HERB: Resources for Teachers

Analysis Worksheet: Harriet Tubman Warns "Kill the Snake Before It Kills You"

This worksheet helps students analyze a letter in which Lydia Maria Child describes Harriet Tubman's vivid allegory about the necessity of destroying slavery during the Civil War.

Tags: Civil War, Harriet Tubman, Reading Supports, Slavery and Abolition
Item Type: Worksheet
Date: 2011

Analysis Worksheet: "Colored Troops Under General Wild, liberating slaves in North Carolina"

This worksheet helps students analyze an 1864 sketch of African-American troops, many of whom were former slaves, liberating slaves on a North Carolina plantation.

Tags: African-American Soldiers, Civil War, Reading Supports
Item Type: Worksheet
Date: 2011

Analysis Worksheet: Before-and-After Photographs of a Union Recruit

This worksheet helps students analyze Civil War photographs of a former slave who joined the Union military.

Tags: African-American Soldiers, Civil War, Reading Supports
Item Type: Worksheet
Date: 2011

Who Freed the Slaves: Weighing the Evidence worksheet

This worksheet helps students evaluate different pieces of evidence to determine who freed the slaves, Abraham Lincoln or slaves themselves. The worksheet is part of the activity "Emancipation and "Contraband": Who Freed the Slaves During the Civil War."

Tags: Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, Emancipation
Item Type: Worksheet
Date: 2011

Active Viewing: Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided

PBS American Experience’s Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided is a 6 episode mini-series available as a 3 DVD set. The following activity focuses on the causes and consequences of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation through an active viewing of Episode 4: The Dearest of All Things (Disc 2). There is a companion website to the…

Tags: Active Viewing, Civil War, Emancipation, TAH
Item Type: Teaching Activity
Date: 2011

Who Freed the Slaves During the Civil War?

In this activity students analyze visual and textual evidence about "contraband" African-American slaves during the Civil War era. They compare the roles of African Americans, the Union military, and the policies of the Republican party in emancipating slaves. They determine the extent to which African Americans freed themselves versus the extent…

Tags: Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, Emancipation
Item Type: Teaching Activity
Date: 2011

Another View of the "Statue of Emancipation"

Even as the dramatic events of the Civil War were unfolding, artists and sculptors struggled to depict emancipation. After the war, as local communities and the nation attempted to memorialize the conflict and the transformation of four million people from slaves to free people, this artistic failing had significant consequences in shaping the…

Tags: Civil War, Emancipation
Item Type: Hyperlink
Date: 2010

"Why Non-Slaveholders Fought for the Confederacy"

Historian Greg Downs describes the motivations that drove non-slaveholding white Southerners to fight for the Confederacy and to protect slavery.

Tags: Civil War, Slavery and Abolition
Item Type: Podcast
Date: 2010

New Liberties, New Threats worksheet

This series of worksheets accompanies the activity "New Liberties and New Threats During Reconstruction." The worksheets feature primary sources and descriptions that have been edited for different reading levels, as well as scaffolded questions.

Tags: Reading Supports, Reconstruction
Item Type: Worksheet
Date: 2010

Lessons in Looking: Contraband in Paintings

In this activity students analyze Theodor Kaufmann's 1867 painting On to Liberty. Students practice finding information and making inferences based on the painting by completing a graphic organizer. Then students read a descriptive paragraph of the painting, noting where the author has cited information from the painting and where the author has…

Tags: Eastman Johnson, Emancipation, Lessons in Looking, Reading Supports, TAH
Item Type: Teaching Activity
Date: 2010

Civil War and Reconstruction (1861-1877) (142 total)

Civil War and Reconstruction (1861-1877)
(142 total)