Spotlight on: Primary Source Sacco and Vanzetti, 1921 Government and Civics On May 31, 1921, Nicola Sacco, a 32-year-old shoemaker, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, a 29-year-old fish peddler, went on trial for murder in Boston. More than a year earlier, on April 15, 1920, a paymaster and a payroll guard had been...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Herbert Hoover's Inaugural Address, 1929 Government and Civics In November 1928, Republican Herbert Hoover was elected president over the Democratic nominee Al Smith. Hoover had served in the Harding and Coolidge administrations and won the nomination after Coolidge declined to run for a third...
Spotlight on: Primary Source President Reagan’s First Inaugural Address, 1981 Ronald Reagan’s election to the White House came at a time of great economic and international turmoil for the United States. His first inaugural address on January 20, 1981, highlights many major issues of the day, including rising...
Spotlight on: Primary Source President Ford’s statement on pardoning Richard Nixon, 1974 In this speech before the Congressional Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, of October 17, 1974, President Gerald Ford explains his decision to pardon former President Richard Nixon for his role in the Watergate scandal. Nixon had...
Spotlight on: Primary Source President Ford’s remarks in Japan, 1974 In November 1974, Gerald Ford became the first sitting American president to visit Japan—the trip was also Ford’s first abroad since replacing Nixon in August of that year. He used the trip to reinforce US-Japanese relations, and in...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Reagan Speech: "Tear down this wall," 1987 President Ronald Reagan’s "Tear Down This Wall" speech marked his visit to the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on June 12, 1987, following the G7 summit meeting in Venice. As Reagan spoke, his words were amplified to both sides of the...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Ronald Reagan on economics and political parties, 1962 Government and Civics In May 1962, Ronald Reagan wrote this letter expressing his ideas about economic policy and the nation’s political parties. Reagan wrote as a supporter of the conservative Republican Senator Barry Goldwater. Reagan had spent much of...
Spotlight on: Primary Source George W. Bush on the 9/11 attacks, 2001 President George W. Bush delivered this address to a joint session of Congress on September 20, 2001, little more than a week after the September 11 terrorist attacks. The nation was reeling. New York City below Canal Street was still...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Discovering a mass grave in Iraq, 2003 Mark Rickert wrote this email while serving as a journalist with the 372nd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment in Iraq. On this day, he and his group were investigating rumors of a mass grave. The letter is written to his grandfather,...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Christmas in Kuwait, 1990 Geography, World History Cpl. Brett G. Coughlin arrived with Delta Company in Saudi Arabia at the port of Al Jubail on September 13, 1990. For the next three months the company trained in the northern desert of Saudi Arabia. By Christmas, its headquarters...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Barack Obama’s First Inaugural Address, 2009 The inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States in 2009 was a historic moment not only because Obama was the first African American ever sworn into executive office but also because he entered the presidency at a...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Building Carnegie Hall, 1889 In early 1889, industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie was working on plans for a major music hall in New York City. On January 31, 1889, Carnegie wrote to Hiram Hitchcock, the owner of New York’s Fifth Avenue Hotel, to...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Charles Guiteau's reasons for assassinating President Garfield, 1882 Government and Civics, Religion and Philosophy Charles Julius Guiteau employed the unusual medium of poetry to plead his innocence while on trial for assassinating President James Garfield. Guiteau’s odd behavior in court made him a media sensation, and the Gilded Age press...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Immigration cartoon, 1916 Economics, Geography This political cartoon appeared as the nation debated new restrictions on immigration. After 1917, immigrants entering the United States had to pass a literacy test. In the cartoon, the literacy test appears as an insurmountable...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Condolence letter from General MacArthur, 1950 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ In 1950, with Soviet support, North Korea invaded South Korea. The ensuing war lasted until 1953, with the United Nations and the United States entering the conflict soon after it began. For the United States, participation in the...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Panama Canal proposal, 1881 Geography, Government and Civics In his first address to Congress as President in 1869, Ulysses S. Grant called for the construction of a canal connecting the Pacific and Caribbean through the isthmus of Panama. Believing that such a canal would be a great boon to...
