Her Story
offers photos, diaries, and timelines for learning about women pioneers, women during the Civil War, women's suffrage in the Progressive Era, eight women who served on the front during World War II, First Ladies, literature about women and discrimination, African-American women in the sciences, women ...
Indian Boarding Schools: Civilizing the Native Spirit
This activity invites students to explore the forced acculturation of American Indians through government-run boarding schools. In the late 1800s, thousands of Native American children were sent to live in these schools with the aim of changing their traditions and customs. Students examine that effort ...
America at Work, America at Leisure, 1894-1915
This site features motion pictures that showcase work, school, and leisure activities in the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th century. The site includes films of the U.S. Postal Service from 1903, cattle breeding, fire fighters, ice manufacturing, logging, calisthenics and gymnastic exercises in ...
American Indians of the Pacific Northwest
This digital collection integrates over 2,300 photographs and 7,700 pages of text relating to the American Indians in two cultural areas of the Pacific Northwest, the Northwest Coast and Plateau. These resources illustrate many aspects of life and work, including housing, clothing, crafts, transportation, ...
Baseball Cards, 1887-1914
This site presents 2,100 early baseball cards. The cards show such legendary figures as Ty Cobb stealing third base, Tris Speaker batting, and pitcher Cy Young formally posing. Other notable players include Connie Mack, Walter Johnson, King Kelly, and Christy Mathematics and Statisticsewson.
Edward S. Curtis's The North American Indian: Photographic Images
This is one of the most significant and controversial representations of American Indian culture ever produced. Issued in a limited edition from 1907-1930, the publication continues to influence the image of Indians in popular culture. In over 2000 photos and narrative, Curtis portrayed the traditional ...
What Are We Fighting for Over There? Perspectives on the Great War
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 students in the new millennium? Unfortunately, increasingly fewer survivors of the World War I era are alive today to directly ...
Women Pioneers in American Memory
This site features photographs of women throughout American history who have forged ahead to make a better life for themselves, their families, and their society. These women include pioneers who journeyed across the country to settle unknown western territories, as well as women who struggled for recognition ...
What Is an American?
In 1782 Jean de Crèvecoeur 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 him choice of occupation and residence. Students will look at life histories from the interviews of everyday Americans conducted by Works Progress Administration officials between 1936-1940 to see if his definition still holds true in this country 150 years late
United We Stand
This site provides primary source documents that students use to examine the working conditions of U.S. laborers at the turn of the century and to develop their own answers to a question: Was there a need for organized labor unions?
Rounding the Bases
Students use primary sources focused on baseball to explore the American experience regarding race and ethnicity. The unit should be used when studying the World War II era and the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement.
American Memory: North Carolina educator's guide
Each month during 2007, LEARN NC will feature an in-depth look at one aspect of the Library of Congress' American Memory with a special focus on North Carolina materials.
The George Moses Horton Project: Celebrating a triumph of literacy
The only American poet to publish books of poems while living in slavery, George Moses Horton is an inspiration for the power of literacy in our lives.
25 - The "End" of Reconstruction: Disputed Election of 1876, and the "Compromise of 1877"
This lecture focuses on the role of white southern terrorist violence in brining about the end of Reconstruction. Professor Blight begins with an account the Colfax Massacre. Colfax, Louisiana was the sight of the largest mass murder in U.S. history, when a white mob killed dozens of African Americans in the April of 1873. Two Supreme Court decisions would do in the judicial realm what the Colfax Massacre had done in the political. On the same day as the Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court offere
22 - Constitutional Crisis and Impeachment of a President
Professor Blight continues his discussion of the political history of Reconstruction. The central figure in the early phase of Reconstruction was President Andrew Johnson. Under Johnson's stewardship, southern whites held constitutional conventions throughout 1865, drafting new constitutions that outlawed slavery but changed little else. When the Republican-dominated U.S. Congress reassembled late in 1865, they put a stop to Johnson's leniency and inaugurated Radical (or Congressional) Reconstru
Preservation of the West
During the late 1800s, American industry's demand for more and more natural resources pushed Congress to recognize the need to explore and chart the geological characteristics and mineral wealth of the country. In 1864, William Brewer (seen third from the left in "Field Party of 1864"), chief botanist of the California Geological Survey, led the first state-sponsored expedition to survey, map, chart, document, and photograph vast, previously unexplored areas of California. The government sponsor
The Changing Workplace
The 20th century ushered in a change from handcrafting to machine tooling. Henry Ford introduced one of the first moving assembly lines as a way to turn out more cars more quickly, and the emerging auto industry popularized this mode. A photo of the Doble Steam Motors Corporation factory shows a line of workers and car chassis in production. This new technology, and the spread of industrialization, changed forever the way that work was completed. A wide variety of industries all across the count
The Civil Rights Movement
In 1948, President Harry Truman took an early step towards civil rights reform by issuing Executive Order 9981, which eliminated racial segregation in the military. After World War II, African Americans ? then often called Negroes or "coloreds," began to mobilize against discrimination. They demanded an end to segregation and fought for equality in education, housing, and employment opportunities. The images in this topic show that by the 1960s, their struggle ? which began in the segregated Sou
The Rise of Technology
Airplanes, electric railways, and automobiles joined railways to fuel Americans' growing sense of mobility. They came to characterize the progressive spirit of the new century. As a result of these new modes of public transportation, people were able to travel faster and more easily within and between cities, changing settlement patterns. One image in this group depicts John J. Montgomery, the first American to fly a heavier-than-air machine, and his glider ?Santa Clara? in 1905. An invitation t
