidate’s political party, though some state laws differ. Each state’s number of electors is based on its congressional...

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William Jennings Bryan and the ideals of the Declaration of Independence, 1895

Government and Civics

In 1895, Williams Jennings Bryan wrote to I. J. Dunn, an Omaha lawyer and president of the Jackson Club, to decline an invitation to speak at the local Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner, an annual event held by the Democratic Party. Bryan,...

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Dragging cannon from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston, 1775

Geography

On March 17, 1776, George Washington stood on Dorchester Heights alongside fifty-nine captured cannon high above the city of Boston, Massachusetts, and watched as British troops peacefully evacuated the city after an eleven-month...

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A plan for a new government, 1775

Government and Civics

More than a decade before the Constitutional Convention in 1787—and months before the United States declared independence—John Adams wrote a plan for a new form of government for the American colonies. In it Adams described the basic...

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Confederate reaction to "Beast" Butler's orders, 1862

In April 1862 Union forces led by Captain David G. Farragut steamed past the weak Confederate defenses and captured New Orleans. During the occupation of the city Union troops were repeatedly insulted by New Orleans women and one...

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World War II: Commemorating Pearl Harbor, 1941

Art

Following the Japanese bombardment of the US Naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, the United States declared war on Japan and Germany and immediately mobilized the country for war. "Remember Dec. 7th!" is a...

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Runaway slave ad, 1860

Economics, Geography, Government and Civics

Runaway slave ads were a reality in America as long as slavery existed. Appearing as broadsides and in newspapers, such ads offered monetary rewards from slaveholders for the capture and return of escaped slaves. On May 9, 1860, Enoch...

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A report on the reaction to the Stamp Act, 1765

Government and Civics, World History

On March 22, 1765, the British Parliament passed the “Stamp Act” to help pay for British troops stationed in the colonies during the Seven Years’ War. It required the colonists to pay a tax, represented by a stamp, on various papers,...

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The Stamp Act, 1765

Economics, Government and Civics

On March 22, 1765, the British Parliament passed the “Stamp Act” to help pay for British troops stationed in the colonies during the Seven Years’ War. The act required the colonists to pay a tax, represented by a stamp, on various...

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The Monroe Doctrine, 1823

Economics, Geography, Government and Civics, World History

President James Monroe’s 1823 annual message to Congress included a warning to European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere. This portion of the address is known as the Monroe Doctrine. The United States...

Lesson Plan

"Contagious Liberty": Women in the Revolutionary Age

Government and Civics

Background The American Revolution, a byproduct of events both on the North American continent and abroad, unleashed a movement that focused on egalitarianism in ways that had never been seen before. Even John Adams commented on these...

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Texas Declaration of Independence, 1836

Government and Civics

On March 2, 1836, Texas formally declared its independence from Mexico. The Texas Declaration of Independence was signed at Washington-on-the-Brazos, now commonly referred to as the “birthplace of Texas.” Similar to the United States...

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Abraham Lincoln, Inventor, 1849

Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

On March 10, 1849, Abraham Lincoln filed a patent for a device for "buoying vessels over shoals" with the US Patent Office. Patent No. 6,469 was approved two months later, giving Abraham Lincoln the honor of being the only US...

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Martha Washington on life after the Revolution, 1784

The Revolutionary War disrupted the home life of Americans for eight years. Battles between the British and American armies, as well as tensions between loyalists and patriots, created difficulties that people met with strength and...

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Loyalists and the British evacuation of Philadelphia, 1778

On September 26, 1777, the British began an eight-month occupation of the city of Philadelphia during the American Revolution. This allowed British troops to spend the winter billeted in comfortable quarters, while Washington’s troops...

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Sir Francis Drake’s attack on St. Augustine, 1586

Economics, World History

Five years after leading the first English circumnavigation of the globe in 1577–1580, Sir Francis Drake led a raid against Spanish settlements in the Caribbean including Santiago, Santo Domingo, and Cartagena, as well as St....

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Slave revolt in the West Indies, 1733

Economics, Geography, World History

The prevalence of slavery in pre-Revolutionary America made actual and threatened uprisings of enslaved people of intense interest throughout the British colonies in North America. The West Indies, or Caribbean islands, where slavery...

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"Food Will Win the War," 1917

Economics, World History

When most people think of wartime food rationing, they often think of World War II. However, civilians were encouraged to do their part for the war effort during World War I as well. This colorful poster by artist Charles E. Chambers...

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Eleanor Roosevelt’s four basic rights, 1944

Government and Civics

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, a lifelong advocate of equal rights, used her position as First Lady to advocate against discrimination in the United States. However, Mrs. Roosevelt’s ideas were not embraced by everyone in the pre-civil...

