The National Humanities center presents reading guides with primary source materials for the study of America in 1870 - 1912: The Gilded and the Gritty. Primary source materials include poems, paintings, essays, stories, articles, speeches, court cases, cartoons, and more. Resources are divided into the topics: Memory, Progress, People, Power, and Empire.

This lesson presents the drawing and description that helped Joseph Glidden, a farmer from De Kalb, Illinois, win a patent for barbed wire in 1874. Glidden's design remains today the most familiar style of barbed wire. This site also examines the considerable impact of barbed wire on the economy, society, and politics in the West.

Students examine primary resources, photographs by Dorothea Lange, and a U.S. map to understand the migrant experience during the Great Depression.

This inquiry embeds an Academic and Career Planning concept into historical inquiry, allowing students to make connections between historic accident analysis and the type of accident chain analysis a business might do today. By investigating the compelling question “Can the Accident Chain be disrupted?” students evaluate secondary sources about the Great Molasses Flood and address the issue of whether there are points along the accident chain when alternate decisions can avoid a calamity. The formative performance tasks help students build knowledge and practice skills so they can answer the supporting questions. Students create an evidence-based argument to answer the compelling question.

Following the morning and afternoon sessions, participants gathered in small breakout groups, facilited by someone who was trained by Nehemiah, to process the learning, reflect, and determine action steps to make more integrated lerning spaces.

In this video from ThinkTV Dayton, learn about Harriet Beecher Stowe and the basis of her famous book, Uncle Tom's Cabin, that documented racial injustice before the Civil War.

In this transcript of an interview for Eyes on the Prize, Harry and Eliza Briggs describe their experience in the first school desegregation case, Briggs v. Elliott.

Too often, archival photos are not analyzed as historical sources. Instead, they are treated as windows into the past. This lesson introduces students to reasoning about photographs as historical evidence through 4 activities. Students are first given an opportunity to practice thinking historically with a familiar classroom scene, then examine different historical photographs of African Americans in Los Angeles.

This page discusses the importance of primary documents and uses them to illustrate historical concepts such as the subjective nature of written history, the intimate view of historical people's lives that primary documents can provide, and the importance of developing analytical skills when reconstructing history.

The Minnesota Governor's Council on Developmental Disabilities breaks down the history of developmental disabilities in two parts. Part one begin with the ancient era to the 1950s and part two begins with 1950 to today. Each era is presented with a vast amount of valuable information about people with disabilities along with video clips and quotes.

This course examines the history of MIT through the lens of the broader history of science and technology, and vice versa. The course covers the founding of MIT in 1861 and goes through the present, including such topics as William Barton Rogers, educational philosophy, biographies of MIT students and professors, intellectual and organizational development, the role of science, changing laboratories and practices, and MIT's relationship with Boston, the federal government, and industry. Assignments include short papers, presentations, and final paper. A number of classes are concurrent with the MIT150 Symposia.

This lesson recounts efforts to improve homesteading laws and make land ownership possible for more settlers. The distribution of government lands had been an issue since the Revolutionary War. Preemption -- settling the land first and paying for it later -- became national policy; however, supporting legislation was stymied until the secession of Southern states. See one of the first applications for land under this law. Teaching activities are included.

This lesson focuses on the American Revolution, which encouraged the founding fathers' desire to create a government that would, as stated in the Preamble, insure domestic tranquility and provide for the common defense. This lesson correlates to the National History Standards and the National Standards for Civics and Social Sciences.

This site challenges visitors to test their knowledge about inaugurations and presidential history with a 10 question quiz.

Using an inquiry based approach has a profound effect on the depth and complexity of classroom discussions. In this video, students share how this is different than what they've previously experienced and we see teacher, Avram Barlowe, use primary source documents to drive discussions about freedom as it existed during Reconstruction following the Civil War. Recognizing that these documents describe both daily life and larger political and social ideas, Avram expects that the discussion will focus on both elements but will be largely driven by student comments and reactions to each text. In preparation for this inquiry based approach, Avram shares how he develops many questions that may never be used and must be ready to use students' comments and questions to facilitate the resulting discussion. Even though he knows ahead of time that there are specific issues that should be explored, he does not come into the discussion with specific answers or outcome for these issues. Avram sees the text as a vehicle in which the students can explore ideas that interest them and requires that students use multiple documents to challenge their thinking and extend their understanding of differing perspectives. In this way, students are prepared to not only discuss these ideas in this informal setting but are also prepared to read analytically and write about these ideas, considering multiple perspectives.

This course provides an overview of Asian American history and its relevance for contemporary issues. It covers the first wave of Asian immigration in the 19th century, the rise of anti-Asian movements, the experiences of Asian Americans during WWII, the emergence of the Asian American movement in the 1960s, and the new wave of post–1965 Asian immigration. The class examines the role these experiences played in the formation of Asian American ethnicity. The course addresses key societal issues such as racial stereotyping, media racism, affirmative action, the glass ceiling, the "model minority" syndrome, and anti-Asian harassment or violence. The course is taught in English.

In this segment from History Detectives, Anne Zorela, a map collector, believes she's found a map that outlines the routes of the Underground Railroad.

Surveys the major political, socio-economic, and cultural changes in the Middle East from the rise of Islam to present times (A.D. 600-2002), with special emphasis on Islam's encounter with the West. Examines the rise and fall of Islamic empires; the place of Arabs, Persian and Turkic peoples, as well as minorities in Islamic society; scientific and technological achievements and their transmission to the West; and the impact of European expansion after 1800. Considers contemporary crises and upheavals facing the Middle East in light of the historical past. This course aims to provide students with a general overview of basic themes and issues in Middle Eastern history from the rise of Islam to the present, with an emphasis on the encounters and exchanges between the "Middle East" (Southwest Asia and North Africa) and the "West" (Europe and the United States).

This lesson offers primary documents illustrating how this groundbreaking African American baseball player advocated for civil rights. It incorporates the material into lessons on civil rights history, character education, and civic responsibility.

In this video interview, recorded for Eyes on the Prize, Freedom Ride organizer James Farmer describes the interracial bus rides through the South that tested desegregation and sparked white resistance.