Spotlight on: Primary Source John Kennedy compares US and Soviet military power, 1953 On October 16, 1953, Democratic Senator John F. Kennedy spoke at an executive meeting of the American Legion at the organization’s national headquarters in Indianapolis, Indiana. Addressing members of the United States’ largest...
Spotlight on: Primary Source The United Nations and the international community, 1967 Government and Civics, Religion and Philosophy, World History In this 1967 letter, Dr. Israel Goldstein, a prominent American rabbi and Zionist, comments on the United Nations as a peacekeeping organization. After World War II, Goldstein, with other rabbis, had lobbied members of the newly...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Ronald Reagan on the unrest on college campuses, 1967 In his 1966 campaign for California governor, Republican Ronald Reagan promised to "to clean up the mess at Berkeley." Reagan was referring to the unrest prevalent not just at the University of California, Berkeley, but on college...
Lesson Plan George Washington’s Rules of Civility 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Introduction When George Washington was a teenager, he wanted to make a good impression on his elders. Good manners were important to him. He made sure that he knew how by copying Rules of Civility from a French rulebook in his own...
Lesson Plan Surveying Land Geography, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math K, 1, 2, 3 Introduction During the time of the American Revolution, much of the land in the colonies was not mapped. In his early years, George Washington was a surveyor and measured land to figure out the location of property. Materials Rope or...
Lesson Plan Making a Lens Science, Technology, Engineering and Math K, 1, 2, 3 Introduction Benjamin Franklin was a scientist and an inventor. As he got older, he noticed he needed glasses for reading and seeing things far away. Franklin solved this problem by inventing bifocals, which were glasses made with two...
Lesson Plan Back in 1734 K, 1, 2, 3 Introduction Present the following scenario to your students. You can either read it to them or enlist students to act it out. The scenario is about two children who lived in 1734 and were the age of your students. "Anna Elizabeth and...
Lesson Plan Our New Country Needs New Money: Colonial Money Simulation Economics K, 1, 2, 3 There certainly can’t be a greater Grievance to a Traveler, from one Colony to another than the different values their Paper Money bears. —an English visitor, ca.1742 Introduction Students use different kinds of paper money to...
Classroom Resources Infographic: Reform Movements of the Progressive Era Economics, Government and Civics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math 9, 10, 11, 12 View this infographic as a PDF.
Classroom Resources Historical Context: American Slavery in Comparative Perspective Economics, World History 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Of the ten to sixteen million Africans who survived the voyage to the New World, more than one-third landed in Brazil and between 60 and 70 percent ended up in Brazil or the sugar colonies of the Caribbean. Only 6 percent arrived in...
Classroom Resources Historical Context: "Birth of a Nation" Art, Geography, Government and Civics, Literature 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ In 1915, fifty years after the end of the Civil War, D. W. Griffith released his epic film Birth of a Nation . The greatest blockbuster of the silent era, Birth of a Nation was seen by an estimated 200 million Americans by 1946. Based...
Classroom Resources Historical Context: Black Soldiers in the Civil War Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ By early 1863, voluntary enlistments in the Union army had fallen so sharply that the federal government instituted an unpopular military draft and decided to enroll Black as well as White troops. Indeed, it seems likely that it was...
Classroom Resources Historical Context: Go West ... and Grow Up with the Country Geography 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ In 1854 Horace Greeley, a New York newspaper editor, gave Josiah B. Grinnell a famous piece of advice. "Go West, young man, and grow up with the country," said Greeley. Grinnell took Greeley's advice, moved west, and later founded...
Classroom Resources Historical Context: Immigration Policy in World War II World History 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ The day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt suspended naturalization proceedings for Italian, German, and Japanese immigrants, required them to register, restricted their mobility, and prohibited them from owning...
Classroom Resources Historical Context: Life on the Trail 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Each spring, pioneers gathered at Independence and St. Joseph, Missouri, and Council Bluffs, Iowa, to begin a 2,000 mile journey westward. For many families, the great spur for emigration was economic: the financial depression of the...
