An article by noted historian, Kinley Brauer, discusses the role of foreign policy for both the North and the South in the Civil War. An interesting, and often forgotten, aspect of the war.

Use this library of mini-lessons to teach students about the early days of the expansion of slavery in the United States through the momentous 1950s and 60s and into the modern Civil Rights Movement.

Use this interactive lesson to practice evaluating evidence from primary sources in order to draw conclusions about a historical event. In this particular case, the event is the Civil War. The challenge is to decide for yourself which of...

In a time when military pensions were a large part of the federal budget, Black women faced unique challenges in securing compensation. Widows of Civil War soldiers could begin applying to the Bureau of Pensions during the war, and one...

An article by Columbia University historian Eric Foner that discusses how long-standing views of the role of slavery in America began to be challenged during the civil rights era of the 1960s by a new generation of historians, whose work...

Learn about Harriet Tubman, the first African American woman to serve in the military who escaped enslavement and helped others reach freedom During the Civil War.

An overview of slave revolts and abolitionist efforts during the first half of the nineteenth century, leading up until the Civil War. Read about the Underground Railroad, the colonization movement, and various anti-slavery books.

The free labor ideology of the nineteenth century was grounded in the beliefs that Northern free labor was superior to Southern slave labor. It was this free labor ideology and not the republicanism of the Revolutionary War era that...

After the Civil War concluded in 1865 and the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, Columbia University's faculty members shaped historical interpretations of slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction, as well as scientific theories...

This article focuses on the study of immigrants in the early 19th century before the Civil War. Migration policy was primarily under state rather than federal control, and as long as slavery existed, there was no national definition of...

This website was created by faculty, students, and staff to publicly present information about Columbia's historical connections to the institution of slavery. In the decades before the Civil War, Columbia produced only two graduates who...

A digital collection of advertisements for runaway and captured slaves in the period before the American Civil War. In addition, there are historical documents related to slavery. Gives the option of browsing or doing a detailed search....

In this lesson, students will read and analyze ads written from 1850 to 1860 and make a timeline of the ads. They will consider important historical events, people, and literature from those years and build a timeline in their classroom...

In this Curriculum Unit, students will consider "The Growing Crisis of Sectionalism in Antebellum America: A House Dividing" in 4 Lessons. The unit also includes worksheets and other student materials that can be found under the resource...

An original 13th amendment restricting lawyers from serving in government that was supposedly ratified in 1819 and removed from the U.S. Constitution during the Civil War.

Access Civil War-era documents that give us a rare first-hand glimpse into the lives of African American women at the time: letters of two slave women from the 1830s and 1850s and a hand-written memoir of another woman born shortly after...

A learning module that begins with "Abolishing Slavery: The Efforts of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln" by Mike Kubic, accompanied by guided reading questions, assessment questions, and discussion questions. The text can be...

Perhaps one of the largest ethinc/cultural group to inhabit Arkansas are the African Americans. Follow their first arrival as slaves working the plantations through all the years toward emancipation, and into present times. Highly...

Commemorating John Brown's historic Harpers Ferry raid of 1859, this site has lots of information about Brown and the raid. The Educational Resources page is helpful for lesson materials. The links on the pressroom page will help you...

Study works of American art from the eighteen and nineteenth centuries. Works in a variety of media, including the decorative arts, are represented as are pieces by some of America's best-known artists: Copley, Church, Homer, and...

Explains the background for the Dred Scott case and its journey through the court system, finally reaching the US Supreme Court.

This site is geared for teachers but also gives some good insight for students about studying the work of Harriet Beecher Stowe such as major themes, historical perspectives, personal issues, form, style, artistic conventions, audience,...

Discussion of the Lincoln Douglas Debates, a series of seven public debates held in 1858 between Republican Abraham Lincoln and Democrat Stephen Douglas as they contested the Illinois Senate seat.