Primary
PBS

Pbs Learning Media: Primary Source Set: 19th Century Schools for the Deaf, Blind

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
This collection uses primary sources to explore the development of schools for deaf and blind students in the nineteenth century.
Unit Plan
Annenberg Foundation

Annenberg Learner: America's History in the Making: Antebellum Reform

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Nineteenth century United States saw the creation of reform movements: temperance, abolition, school and prison reform, as well as others. This unit traces the emergence of reform movements instigated by the Second Great Awakening and...
Handout
University of Groningen

American History: Outlines: Stirrings of Reform

For Students 9th - 10th
The democratic upheaval in politics exemplified by Jackson's election was merely one phase of the long American quest for greater rights and opportunities for all citizens. Another was the beginning of labor organization, primarily among...
Website
Independence Hall Association

U.s. History: Institutionalizing Religious Belief: The Benevolent Empire

For Students 5th - 8th
Many social movements in the early 19th century had a religious foundation. Read about the Benevolent Empire, a loose coalition of Protestant denominations that addressed social issues of the time.
Website
University of Virginia

Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture: The Woman's Rights Movement

For Students 9th - 10th
Read about the 19th century women's reform movement as well as primary resources including the Seneca Falls Declaration & Resolutions, an editorial by Frederick Douglass, and excerpts form "History of Woman Suffrage."
Lesson Plan
Library of Congress

Loc: Teachers: Suffragists and Their Tactics Lesson Plan

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Students work with two document collections, "Votes for Women: Suffrage Pictures: 1850-1920" and "Votes for Women: 1848-1921", to understand how the suffragists changed the requirements for voting in America.
Article
A&E Television

History.com: Labor Movement

For Students 9th - 10th
Article takes a look at the history of the Labor Movement and labor unions through videos, pictures, speeches and more.
eBook
Quia

Quia: Federal Indian Policy Oder Quiz

For Students 9th - 10th
Take this quiz on the women and reform movements of the 19th century.
Handout
Social Studies Help Center

Social Studies Help Center: Individual's Impact on the Nation's Problems

For Students 9th - 10th
Find out about the impact of social reformers in the 19th century including women's rights, temperance, care for the mentally ill, and education.
Primary
University of Michigan

Making of America: Woman and Her Wishes, by Thomas Wentworth Higginson

For Students 9th - 10th
Thomas Wentworth Higginson addresss the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention in favor of woman suffrage in this 1853 pamphlet.
Website
University of Groningen

American History: Outlines: Agrarian Distress and the Rise of Populism

For Students 9th - 10th
Article outlines the rise of the Populist Movement in the U.S. as a result of a declining economy, agrarian distress and dissatisfaction with American politics in late 19th Century.
Handout
American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise

Jewish Virtual Library: Isaac Mayer Wise

For Students 9th - 10th
This site provides a brief biography of the leading rabbi during the 19th Century, Isaac Mayer Wise.(1819-1900)
Website
Independence Hall Association

U.s. History: Religious Revival: The "Social Gospel"

For Students 5th - 8th
Social reform and teaching in the church which reflected social reform joined forces in latter part of the 19th century. Read about how an urban revivalist movement addressed such problems as poverty, child labor, and working conditions.
Website
Shmoop University

Shmoop: Progressive Era Politics

For Students 9th - 10th
Read this overview of the Progressive Era to find out about the economic, political, and philosophical conditions of the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that led to changes in working conditions, reforms in...