Lesson Plan Frederick Douglass: What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? 7, 8, 9, 10 Click to download this five-lesson unit :
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 Nat Turner’s Rebellion, 1831 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ In the early hours of August 22, 1831, a slave named Nat Turner led more than fifty followers in a bloody revolt in Southampton, Virginia, killing nearly 60 white people, mostly women and children. The local authorities stopped the...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Slave Patrol Contract, 1856 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ In the 1800s, particularly after Nat Turner’s rebellion in 1831, the legislatures of slave states passed increasingly strict laws governing the activities of enslaved and free African Americans and the interactions between whites and...
Essay Lincoln Allen C. Guelzo 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ No one seemed less well-cast for the role of reformer, in an age of reform, than Abraham Lincoln. To begin with, he was a stranger, emotionally and intellectually, to evangelical Christianity, the great engine of reform in the...
Essay The Road to War Chandra M. Manning Economics, Government and Civics 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ ‘A house divided against itself can not stand’ I believe this government can not endure permanently, half slave, and half free . . . I do not expect the Union to be dissolved - I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it...
Essay The First Age of Reform Ronald G. Walters Government and Civics, Religion and Philosophy 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ "In the history of the world," Ralph Waldo Emerson declared in 1841, "the doctrine of Reform had never such scope as at the present hour." [1] Not much a joiner of causes himself, Emerson had in mind a remarkable flowering of reform...
Essay Admiration and Ambivalence: Frederick Douglass and John Brown David W. Blight Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ John Brown did not make it easy for people to love him—until he died on the gallows. Frederick Douglass, from his first meeting with Brown in 1847, through a testy but important relationship in the late 1850s, had long viewed the...
Video: Inside The Vault Inside the Vault: Abraham Lincoln Government and Civics 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Originally broadcast on November 12, 2020, this session of Inside the Vault: Highlights from the Gilder Lehrman Collection explores Gilder Lehrman Collection materials relating to the life of Abraham Lincoln, both before and after he...
Video: Inside The Vault Inside the Vault: John Brown 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ On October 1, 2020, the Gilder Lehrman Collection team was joined by Nate McAlister, 2010 National History Teacher of the Year, and Colby Lewis from Hamilton to discuss John Brown in this session of Inside the Vault: Highlights from...