This segment from The Jewish Americans shows how in the 19th century Jews and other groups were sometimes not welcomed when they immigrated to the United States.

In this transcript of an interview recorded for Eyes on the Prize, Stokely Carmichael describes SNCC organizing campaigns and his views on Black Power.

Students pair Dorothea Lange's photographs with passages from John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath. Students create an oral group presentation and discuss the relationship between the images and text.

This lesson tells how and why our Navy was created. After the Revolutionary War, Barbary pirates preyed on American vessels and held seamen for ransom. In 1794, Congress reestablished the Navy with authorization for six vessels.

This site allows students to analyze a variety of documents to identify events, actions, and individuals who contributed to the Civil War's outcome. This lesson correlates to the National History Standards and the National Standards for Civics and Social Sciences. It also has cross-curricular connections with your history, government, and American literature.

This lesson presents 13 documents and photos related to the 1804-6 expedition into the newly acquired Louisiana Territory. The documents include a list of Indian presents Lewis purchased, his receipts for wine and tobacco, Jefferson's letter to Madison announcing the purchase of Louisiana, and Jefferson's message to Congress communicating the discoveries of the expedition.

This lesson looks at how the Battles of Lexington and Concord changed the character of American resistance to British rule. America in Class Lessons are tailored to meet the Common Core State Standards. The Lessons present challenging primary resources in a classroom-ready format, with background information and analytical strategies that enable teachers and students to subject texts and images to the close reading called for in the Standards.

This lesson provides background information and lessons (correlated to academic standards) that incorporate the use of textbooks, maps, and discussions based on primary documents such as the U.S. Constitution. In this lesson students will examine the declaration of war with Mexico and the protests of those who opposed this act. They will also explore protesters of conscience against wars other than the Mexican War.

This lesson plan displays records from the 1880 and 1990 census schedules showing that Laura Ingalls, Almanzo Wilder, and families of the popular Little House on the Prairie series were not mere characters but were real people. Teaching activities are included to help students learn more about the census.

The National Humanities center presents reading guides with primary source materials for the study of America 1789-1820: Living the Revolution. Primary source materials include autobiographies, plays, essays, orations, addresses, political documents, letters, poems, cartoons, and more. Resources are divided into the topics: Predicament, Religion, Politics, Expansion, and Equality.

This site introduces students to the world of Ben Franklin and other natural philosophers at a time when the word science had not yet entered our language. Portraits of Franklin's colleagues, an overview of his life, and experiments showing how electrical charges attract and repel are part of this lesson (for Grades 3-8).

The National Humanities center presents reading guides with primary source materials for the study of The Making of African American Identity: Volume 1: 1500-1865. Primary source materials include narratives, photographs, letters, memoirs, songs, newspapers, petitions, addresses, journals, paintings and more. Sources are divided into the topics: Freedom, Enslavement, Community, Identity, and Emancipation.

The National Humanities center presents reading guides with primary source materials for the study of The Making of African American Identity, Volume 2: 1865-1917. Primary source materials include paintings, sculpture, narratives, autobiographies, short stories, essays, songs, letters, poems, photographs, interviews, and more. Sources are divided into the topics: Freedom, Identity, Institutions, Politics, and Forward.

Team teachers, Jason David and Emma Katznelson, bring the Declaration of Independence to life in an engaging lesson that examines the historical document and helps students to construct meaning based on its historical context and underlying themes.To open the lesson, Emma reads a fictitious break up letter that she later reveals is signed by the thirteen original colonies. The letter both engages students and reveals the underlying theme in the Declaration of Independence. Students' prior knowledge is assessed through a journal writing activity and discussion before Jason leads students in an overview of the historical context in which the document was written. To delve deeper into the actual document, students then read and annotate a portion of the Declaration focusing on four themes: social contract, the right to revolution, popular sovereignty and natural rights. This work provides the basis for the subsequent classroom discussion facilitated by teacher questions but almost entirely directed by students. These supports and structures allow students to understand a complex document thematically and linguistically, forming their own understanding and teaching one another. In closing, students are asked to form thoughts about what it means to be an American and how their understanding of the Declaration of Independence influences these thoughts.

In this lesson, students explore how historians use primary sources to discover information about people of the past and draw conclusions about their lives. Using the case study of Matthew Ashby, a free mulatto man who lived in Williamsburg prior to the Revolutionary War, students investigate primary sources and build a profile of this unique Williamsburg resident.

NOTE: To further apply the methodology of this lesson, there is also an associated packet (Through Different Eyes Packet: Biographies of 18th-Century Williamsburg Residents) containing a collection of biographies of 18th-century Williamsburg residents and related primary source materials.

As an assessment activity at the end of a U.S. History survey course, provide students with copies of appropriate national, state and/or local curriculum standards and a list of all of the 100 Our Documents. Divide the class into groups of three or four and assign each group an equal number of the Our Documents. Ask students to conduct secondary research to correlate their Documents to the standards. Allow each group to present their findings orally to the class. The result will be a ready-made standards correlation to all of the Our Documents and, perhaps more importantly, a student understanding of the standards and their relationship to many of the most salient aspects of American History. This exercise could be extended by asking the students to develop a lesson plan for each of the Our Documents-standards correlations.

Hitherto it had gone by the original Indian name Manna-hatta, or as some still have it, 'The Manhattoes'; but this was now decried as savage and heathenish... At length, when the council was almost in despair, a burgher, remarkable for the size and squareness of his head, proposed that they should call it New-Amsterdam. The proposition took every body by surprise; it was so striking, so apposite, so ingenious. The name was adopted by acclamation, and New-Amsterdam the metropolis was thenceforth called. --Washington Irving, 1808 In less tongue-in-cheek style, this course examines the evolution of New York City from 1607 to the present. The readings focus on the city's social and physical histories, and the class discussions compare New York's development to patterns in other cities.

This site offers suggestions for projects that use the Archives' photographs, letters, drawings, and it highlights economic, social, and political factors that prompted thousands to migrate to Alaska.

During the war with Mexico, United States troops seized power. Captain John C. Fremont, western explorer and engineer, led an uprising of American settlers and Californios (Spanish ranching families in Alta California) who supported American annexation. Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo was born into a prominent family and pursued a career in the military and politics. He, like many other Californios, believed that the American presence promoted economic prosperity and political stability. During the Bear Flag Revolt of 1846, Fremont captured Sonoma and raised the flag of an independent California. Vallejo, however, was taken prisoner by Fremont's forces and held for two months. Despite his treatment, Vallejo maintained his American sympathies and went on to serve in the first state legislative body. When he and many others attempted to validate their Mexican land grants, he found his way blocked and eventually lost a ruling in the U.S. Supreme Court. Stripped of much of his influence and fortune, he wrote his five-volume "true history" of Californias, while living on a mere portion of his once vast holdings. Vallejo donated this history to H. H. Bancroft, the famous Californian historian.

The National Humanities center presents this collection of essays by leading scholars on the topic ŇNature Transformed: The Environment in American HistoryÓ. The essays are grouped into three categories: Native Americans and the Land; Wilderness and American Identity; and The Use of the Land. Topics include Paleoindians, the origins of the American Wilderness movement, environmental justice, and more.