In this lesson students read poems and letters that describe the work and lives of nineteenth-century Irish immigrants to the United States. As students read the documents, they choose words and phrases to create found poems that reflect their…
In this activity students compare an eighteenth-century print of a slave ship and a table of data about the voyages of the slave ship to draw facts and make inferences about the transatlantic slave trade. This activity was designed for the…
In this activity students analyze a political cartoon, a presidential speech and an anti-immigration pamphlet from the early 20th century. After analyzing the documents, students write about why the United States passed immigration quotas in the…
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…
This worksheet helps students analyze documents relating to the question of the redistribution of land at the end of the Civil War. The instructions and suggested documents for this activity can be found in "Forty Acres? The Question of Land at the…
This excerpt from Freedom's Unfinished Revolution describes the Union Army's decision to distributed abandoned plantation lands to former slaves during the Civil War. The excerpt also explains the problems freedpeople encountered after President…
In this activity students consider different viewpoints on whether former slaves should be given land at the end of the Civil War. Students read one of five primary sources and summarize the author's viewpoint. This activity makes a good introduction…
This worksheet helps students match primary source documents with three historical understandings for Reconstruction. It is used as a part of the activity "Create a Magic Lantern Show," but it can be used on its own to help students classify…
American Social History Project · Center for Media and Learning