Find the right vehicles for a new movie from the America on the Move collection, then watch the movie that you’ve created on the big screen. See how much you know about the history of transportation with the interactive games in this online collection. You can find information, artifacts and photographs in the collection as well.

The National Humanities center presents reading guides with primary source materials for the study of the British Atlantic Colonies 1690-1763: Becoming American. Primary source materials include letters, pamphlets, journals, newspapers, maps, paintings, poems, and more. Resources are divided into the topics: Growth, Peoples, Economies, Ideas, and American.

This lesson introduces students to the work of historians and to the historical figure Biddy Mason, an African American woman who lived in Los Angeles in the 19th century. Students practice sourcing and contextualization as they investigate three historical documents to answer the question: Who was Biddy Mason?

Note: This lesson was designed with upper elementary school students in mind but can be used with a wide range of students as an introduction to the field of history.

We developed this lesson as part of a partnership with the Los Angeles Unified School District to create lessons about African American history in L.A. Although Biddy Mason is a lesser-known historical figure and her story is exceptional, studying her life offers insights into various national historical topics, including enslavement, westward expansion, and the long African American freedom struggle.

This lesson provides teachers with support for using text-dependent questions to help students derive big ideas and key understandings while developing vocabulary from the biographical text, Boss of the Plains. This biography relates the life of John Batterson Stetson as a hatting apprentice until he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and decided to explore the American West. During his time with the people of the West, he invents a better hat, nicknamed "Boss of the Plains," - the first real cowboy hat.

This excerpt from WGBH's Evening Compass news program summarizes events of the first year of the 1974 Boston school desegregation plan.

This sampling of newspaper editorials from the mid-1950s reflects the range of public opinion and responses to the Brown decision.

This 1954 statement from Tom Brady, a founder of the White Citizens' Council movement, expresses opposition to the Brown decision.

As an assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, Burke Marshall played a key role in the federal government's efforts to desegregate the South. Representing the presidential administrations of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, Marshall mediated conflicts between civil rights protesters and southern white officials. In this interview, Marshall recalls the 1961 Freedom Rides and the 1962 desegregation of the University of Mississippi.

In this study of the letters of John Adams and John Quincy Adams from 1774 to 1793, two central themes are highlighted — how Adams unfolded his “curriculum” for citizen leadership, and how his point of view changed from parent-teacher to mentor-guide as John Quincy entered the realm of American political life. To Adams, a citizen leader of the United States needed to exhibit upstanding moral character and self-discipline, acquire a solid foundation in classical learning, develop keen insight into the political dynamics of a democracy, and accept the challenges and sacrifices of public life. As his son grew from a child into a young man, John Adams fostered these qualities through the long-distance medium of letters.

This site provides a summary, history, and teaching activities related to the EEOC and this historic law, which forbade discrimination on the basis of sex as well as race in hiring, promoting, and firing.

This site examines the Civil War through collections of artifacts. Topics include slavery and abolition, Abraham Lincoln, the first Union officer killed, soldiering, weapons, leaders, cavalries, navies, life and culture, Appomattox, Winslow Homer, and Mathematics and Statistics. A Civil War time-line is included.

This course surveys the social science literature on civil war. Students will study the origins of civil war, discuss variables that affect the duration of civil war, and examine the termination of conflict. This course is highly interdisciplinary and covers a wide variety of cases.

This lesson asks students to visualize the Civil War by studying dozens of period photographs, and illustrates how the Civil War threatened the very purpose of the Constitution as stated in the Preamble. 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, American studies, and language arts.

The Constitution is the supreme law of the land in the United States. With a positive overtone, the preamble, articles, and amendments in this document protect the rights of all US citizens. Create a similar document for your class to ensure that everyone has a voice and rights that make them feel safe and comfortable expressing themselves.

In this segment from Colonial House, Colonists and the Passamaquoddy people encounter each other for the first time.

In this transcript of an interview for Eyes on the Prize, Justice Constance Baker Motley recalls her role as an NAACP attorney in landmark school desegregation cases.

This lesson explores the important Constitutional mechanism providing for the separation of powers of government among three branches so that each branch checks the other two. Lesson plans use the New Deal to help teach this concept.

This lesson plan examines Constitutional issues surrounding the resignation of President Nixon and looks at the specific question: Should the Watergate Special Prosecutor seek an indictment of the former President?

This lesson provides fliers and other documents related to the demonstration in Memphis on March 28, 1968. On that day, students near the end of the march broke windows of businesses. Looting ensued. The march was halted. King was deeply distressed by the violence. He and fellow leaders negotiated a commitment to nonviolence among disagreeing factions in Memphis, and another march was planned for April 8. On April 4, as he stepped out of his motel room to go to dinner, he was assassinated.