National Endowment for the Humanities
Frederick Douglass’s Narrative: Myth of the Happy Slave
The firsthand accounts of what it was like to be an enslaved person in the mid-1800s riveted a nation and the issue ultimately led to civil war. Using excerpts from Frederick Douglass's autobiography, budding historians examine what it...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s “Learning to Read”
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper's poem "Learning to Read" is the focus of a lesson that teaches middle schoolers how to do a close reading of a text. The lesson introduces them to a brief biography of the poet, includes a video reading, and...
Civil War Trust
Contrasting the North and South before the War
Learners create a standing cube with four panels that display information on the North and South's economy, geography and climate, society, and means of transportation before the Civil War. Through discussion and reading informational...
Library of Virginia
Emancipation and the Thirteenth Amendment
Why didn't the Emancipation Proclamation free all slaves? Young historians study primary source documents including Lincoln's proclamation and the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Groups also investigate the three...
NET Foundation for Television
1850-1874 The Kansas-Nebraska Act
How the Kansas-Nebraska Act created Bleeding Kansas is complicated—until scholars research and examine documents from the time. After completing activities that include mapping, photo, document analysis, and discussion, learners...
Livaudais-Baker English Classroom
Kindred Introduction
A 16-slide PowerPoint presentation introduces readers to the themes, motifs, and literary devices used by Octavia E. Butler in her time-travel, first person slave narrative.
Livaudais-Baker English Classroom
Kindred Unit Project
To conclude a unit study of Octavia E. Butler's Kindred, groups use MovieMaker or the class website to publish an original story about slavery in America. The detailed project assignment sheet includes a list of possible topics,...
Curated OER
The Colonization of Liberia
Young scholars analyze how slavery shaped social and economic life in the South. They study methods of passive and active resistance to slavery, and the similarities and differences between African-American and white abolitionists.
Curated OER
Examining Slave Auction Documents
Students compare the social and cultural characteristics of the North, the South, and the West during the antebellum period, including the lives of African Americans and social reform movements such as abolition and women’s rights.
Curated OER
Frederick Douglass: This is Your Life; The Abolitionist
Seventh graders study the abolitionist movement in antebellum America.
Crafting Freedom
Thomas Day's Letter to His Daughter, Mary Ann
Why is a letter a better way to learn about a person than a different primary source? Explore Thomas Day's ideas and advice to his daughter in a letter from 1851, which details the struggles of the American South before the Civil War....
University of Richmond
Canals 1820-1860
While canals are not a common mode of transportation today, they were part of the fuel for America's industrialization. However, most of them were located in the North, also feeding regional differences and sectionalism. Using an...
Curated OER
Savannah, Georgia: The Lasting Legacy of Colonial City Planning
Young scholars explore colonial history, the antebellum era and the cotton economy and the rise of cities in the U.S.
Curated OER
Living History - Civil War
Eighth graders, after researching antebellum North Carolina and the role of North Carolina in the Civil War, write, edit, publish, and produce their own plays.
Curated OER
Free Market Labor vs. Slave Labor
Young scholars summarize support for free market labor vs. slave labor in antebellum America. They explain how existing economic conditions influence support for free market labor vs. slave labor.
Curated OER
Slaver Code of 1833
Students explore the Africane, the first slave ship to bring slaves to the area, entered the port of Mobile in 1721. In 1724 the French Code Noir was extended into the Mobile area and provided the basic laws and conditions of slavery....
Curated OER
Daily Lives of Slaves - What Really Happened?
Learners explore the varieties of slave life in antebellum America. They research various sources to examine the relationships between masters, overseers, and plantation hands. Students identify and describe the conflicts between...
Constitutional Rights Foundation
History of Immigration Through the 1850s
Everyone living in the United States today is a descendant from an immigrant—even Native Americans. Learn about the tumultuous history of American immigration with a reading passage that discusses the ancient migration over the Bering...
PBS
Women's History: Parading Through History
Want to teach your pupils about debate, effective speech techniques, propaganda, and the women's movement? The first in a sequential series of three, scholars analyze real propaganda images from the the historic women's movement, view a...
Curated OER
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
Provided here is a packet of worksheets to accompany The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams. To start, readers research words commonly associated with the time period. Then, a list of 30 tough vocabulary words are listed (including...
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Slave Narratives: Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, and the Columbian Orator
Young historians practice in-depth, quality analysis of primary source texts in this three-lesson unit, which examines excerpts from the slave narratives of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, and Caleb Bingham.
Civil War
Civil War Medicine: Fact or Fiction
Young historians compare the presentation of medical care during the Civil War in passages from fictional and nonfictional texts. They examine passages from Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell and Soldier's Heart by Gary Paulsen, and...
Curated OER
Industrialization In Lowell, Massachusetts
Students explore the idealistic expectations of the industrialists who financed and built mills in Lowell, Massachusetts. They research how the expectations of Lowell mill founders compared to the reality of life in the textile mills for...
Curated OER
The Cotton Gin
Students are introduced to an early American inventor, Eli Whitney, and his experiences with the Patent Office. The economic importance of the cotton gin and its impact on slavery are also addressed.
Other popular searches
- Antebellum Era
- Antebellum South
- Antebellum Period
- 1800 1900 Antebellum
- Antebellum Texas
- Antebellum America
- Antebellum South Carolina
- Antebellum America Reformers
- Antebellum Period Education
- Antebellum Era House Plans
- Antebellum South Economy
- Antebellum Georgia