Prominent abolitionists gathered at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840 but forbade female contributions and kept women behind a curtain. This event gave Elizabeth Cady Stanton the opportunity to meet Lucretia Mott, and ignited Stanton’s activism for women’s rights.

This inquiry kit features Library of Congress sources and focuses on the role of women in reform movements.

Samuel Worcester, a non-native missionary, arrived in New Echota to spread Christianity and help set up a printing operation for the Cherokee Nation. The state of Georgia passed a law, however, stating that outsiders had to receive a permit in order to live within the Cherokee Nation. When Worcester was arrested along with 11 other missionaries in 1831 for violating this law, he and others appealed their case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. While the court ruled that the Cherokee Nation was a sovereign nation, President Andrew Jackson refused to enforce that judicial ruling.

Ivan Doig’s writing process was unique and layered. It was inspired by his life growing up in Montana and grounded in his personal work ethic. He used photos, note cards, and diaries to develop his characters and the settings of his stories. Students will have the opportunity to examine these methods and reflect on how they might replicate them in their own writing.

In this interactive lesson supporting literacy skills, students are introduced to the ancient Mayan civilization through their writings. Students develop their literacy skills as they explore a social studies focus on the destruction of many Mayan writings by the Spanish and what archaeologists have learned from the writings that remain. During this process, they read informational text, learn and practice vocabulary words, and explore content through a video and interactive activities

Learn about the low point in the American Revolution just before the Yorktown Campaign, which triggered the events that allowed the Colonial Army to win the war.

This inquiry kit features Library of Congress sources, including images and documents, about the expansion of the national government.

As a child, Frederick Douglass was relocated from a plantation on the eastern shore of Maryland to Baltimore. There he learned how to read and write—first from the wife of his master and then from poor, local immigrant children. The two books he read were the Bible and The Columbian Orator. This clip explores Douglass’ determination and resourcefulness in his early years to gain literacy skills, and how this new knowledge opened his eyes to a life beyond slavery.