Lesson Plan

America’s First Ladies on Twentieth-Century Issues

Unit Overview Over the course of three to four lessons the students will analyze five primary source documents. These documents are the abridged transcripts of speeches by five of our country’s first ladies: Eleanor Roosevelt, Betty...

Lesson Plan

Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady for Social Justice: A Common Core Unit (Grades 9–12)

Government and Civics, World History

9, 10, 11, 12

Objectives Students will be asked to read and analyze primary and secondary sources about Eleanor Roosevelt and the work she did to support social justice issues both in the United States and around the world. They will look at the...

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Arguments for educating women, 1735

On May 19, 1735, John Peter Zenger republished this essay in the New-York Weekly Journal. Originally printed in the Guardian , a British periodical, the two-page essay supports the education of women “of Quality or Fortune.” The...

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Cadet Nurse Corps, 1943

The Cadet Nurse Corps, established by the Nurse Training Act of 1943, recruited women between the ages of seventeen and thirty-five to be trained as nurses. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt insisted the act be amended to prevent racial...

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The end of the Vietnam War: conscience, resistance, and reconciliation, 1973

Vietnam was "America’s longest war." While US operations tended to be very limited between 1945 and 1964, escalation in the early months of 1965 eventually led to the deployment of more than 2.5 million military personnel to South...

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A revival of religious fervor, 1744

Religion and Philosophy

The Christian History was a revivalist periodical founded by the Boston clergyman Thomas Prince in 1743 to report on the religious revivals sweeping across Europe and the United States. It was the first Christian periodical published...

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Lydia Maria Child on women’s rights, 1843

The best-known work of the poet and novelist Lydia Maria Child may be her poem "Over the River and through the Woods," but she is also remembered for her compelling objections to slavery and her support for underrepresented groups....

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The Cold War in the classroom, 1952

Government and Civics, World History

As the Cold War pervaded domestic as well as international spheres, Duck and Cover , an educational film produced by the Federal Civil Defense Administration and Archer Productions Inc., showed children how to react in case of a...

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Robert F. Kennedy on Vietnam, 1967

Government and Civics, World History

On May 15, 1967, CBS broadcast Town Meeting of the World , a program in which Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York and Governor Ronald Reagan of California answered questions posed by the moderator, Charles Collingwood; students from...

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Franklin D. Roosevelt’s First Inauguration, 1933

Economics, Government and Civics, Literature

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave his first inaugural address on March 4, 1933, the nation was reeling from the Great Depression and was dissatisfied with the previous administration’s reluctance to fight it. Roosevelt declared that...

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George Washington’s First Inaugural Address, 1789

Government and Civics, Literature

After officially enacting the newly ratified US Constitution in September 1788, the Confederation Congress scheduled the first inauguration for March 1789. However, bad weather delayed many congressmen from arriving in the national...

Lesson Plan

JFK’s Inaugural Address

Government and Civics

4, 5, 6

Unit Objective This lesson on President John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core–based units. These units were written to enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original...

Lesson Plan

The First Inaugural Address of George Washington

Government and Civics, Literature

11, 12

Unit Objectives This lesson on the First Inaugural Address of George Washington is part of the Gilder Lehrman Institute’s series of Common Core–based units. These units were written to enable students to understand, summarize, and...

Lesson Plan

Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address

Government and Civics, Literature

11, 12

Unit Objective This lesson on Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core–based units. These units were written to enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original texts...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address, 1961

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

On January 20, 1961, John F. Kennedy was sworn in as the thirty-fifth President of the United States. His short, fourteen-minute inaugural address is best remembered for a single line: "My fellow Americans: ask not what your country...

Lesson Plan

National Security, Isolationism, and the Coming of World War II

Government and Civics

11, 12, 13+

Unit Overview The two decades following the end of "The Great War" witnessed significant changes in American economic, social, and cultural life. The affluence and optimism of the 1920s were tempered by memories of the war and an...

Lesson Plan

The Gettysburg Address: Identifying Text, Context, and Subtext

Government and Civics, Literature, Religion and Philosophy

6, 7, 8, 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

Lincoln’s First and Second Inaugural Addresses

Government and Civics

6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Objective This lesson on President Lincoln’s two inaugural addresses is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based units. These units enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original texts of...

Lesson Plan

My Brother Sam Is Dead

Government and Civics, Literature

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 Virginia Colony

9, 10

Objective In presenting to students documents dating from the earliest European contact with the Americas, teachers are faced with problems of accessibility. The language is often daunting, and the relevance for students of American...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

Civilian describes pillaging near Gettysburg, 1863

On July 5, 1863, Dr. William H. Boyle wrote to a fellow member of the local Columbus Lodge of the International Organization of Odd Fellows, Isaac McCauley, describing the devastation the Confederates had caused in Chambersburg,...

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