Explore the Society's online exhibits to uncover unique facets of Wisconsin history. Exhibits are based on past gallery exhibits at the Wisconsin Historical Museum and include curated images, trivia and brief historical essays.

Note that the viewing of the resource does not meet social studies standards. Teachers are encouraged to consider the use of primary source analysis documents such as those from the Library of Congress and the National Archives in order to help students access social studies curricular objectives.

The Wisconsin Veterans Museum Oral History Collection contains personal stories and military experiences of Wisconsin veterans of the Spanish-American War through present-day. The more than 2,800 interviews complement the archive and object collections to build a complete description of military service.

Alone, these primary sources do not meet any social studies standards. However, the use of analysis and inquiry will allow students to gain insight into multiple curricular objectives. Teachers are encouraged to use analysis documents such as those from the Library of Congress or the National Archives.

Follow individual trajectories of America’s diverse community of veterans as they join the military, experience deployments, and then return and adjust to civilian life. Analyze oral histories that describe the camaraderie of the veteran community, the struggles of engaging in combat, and the experiences—positive and negative—of returning to civilian life. Use their personal stories to engage in a discussion of how American veterans are treated by civilians during their service and on returning home from various conflicts.

Emigration is when someone leaves their home country and moves to live in a different country. During the Great Hunger, many Irish people left Ireland for good. People emigrated for many reasons. Some left because there was not enough food, and others because their landlord had evicted them. Many landlords evicted their tenants to avoid paying for their care. Some of these landlords also paid to put the Irish living on their land on a boat headed for the United States, Australia, England or Canada.
Included in this Lesson Plan:
 Background historical information
 Background primary source documents and activities related to Irish emigration in the 19th century
 A Pack Your Suitcase worksheet which can be used individually or for a group
activity, and requires some math and discussion, and recording with a pencil
 A comparison of 19th century and modern US immigration
 A model citizenship test

This collection uses primary sources to explore the construction of the Panama Canal. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

This question asks students to engage in sourcing, contextualization, and corroboration. Students must consider how the contextual information about the creation of the photograph affects its reliability as historical evidence of Pancho Villa and his forces during the Mexican Revolution. Students must also think about what other information they might seek to help them evaluate the reliability of the document.

By reading primary sources outlining the rights of prisoners of war, along with the primary accounts of American prisoners of war held by the Japanese, students should critically assess the nature of violations committed by the Japanese forces during World War II. Through this assessment, the students should be able to determine the specific ways Japanese forces violated the rights of American POWs. Students should also consider how the Geneva Conventions, and Japan’s lack of ratification, apply to the debates that surrounded Japanese war crimes at the postwar Tokyo Trials.

This collection uses primary sources to explore the history of Spanish missions in California. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

"This document is a one-week lesson plan consisting of five one-hour lessons on the
history of Uyghurs and East Turkistan, and on the modern-day repression campaign being
perpetrated against Uyghurs in China by the government of China and the Chinese Communist
Party (CCP). Through teaching about Uyghurs, these lessons teach skills such as reading
comprehension, source analysis, argument analysis and synthesis, research, summary and
verbal presentation, and argumentative writing. These lessons are designed for 11th and 12th
grade social science and history students but could be taught in other grade levels. The
activities in the lessons are ideally suited to classroom learning. However, acknowledging that
many schools have transitioned to distance learning due to the Covid-19 pandemic, each lesson
contains a note on how to adapt the lesson for distance learning. "

"Asking students to grapple with an issue as horrible as genocide, termed 'the crime without a name' by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, is a daunting, wrenching, and, above all, sad challenge. Yet, as the film "Ghosts of Rwanda" shows, while people and governments turned their backs on what was happening in Rwanda in the spring of 1994, some individuals stood up to the horror and acted effectively, often with breathtaking heroism. Students can witness both the depths to which humans can sink and the heights to which they can soar. This guide offers classroom teachers an array of opportunities to teach history and to explore the notion of individual and collective responsibility."

This blog post exploring the true facts of Columbus’s journey, the history of Columbus Day, and different sources for information.

Teach your students to guide their own inquiry: Facilitation Materials for Question Formulation Technique from the Right Question Institute. This resource includes a powerpoint to lead students through the steps to construct their own questions to lead their inquiry, has student handouts, and gives exmaples for how to use the Question Formulation Technique in your instructional practices.

This seminar examines the global history of the last millennium, including technological change, commodity exchange, systems of production, and economic growth. Students engage with economic history, medieval and early modern origins of modern systems of production, consumption and global exchange. Topics include the long pre-history of modern economic development; medieval world systems; the age of discovery; the global crisis of the 17th century; demographic systems; global population movements; the industrial revolution; the rise of the modern consumer; colonialism and empire building; patterns of inequality, within and across states; the curse of natural resources fate of Africa; and the threat of climate change to modern economic systems. Students taking the graduate version complete additional assignments.

In this lesson, students examine classic Maya art and monumental inscriptions, as well as an excerpt from an Aztec encyclopedia, to explore how the ancient Mexican city of Teotihuacan influenced other Mesoamerican societies. Students also reason about contemporary scholars' commentary on the historical sources.

This collection uses primary sources to explore the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

Examines a number of famous trials in European and American history. Considers the salient issues (political, social, cultural) of several trials, the ways in which each trial was constructed and covered in public discussion at the time, the ways in which legal reasoning and storytelling interacted in each trial and in later retellings of the trial, and the ways in which trials serve as both spectacle and a forum for moral and political reasoning. Students have an opportunity to study one trial in depth and present their findings to the class.

On the shore of Lake Winnebago, Joan Schadewald tells how the Brothertown Indians unknowingly gave up their tribal recognition status and have been working for 30 years to have it restored. An amalgamation of tribes that were forced from the East Coast to Indiana and then Wisconsin, the Brothertown cling determinedly to their Indian heritage.

By the banks of the Lemonweir River in what for ages had been Ho-Chunk territory, Andy Thundercloud shares the oral tradition of his people. Thundercloud tells of a traveling people who migrated across the land to become many different tribes, of the importance of maintaining the traditional language, and of the wonderful way of life he has known.