Spotlight on: Primary Source A Civil War soldier’s satirical take on the news, 1863 Art, Government and Civics 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 Between battles, marches, and military exercises, Civil War soldiers spent their free time in camp playing music, writing and reading letters, and, for those with the skill, sketching scenes from the day. This unknown soldier’s...
History Now Essay African American Women in World War II Maureen Honey African American women made meaningful gains in the labor force and US armed forces as a result of the wartime labor shortage during the Second World War, but these advances were sharply circumscribed by racial segregation, which was... Appears in: 46 | African American Soldiers Fall 2016
History Now Essay Women and the Home Front: New Civil War Scholarship Catherine Clinton Art, Literature 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ In the 1960s the image of Scarlett O’Hara standing before a Technicolor-drenched panorama from Gone With the Wind (1939) was still firmly planted within the imagination of the American public as a symbol of women on the Civil War home... Appears in: 26 | New Interpretations of the Civil War Winter 2010
Video War Letters: Extraordinary Correspondence from American Wars 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Andrew Carroll, founder of the Legacy Project, recounts his search for letters from America’s wars and reads excerpts from several.
Lesson Plan World War I, African American Soldiers, and America’s War for Democracy 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 Click to download this lesson plan.
Spotlight on: Primary Source Poem on a Civil War death: "Only a Private Killed," 1861 Literature Approximately 3.5 million men served in the Union and Confederate military during the Civil War. Recent scholarship indicates that at least 750,000 men died. Lewis Mitchell of the 1st Minnesota Volunteers was one of those men. On...
Spotlight on: Primary Source The women’s rights movement after the Civil War, 1866 The fight for women’s rights that had begun in earnest with the convention at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848, diminished in the 1850s and 1860s as reformers focused on the abolition of slavery and the Civil War, but the movement did...
Lesson Plan The Mexican-American War: Arguments for and against Going to War Geography, Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Click here to download this three-lesson unit.
Basic Page Origins of the Civil War Origins of the Civil War Led by: Prof. James Oakes (CUNY Graduate Center) Course Number: AMHI 640 Semesters: Spring 2020, Fall 2024 Image: A photograph of African Americans near a canal in Richmond, Virginia, by Alexander Gardner, 1865 (The Gilder...
Spotlight on: Primary Source American Indians' service in World War I, 1920 Science, Technology, Engineering and Math 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 More than 11,000 American Indians served with the American forces during World War I. Nearly 5,000 Native men enlisted and approximately 6,500 were drafted—despite the fact that almost half of American Indians were not citizens and...
History Now Essay The Battle of Antietam: A Turning Point in the Civil War James M. McPherson 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Four days after the battle of Antietam, which took place near Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17, 1862, Captain Robert Gould Shaw of the 2nd Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry wrote to his father: "Every battle makes me wish more and... Appears in: 31 | Perspectives on America’s Wars Spring 2012
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...
News Western Sanitary Commission Report on Civil War Refugees, 1863 Read about the report from the Western Sanitary Commission regarding the conditions of freed slaves in the Mississippi valley.