National Endowment for the Humanities
Factory vs. Plantation in the North and South
North is to factory as South is to plantation—the perfect analogy for the economy that set up the Civil War! The first lesson in a series of five helps teach beginners why the economy creates a driving force for conflict. Analysis of...
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Kensington Mansion: Plantation, Sharecroppers, Tenants
Eleventh graders investigate the significance of the Kensington Mansion. For this South Carolina history lesson, 11th graders take field trips to the mansion and research primary and secondary sources about plantations, sharecropping,...
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Cotton Pickin' Before and After the Civil War
Pupils explore the impact of cotton. In this economics lesson, students listen to a lecture presented by their instructor on the Southern crop of cotton and its impact on the South prior to and following the Civil War. Pupils conduct...
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Whitewashing Southern History
Students discuss the fact and fiction of slavery in the South. After viewing a video on two New Orleans plantations, they determine the accuracy of the facts presented. In the computer lab, they visit various sites and examine which ones...
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Images from South Carolina Cotton Mills
Fifth graders write a paragraph comparing their lives to the lives of a child working in South Carolina during the early 1900's. In this Industrial Revolution lesson plan, 5th graders explore primary and secondary sources to teach them...
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Lesson Plan on the Civil War
Fifth graders identify events leading to the Civil War and explain the impact the events had on northern and southern societies.
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A Nation Divided: Why Couldn't They Just Get Along?
Fourth graders examine both perspectives of the Civil War as related to the differing economies. In this nation divided lesson, 4th graders view primary sources, examine paper money and a political chart, and review recruitment posters.
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American Colonization Society Lesson Plan
Students read an article online "Colonization and Emigration" and break into debating groups. They research points that support their side, namely whether or not the American Colonization Society was for or against segregation. They...
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Denmark Vesey's Rebellion
Students research the slave, Denmark Vesey, and create a dramatic play depicting his life.
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Civil War and Reconstruction
Students examine the differences between the North and South during the pre-Civil War era. In this Civil War era lesson plan, students spent 7 days looking at things that were different between the Union and Confederate state before the...
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Slavery in the United States
Students investigate the personal accounts of slaves in the United States. They participate in various activities according to grade level to examine the role of slavery in the South.
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THE GREAT DISMAL SWAMP
Students analyze how slavery shaped social and economic life in the South after 1800, the different economic, cultural, and social characteristics of slavery after 1800, and slavery both prior and after the Civil War.
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Heaven, Hell, and Baltimore
This lesson allows students to research and compare the city of Baltimore to other northern cities of interest during the Great Migration. After reading a narrative entitled Return South Migration and conducting extensive research,...
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Home Ties
Learners explore the reasons people choose to migrate including political, economic and familial motivations. They interview family members and compare their ancestors own reasons for migration to those of African American urban migrants.
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Slavery in the Antebellum South
High schoolers discuss Stephen Foster's depiction of slavery. Using the internet, they discover what the life of a slave was really like in the antebellum South. As a class, they discuss contemporary arguments for and against slavery.
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Differences in Location Lesson Plan: Treatment of Early African Americans
Students reach The Domestic Slave Trade, then examine the differences between the people enslaved in North America as opposed to those in Brazil.
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Forest Joe Lesson Plan: Outlaw or Hero?
Pupils become familiar with an American legend that is unfamiliar to many. Presented with the legend of Forest Joe, a runaway slave who, much like Robin Hood, stole from the rich to give to the poor, students draw comparisons and...
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African American Emigration: Turner and McNeal
Students discuss reasons why African Americans may have wanted to emigrate from the United States followig the Civil War. They complete a Venn diagram noting the differences between proposals by Marcus Garvey and Henry McNeal Turner.
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Little America in Liberia
Pupils study the history of Liberia prior to and after the influx of immigrants of African Americans. They investigate the cultural differences between the African Americans and newly-arrived Liberians.
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Mixing Races in New Orleans
Students discuss the changes in the legal, social, and political status of African Americans and those of mixed ethnicity after reading the narrative, Haitian Immigration: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.
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Voluntary Movement or Not? Africian-American Movement to the West
Ninth graders, in groups, determine reasons for African-American migration to the west
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Transportation and African-American Migration
Students explore the means of transportation available in the 19th century and its role as both facilitator and enabler of the westward expansion. They create a project board illustrating their findings.
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Trusting Statistics Lesson Plan
Students read a section of the Runaway Journey narrative and conduct a survey. They use survey statistics to question their validity and decide why a respondent might not answer truthfully.
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Come One, Come All
Students analyze information from core map and other sources and construct routes from New York and Boston to Cincinnati as they might have existed in 1835.