Frederick Douglass's 1845 narrative of his life is a profile in both moral and physical courage. In the narrative Douglass openly illustrates and attacks the misuse of Christianity as a defense of slavery. He also reveals the turning point of his life: his spirited physical defense of himself against the blows of a white "slave-breaker."

By 1828, the United States had changed greatly, though it was still a young country. Instead of 13 states, there were 24, and enough territory to make quite a few more. What was the source of Andrew Jackson's popularity?

Many accounts portray the campaign of 1840 as almost exclusively about image, and manufactured images at that. This lesson gives students the opportunity to reflect on that point of view as they analyze campaign documents and accounts. Though intended for the teacher, all or part of the following background information may be useful for some students.

Popular sovereignty allowed the settlers of a federal territory to decide the slavery question without interference from Congress. This lesson plan will examine how the Kansas"“Nebraska Act of 1854 affected the political balance between free and slave states and explore how its author, Stephen Douglas, promoted its policy of popular sovereignty in an effort to avoid a national crisis over slavery in the federal territories.

Students demonstrate their knowledge of life before the Civil War, with an emphasis on differences between the North and South.

How were party politics reflected in the campaign of 1828? What were the positions of the fledgling Democratic Party and its opposition?

More Americans lost their lives in the Civil War than in any other conflict. How did the United States arrive at a point at which the South seceded and some families were so fractured that brother fought brother?

The focus of this lesson is the Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts 54th Regiment Memorial by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Students will put themselves in the shoes of the men of the Massachusetts 54th Regiment as they read, write, pose, and then create a comic strip about these American heroes.

In this lesson, created in partnership with the Association for Cultural Equity, students discover how the banjo and music making more generally among slaves contributed to debates on the ethics of slavery. They listen to slave narratives, examine statistics, and read primary sources to better understand how slavery was conceptualized and lived through in the 18th and 19th centuries. Throughout the lesson, students return to videos created by Alan Lomax of pre-blues banjo player Dink Roberts as a way to imagine what music among slaves in the United States may have sounded like.

The road to Emancipation was indeed stony! Enslaved people struggled to free themselves and loved ones, one person at a time.

This activity includes primary sources from the official records of the U.S. District Court at Boston that tell the story of William and Ellen Craft, a young couple from Macon, GA, who escaped to freedom in Boston in 1848. The two traveled together, Ellen as a White gentleman (she was the daughter of an African-American woman and a White master and passed as White), and William as her slave valet. They made their way to Boston, and lived in the home of Lewis Hayden, a former fugitive and abolition activist.

With the passing of the Fugitive Slave Act in September, 1850, the Crafts' respective owners employed the legal system to regain their escaped property. A U.S. Marshal was sent to the home of Lewis Hayden. Hayden refused to let the marshal in and threatened to ignite kegs of gunpowder; the Marshal left. Ellen and William fled to Britain, where they remained for 20 years. They eventually returned to the United States and settled back in Georgia.

In this activity, students will examine historic documents about these fugitives from slavery. Then, using the documents, they will construct historical narratives to tell their story. They can explore perspective and use standard elements of writing (plot, character, setting, conflict, impact). Thinking about essential questions/topics, they will begin their writing with a topic/opening sentence that sets out the main idea.

1 US History to 1877
1.1 Chapter 1: In the Beginning
1.2 Chapter 2: When Cultures Collide
1.3 Chapter 3: British Colonial North America
1.4 Chapter 4: Colonial Government and Economy
1.5 Chapter 5: Colonial Slavery
1.6 Chapter 6: A Brief Overview of Colonial Religion
1.7 Chapter 7: Cultures of Colonial America
1.8 Chapter 8: An Intellectual and Religious Flowering in Colonial North America
1.9 Chapter 9: Towards Independence, 1750-1776
1.10 Chapter 10: Creating These United States, 1776-1800
1.11 Chapter 11: The Agrarian Republic and the Symbolic End of the Revolution, 1800-1826
1.12 Chapter 12: The Age of the Common Man, 1826-1850
1.13 Chapter 13: 19th Century Reform Movements
1.14 Chapter 14: War Drums, 1845-1860
2 US history from 1877 to the Present

The history of Compromise for slavery in the territories is summarized in this media item extracted from the 20-part video series A PEOPLES' HISTORY OF UTAH, written and hosted by Dean L. May, PhD (University of Utah). The series provides a sweeping view of Utah's past, from its earliest known desert beginning--from its prehistory, to the pioneer era, to the transformation from territory to state, to its critical role in the world war years and beyond.

Trace the elements of history, literature, polemic, and autobiography in the 1847 Narrative of William W. Brown, An American Slave.

The presidential election of 1824 represents a watershed in American politics. The collapse of the Federalist Party and the illness of the "official candidate" of the Democratic-Republicans led to a slate of candidates who were all Democratic-Republicans. This led to the end of the Congressional Caucus system for nominating candidates, and eventually, the development of a new two-party system in the United States. In this unit, students will read an account of the election from the Journal of the House of Representatives, analyze archival campaign materials, and use an interactive online activity to develop a better understanding of the election of 1824 and its significance.

This Teacher's Guide provides compelling questions to frame a unit of study and inquiry projects on the Reconstruction Era, includes NEH sponsored multimedia resources, activity ideas that include use of newspapers from the time and interdisciplinary approaches to bring social studies, ELA, and music education together, and resources for a DBQ and seminar.

This course uses readings and discussions to focus on a series of short-term events that shed light on American politics, culture, and social organization. It emphasizes finding ways to make sense of these complicated, highly traumatic events, and on using them to understand larger processes of change in American history. The class also gives students experience with primary documentation research through a term paper assignment.

Although many people think of the White House as a symbol of democracy, it is also a part of our country’s history of slavery. From the start of White House construction in 1792 until emancipation took effect in Washington, D.C. in 1862, enslaved men, women, and children labored at the Executive Mansion. The stories of these individuals, working under the oppressive institution of slavery in the “People’s House,” demonstrate a stark contrast to the ideals of freedom and democracy that the White House has long represented.

The Constitutional Convention of 1787 brought together strong-willed representatives with opposing points of view on slavery and its future. To ensure passage of the Constitution itself, the representatives deemed it necessary to find a path forward that could be agreed to, with the understanding that the consequences of those actions would impact future generations. We are those future generations. We look back at this founding document and the challenging perspectives of our past and present with hope for the future. This panel discussion will be interspersed with dramatic interpretations from perspectives of the time period.

This essay written by a distinguished historian of American literature, gives an overview of the American slave narrative tradition, discusses five representative slave narratives, and provides a framework for cultural analysis of these works showing their intention and their arguments.

Was the American Revolution inevitable? This lesson is designed to help students understand the transition to armed resistance and the contradiction in the Americans' rhetoric about slavery through the examination of a series of documents. While it is designed to be conducted over a several-day period, teachers with time constraints can choose to utilize only one of the documents to illustrate the patriots' responses to the actions of the British.