This resource is a free, downloadable audio file of short music clips to use for instruction.

This inquiry kit features Library of Congress sources relating to the major political parties in colonial America.

Thomas Paine published Common Sense in January 1776 support of the Patriot cause. Using clear, plain language, Paine rallied the colonists to support the break from Britain. He explained, "I am not induced by motives of pride, party, or resentment to espouse the doctrine of separation and independence; I am clearly, positively, and conscientiously persuaded that it is the true interest of this continent to be so."

Students compare military recruitment posters for African Americans used for both the Union and Confederate armies. They analyze how the language reflects differences is attitude and perspective.

Students analyze two photographs and make a T-chart to list characteristics of urban and rural life in the early 1900s in New York.

Using primary resources, students analyze WW1 era posters and infer the audience, purpose, and effectiveness of trying to get Americans to conserve food during this time. Online resource. Offers discussion questions.

In small groups, students analyze the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th amendment, and General Order #3 in terms of tone, audience, and message, focusing on similarities and differences.

This resource is a facsimile of Henry Clay's handwritten draft of the Compromise of 1850. The Compromise consisted of a series of bills designed to alleviate growing sectional divisions in the country. Specifically, the bills provided for slavery to be decided by popular sovereignty in the admission of new states, prohibited the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and established a stricter fugitive slave act.

In this activity (which is appropriate for introducing the Constitution) students match primary source documents to clauses from Article 1 of the Constitution. Students find six pairs, which reveal the powers of Congress. Online resource.

They met in Philadelphia in May 1787. Fifty-five men from 12 different states gathered, intending to revise the Articles of Confederation... Thus began the Constitutional Convention – the four-month process of secret argument, debate and compromise that produced a document that would soon be known in all corners of the globe: the Constitution of the United States. This primary source set includes documents and images. A teacher guide is included to assist educators in utilizing the primary sources in their instruction.

In this activity students will analyze documents that span the course of American history to determine their connection to the U.S. Constitution. Students will then make connections between the primary sources they have examined and sections of the Constitution, and determine the big idea(s) found in the Constitution exemplified by each.

In this activity students will connect primary sources with specific sections of the Constitution.

In this activity students will analyze the Senate Journal of the First Congress and identify how the document demonstrates content contained within Article II of the Constitution in action.

This activity is designed to prepare students for the Constitution-in-Action Lab at the National Archives in Washington, DC. It is a part of a package of activities associated with the lab experience.

The Constitution acted like a colossal merger, uniting a group of states with different interests, laws, and cultures. Under Americaâ"s first national government, the Articles of Confederation, the states acted together only for specific purposes. The Constitution united its citizens as members of a whole, vesting the power of the union in the people. Without it, the American Experiment might have ended as quickly as it had begun.

This source consists of scans of the Constitution of the United States of America. This document was drafted in secret by the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, and was signed on September 17, 1787, establishing the government of the United States.

The Constitution was written in the summer of 1787 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by delegates from 12 states, in order to replace the Articles of Confederation with a new form of government. It created a federal system with a national government composed of 3 separated powers, and included both reserved and concurrent powers of states. The president of the Constitutional Convention, the body that framed the new government, was George Washington, though James Madison is known as the "Father of the Constitution" because of his great contributions to the formation of the new government. Gouverneur Morris wrote the Constitutionâ"s final language. The Constitution was a compact – though Federalists and Anti-Federalists disagreed over whether the states or the people were the agents of the compact.

In this activity, students analyze a photograph and infer the experiences of a Chinese man who was used in an ethnographic display. Primary resources used. Appropriate for teaching the effects of imperialism or how cultures viewed one another as "other." Online resource.

This resource is from the Utah Division of Archives and Records Service. This primary source set contains information on infamous criminals and crimes, including Joe Hill, Butch Cassidy, John D. Lee and the Mountain Meadows Massacre, and lesser-known cases that have been largely forgotten.

On October 15, 1962, the Soviet Union was discovered attempting to install nuclear missiles in Cuba. These missiles would have been capable of quickly reaching the United States. President Kennedy responded with a naval blockade. After several days of increasing tensions, the Soviet Union finally agreed to remove the missiles.