Classroom Resources Historical Context: Mexican Americans and the Great Depression Economics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ In February 1930 in San Antonio, Texas, 5000 Mexicans and Mexican Americans gathered at the city’s railroad station to depart the United States for settlement in Mexico. In August, a special train carried another 2000 to central...
Classroom Resources Historical Context: Movies and Migration Art 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 Many of our most memorable images of the past come from movies. Films set in the past provide a vivid record of history: of the "look," the clothing, the atmosphere, and the mood of past eras. Nevertheless, movies remain a...
Classroom Resources Historical Context: Post-World War I Labor Tensions Economics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ The years following the end of World War I were a period of deep social tensions, aggrevated by high wartime inflation. Food prices more than doubled between 1915 and 1920; clothing costs more than tripled. A steel strike that began...
Classroom Resources Historical Context: Slavery in a Capitalist World Economics, World History 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Why were the South's political leaders so worried about whether slavery would be permitted in the West when geography and climate made it unlikely that slavery would ever prosper in the area? The answer lies in the South's growing...
Classroom Resources Historical Context: The Breakdown of the Party System Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ As late as 1850, the two-party system seemed healthy. Democrats and Whigs drew strength in all parts of the country. Then, in the early 1850s, the two-party system began to disintegrate in response to massive foreign immigration. By...
Classroom Resources Historical Context: The Confederacy Begins to Collapse Economics, Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ By early 1863, the Civil War had begun to cause severe hardship on the southern home front. Not only was most of the fighting taking place in the South, but also as the Union blockade grew more effective and the South's railroad...
Classroom Resources Historical Context: The Constitution and Slavery Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ On the 200th anniversary of the ratification of the US Constitution, Thurgood Marshall, the first African American to sit on the Supreme Court, said that the Constitution was "defective from the start." He pointed out that the framers...
Classroom Resources Historical Context: The Economics of Slavery 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Like other slave societies, the South did not produce urban centers on a scale equal with those in the North. Virginia's largest city, Richmond, had a population of just 15,274 in 1850. That same year, Wilmington, North Carolina's...
Classroom Resources Historical Context: The First National Census Economics, Geography, Government and Civics 6, 7, 8 Early in August 1790, David Howe, an assistant federal marshal, began the difficult task of counting all the people who lived in Hancock County, Maine. One of 650 federal census takers, charged with making "a...perfect enumeration.....
Classroom Resources Historical Context: The Human Meaning of Migration World History 13+ For more than two centuries novelists and autobiographers have explored the human meaning of migration. In hundreds of stories, novels, and autobiographies, these writers have examined what it means to be uprooted, voluntarily or...
Classroom Resources Study Aid: The Language of Cultural Mixture and Persistence World History 9, 10, 11, 12 The study of migration encourages us to think about the process of cultural adjustment and adaptation that takes place after migrants move from one environment to another. In the early twentieth century, Americans commonly thought of...
Classroom Resources Historical Context: The Survival of the US Constitution Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ The United States has the oldest written national framework of government in the world. At the end of the twentieth century, there were about 159 other national constitutions in the world, and 101 had been adopted since 1970. While...
Classroom Resources Historical Context: The Post-World War I Red Scare Economics, Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ The end of World War I was accompanied by a panic over political radicalism. Fear of bombs, Communism, and labor unrest produced a “Red Scare.” In Hammond, Indiana, a jury took two minutes to acquit the killer of an immigrant who had...
Classroom Resources Historical Context: Why Do People Migrate? Economics, World History 13+ In trying to understand why people migrate, some scholars emphasize individual decision-making, while others stress broader structural forces. Many early scholars of migration emphasized the importance of "push" and "pull" factors....
Classroom Resources Historical Context: The Global Effect of World War I World History 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ A recent list of the hundred most important news stories of the twentieth century ranked the onset of World War I eighth. This is a great error. Just about everything that happened in the remainder of the century was in one way or...
Essay Revolutionary in America Art, Economics, Geography, Government and Civics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ The image is so clear in our minds, seen first in elementary school and reinforced countless times since: a few dozen gentlemen with powdered wigs and period suits (coats, waistcoats, and knee-length breeches) gathered in a large...