Using primary documents, oral histories, and other historical resources, discover how the arts of Africa, Europe, and pre-Civil War America influenced the culture of enslaved African Americans.

This sample task contains a set of primary and authentic sources about indentured servitude and slavery in the British North American colonies.

These lesson plans are designed to integrate language arts and primary sources into elementary social studies instruction.

In this video segment from EGG: the arts show, learn about the Gullah/Geechee culture of Sapelo Island.

Eastman Johnson focused his art on the status of race in the United States right about the time of the American Civil War. View his picture "A Ride for Liberty-The Fugitive Slaves" that depicts slaves crossing battlefields from the...

In this lesson, 5th graders explore the concept of cause and effect in the context of the Civil War and work in groups to write and deliver speeches articulating a point of view for one of the War's causes: tariffs, state's rights, or...

This collection uses primary sources to explore Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs.

Students will enjoy creating their own Underground Railroad, "freeing" the slaves, and writing about their journeys.

Access to the Smithsonian's extensive collections that document the American Civil War.

The 19th century brought an Americanization of literature, art, thought, and social reform. Read about how the Second Great Awakening brought a revival in religion and sparked reform movements in suffrage, slavery, and treatment of...

Features part of an exhibit at the University of Southern California that provides a chronology of Biddy Mason's life.

An image of "Joseph Sold into Slavery by his Brothers", created by Karoly Ferenczy in 1900 (Oil on canvas, 192 x 229 cm).

In 1859, John Brown collected a small body of men, white and black, in the mountains of Maryland. He made a sudden attack upon Harper's Ferry, where there was a United States arsenal, which he seized and held for a few hours. The attack...

William Lowndes Yancey (August 10, 1814 - July 27, 1863) was a journalist, politician, orator, diplomat and an American leader of the Southern secession movement. A member of the group known as the Fire-Eaters, Yancey was one of the most...

Abraham Lincoln, former United States President, involved in slavery issues and the Civil War.-E. Benjamin Andrews 1895

The sixteenth president of the United States, born in Hardin county, Kentucky, Feb. 12, 1809; died April 15, 1865. He was a great opposer of slavery.

An African American educator and author. He was born into slavery at the community of Hale's Ford in Franklin County, Virginia. As a young man he made his way east from West Virginia to obtain schooling at Hampton in eastern Virginia at...

Mrs. Stanton was an early women's rights activist and abolitionist of slavery.

An abolitionist, and writer of more than 10 books. Her most famous piece was Uncle Tom's Cabin which describes life in slavery.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (June 14, 1811 - July 1, 1896) was an American author and abolitionist, whose novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) attacked the cruelty of slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the...

John Brown was an anti-slavery abolitionist, known for the John Brown raid on October 16th, 1858, when he and others seized the United States Armory at Harper's Ferry.-E. Benjamin Andrews 1895

American opponent of slavery.

John Brown (May 9, 1800 - December 2, 1859) was an American abolitionist who advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a means to end all slavery. He led the Pottawatomie Massacre in 1856 in Bleeding Kansas and the unsuccessful raid...

John Brown (1800 - 1859) was an American abolitionist who advocated and practiced armed insurrection to end slavery. He played an integral part in making Kansas a free state. However, he was unsuccessful in the raid at Harpers Ferry in...