Lesson Plan Examining Antebellum Elections Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12 Aim What can the statistics tell us about the rise and fall of the second two-party system? How did the breakdown of this system contribute to the onset of the Civil War? Overview The purpose of this lesson is to examine the...
Video: Inside The Vault Inside the Vault: The Overland Trail Geography, Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ What was life like along the Overland Trail in the 1820s? What hardships did travelers face? On March 7, 2024 our curators were joined by Dr. Sarah Keyes (University of Nevada, Reno) to discuss letters from people on the Trail. View...
Video: Read Along "Brick by Brick" Government and Civics The home of the United States president was built by many hands, including those of enslaved persons, who undertook this amazing achievement long before there were machines to do those same jobs. Stirring and emotional, Floyd Cooper...
Video Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Ira Berlin is a professor of history at the University of Maryland and winner of the 1999 Bancroft Prize in American History. His talk draws upon Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America in tandem with...
Spotlight on: Primary Source The Fort Pillow Massacre, 1864 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ "Among the stories of the stormy days of the Republic, few will longer be remembered than the heroic defense and almost utter annihilation of the garrison of Fort Pillow." —Mack J. Leaming, April 1893 On April 12, 1864, fifteen...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Paul Revere’s engraving of the Boston Massacre, 1770 Art, World History 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ By the beginning of 1770, there were 4,000 British soldiers in Boston, a city with 15,000 inhabitants, and tensions were running high. On the evening of March 5, crowds of day laborers, apprentices, and merchant sailors began to pelt...
Video: Read Along "Ticktock Banneker's Clock" Throughout his life, Benjamin Banneker was known and admired for his work in science, mathematics, and astronomy, just to name a few pursuits. But even when he was born in Maryland in 1731, he was already an extraordinary person for...