Library of Congress
Loc: The Great Gatsby: Primary Sources From the Roaring Twenties
In order to appreciate historical fiction, students need to understand the factual context and recognize how popular culture reflects the values, mores, and events of the time period. Since a newspaper records significant events and...
Library of Congress
Loc: Migration During the Great Depression: Living History
Most people in Central Florida came from somewhere else. Students first analyze life histories from American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940 to learn oral history techniques. They then interview...
Library of Congress
Loc: The Conservation Movement at a Crossroads
The debate over damming the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park marked a crossroads in the American conservation movement. Until this debate, conservationists seemed fairly united in their aims. San Francisco's need for a...
Library of Congress
Loc: Japanese American Internment
What was the World War II experience like for the thousands of Japanese Americans living on the West Coast? The activities in this lesson plan are designed to provide a window into the war years. Using primary sources, students will...
Library of Congress
Loc: Sourcing a Document: The First Thanksgiving
In this activity, students discuss the reliability of a painting of the First Thanksgiving to introduce the idea that is crucial to consider a source's date.
Library of Congress
Loc: Teachers: The Immigrant Experience: Down the Rabbit Hole
Through a series of six activities, students read about, connect to, and draw conclusions about the immigrant experience, via personal experience and a collection of resources, including Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland," oral...
Library of Congress
Loc: Teachers: The American Dream
With the help of digitized primary documents -- pictures, photograph, recordings, and written accounts -- students will explore and define what the "American Dream" meant for people over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth...
Library of Congress
Loc: Teachers: New Deal Programs: Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
Photographs and life histories aid students in examining the lives of real people during the Great Depression, specifically those impacted by the New Deal programs and agencies. The culminating student products of this lesson plan will...
Library of Congress
Loc: Teachers: Mark Twain's Hannibal
Primary texts, such as music, photographs, and maps, allow students to examine how Mark Twain's life in Hannibal, Missouri, influenced his popular written works, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer."
Library of Congress
Loc: Teachers: Local History: Mapping My Spot in History
Through interpreting and investigating historical maps, students gain new perspective not only of their local communities but also of their own homes. Student activities include collecting data about their homes, reporting on the...
Library of Congress
Loc: The Alaska Purchase: Debating the Sale
The 1867 Treaty of Cession, in which the United States purchased Alaska from the Russian empire, marked an unusually peaceful transition. The purchase of Alaska was done under amicable circumstances, and both Russia and the U.S. felt...
Library of Congress
Loc: Explorations in American Environmental History
These lessons introduce students to historical perspectives of nature and the environment, drawing on the American Memory collections, other digital resources, readings, and writing exercises. Students examine materials in a variety of...
Library of Congress
Loc: Teachers: America at the Centennial
A lesson plan requiring student to analyze primary documents from the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876. Students interpret what these historical artifacts say "about the lives and values of Americans in 1876" among other things.
Library of Congress
Loc: A Russian Settlement in Alaska
In the early 19th century, most of the land that is now Alaska was claimed by the Russian empire, and its most significant community was Novo-Arkhangelsk, which today is called Sitka. From 1808 until the sale of Alaska to the United...
Library of Congress
Loc: Waldseemuller's Map: World 1507
The 1507 World Map by Martin Waldseemuller is one of the world's most important maps. For the first time, this map labels America and shows the continent as a separate land mass. It is often referred to as America's Birth Certificate....
Library of Congress
Loc: Teachers: Women's Suffrage: Their Rights and Nothing Less
Primary sources reveal the true resistance suffragists faced as they fought for women's right to vote. Through this collection of lessons, students will "understand the societal role of women from 1840 to 1920" and explore the history of...
Library of Congress
Loc: American Lives in Two Centuries: What Is an American?
In 1782 Jean de Crevecoeur published Letters from an American Farmer in which he defined an American as a "descendent of Europeans" who, if he were "honest, sober and industrious," prospered in a welcoming land of opportunity which gave...
Library of Congress
Loc: Baseball, Race Relations and Jackie Robinson
In this instructional activity, students draw on their previous studies of American history and culture as they analyze primary sources from Jackie Robinson and Other Baseball Highlights, 1860s-1960s in American Memory. A close reading...
Library of Congress
Loc: The Constitution: Drafting a More Perfect Union
This lesson provides discussion, culminating, and extension activities to enhance student understanding of the Constitution, and the Committees of Detail and Style. Students have the opportunity to compare the work of those two...
Library of Congress
Loc: Nineteenth Century Women: Struggle and Triumph Lesson Plan
Journals, letters, and narratives reveal a part of America's history not revealed in textbooks, the story of women, namely the women of the 1800s. With this activity, students gain understanding of women and history through various...
Library of Congress
Loc: The Huexotzinco Codex
Learners will analyze a set of pictograph documents created by native peoples of Puebla, Mexico in 1531. Students will take on the role of historians, study the documents, and create a scenario to explain what these documents were for,...
Library of Congress
Loc: World War I: What Are We Fighting for Over There?
The Great War of 1914-1918 significantly shaped the course of the twentieth century, both at home and abroad. How can this pivotal event be personalized and brought to life for learners in the new millennium? Unfortunately, increasingly...
Library of Congress
Loc: Immigration and Oral History
The primary goal of this activity is to give learners the genuine experience of oral history in order to appreciate the process of historiography. We identified immigrants in our community who reflect the ethnic diversity of our student...
Library of Congress
Loc: Change in Early 20th Century America: Doing the Decades
This unit provides a flexible investigative structure for the study of selected themes in U.S. history and culture using the American Memory collections and related resources. Core goals are the development of relationships between...