This site offers geography and history activities showing how two years in history had an indelible impact on American politics and culture. Students interpret historical maps, identify territories acquired by the U.S., identify states later formed from these territories, examine the territorial status of Texas, and identify political, social, and economic issues related to the expansion of the U.S. in the 1840s.

This lesson considers how the character of American politics changed between the 1820s and the 1850s as a result of growing popular participation. 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 site presents the text of one of Franklin Roosevelt's fireside chats with the American people. In this 07/24, 1933, radio broadcast, he addressed issues of the Great Depression and described what industry, employers, and workers could do to bring about economic recovery.

This lesson includes Franklin Roosevelt's first inaugural address, in which he said, I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis [the Depression] broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.

This site provides a lesson that uses primary documents such as the Emancipation Proclamation. This lesson correlates to the National History Standards and the National Standards for Civics and Social Sciences. It also has cross-curricular connections with history, government, and language arts.

African Americans in the 1920's had a new attitude. In this video segment from A Walk Through Harlem, learn about the Harlem Renaissance.

Describe some of the feelings immigrants faced when deciding on a new settlement in the United States.
Contrast the benefits and drawbacks of living in a new location when determining a place to live and compare that to the choices immigrants make past and present.
Formulate several reasons why immigrants elected to live in selected areas.

A list of video resources that bring visibility to First Nations and Indigenous populations in Wisconsin and across the globe, and the historical debts owed to original occupants of these lands. Native American, First Nations and American Indian are terms used interchangeably throughout the resource.

Students will create a timeline outlining various groups' struggles for equal opportunity and create a 30-second radio or video public service announcement (PSA).

Students will analyze shapes and patterns in a photograph, hear stories about people who were forced to move to internment camps because of their ethnicity, and create drawings that tell a story about a young girl's life in an internment camp.

Students will read primary source documents about the U.S. internment of Japanese Americans following the bombing of Pearl Harbor and will examine various versions of a photograph by Dorothea Lange and explore how cropping can evoke different effects.

This video segment from The Supreme Court introduces viewers to the 14th amendment.

In this video segment from The Supreme Court, learn about the 1883 Supreme Court decision that marked the end of federal protections for individuals in states and the beginning of Jim Crow segregation.

This collection uses primary sources to compare and explore the relationships between Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. 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.

The National Humanities center presents this collection of essays by leading scholars on the topic ŇFreedomŐs Story: Teaching African American Literature and HistoryÓ. Topics include the affect of slavery on families, slave resistance, how to read slave narratives, Frederick Douglass, reconstruction, segregation, pigmentocracy, protest poetry, jazz, the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights Movement, and more.

This lesson encourages students to analyze historic documents related to two fugitive slave cases and determine the impact events of the period 1850 to 1860 had on them. The Henry Garnett and Moses Honner cases demonstrates the political crisis in the 1850s arising over the issue of slavery and the necessity for the enactment of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. This lesson correlates to the National History Standards and the National Standards for Civics and Social Sciences.

This subject explores the legal history of the United States as a gendered system. It examines how women have shaped the meanings of American citizenship through pursuit of political rights such as suffrage, jury duty, and military service, how those political struggles have varied for across race, religion, and class, as well as how the legal system has shaped gender relations for both women and men through regulation of such issues as marriage, divorce, work, reproduction, and the family. The course readings will draw from primary and secondary materials in American history, as well as some court cases. However, the focus of the class is on the broader relationship between law and society, and no technical legal knowledge is required or assumed.

This Teacher Resource Guide is designed for incorporation into history and social studies curricula. It will introduce your students to some of the events and issues that shaped George Washington’s life. The activities should enhance your students’ knowledge of Washington and expand their horizons about this complex and interesting man.

This lesson plan asks students to analyze two primary sources, in the form of letters, that address the issues relating to religious freedom for the newly formed United States and its relation to the nature of citizenship and equality in a religiously diverse society. Students will also analyze the 1st. Amendment and develop an argument regarding 1st amendment issues today.

This video segment, adapted from NOVA, chronicles the education of leading chemist Percy Julian. Although Julian began his elementary school years in the Deep South under Jim Crow laws, he became one of the few African Americans of his time to earn a Ph.D.