The Library of Congress
Lessons by Title — A-G   H-P   R-Z
Title Grades Description Themes, Topics, Disciplines or Eras
Recreation Yesterday and Today 8-12 Students research entertainment and recreation in the early 20th century and then compare the rural experience for this time period to the national experience and to their own experience. While this lesson is about recreational activities, it is also about being a teenager in the 1920s and 1930s.
Great Depression/World War II, 1929-1945

Reservation Controversies

 

8-12 Students engage in a two part experience using Problem Based Learning (PBL), in which they are confronted or faced with two different, but related real world problems regarding Native Americans, which have no preconceived right or wrong answers.
Civics and Government
Rounding the Bases
9-12 Students use primary sources focused on baseball to explore the American experience regarding race and ethnicity.
Rise of Industrial America, 1876-1900
Progressive Era to New Era, 1900-1929
Great Depression/World War II, 1929-1945
Postwar United States, 1945-1968
Sea Changes: A Study of a New England Industry
7-10 Students study photographs, maps and interviews with two New England fishermen of the early 20th century, construct "found poetry," and research in THOMAS to understand legislation restricting the fishing industry. Civics and Government
Literature/Poetry
Progressive Era to New Era, 1900-1929
Great Depression/World War II, 1929-1945
Postwar United States, 1945-1968
Stand Up and Sing

 

7-12 Students analyze issues related to industrialization and reform by exploring sheet music. They also create original lyrics and song covers that reflect the Progressive Era.
Rise of Industrial America, 1876-1900
Progressive Era to New Era, 1900-1929
Suffragists and Their Tactics

 

10-12 Students use primary sources to explore the strategies and challenges of the women’s suffrage movement in the United States.
Civics and Government
Civil War and Reconstruction, 1861-1877
National Expansion and Reform, 1815-1860
Progressive Era to New Era, 1900-1929
Rise of Industrial America, 1876-1900
Thank You, Mr. Edison

 

7-12 Students investigate electrification as both a technological and social process.
Rise of Industrial America, 1876-1900
Progressive Era to New Era, 1900-1929
Thomas Jefferson's Library: Making the Case for a National Library

 

8-12 Students examine a letter written by Thomas Jefferson and identify techniques he used to persuade Congress to purchase his personal library in 1815. Students consider a selection of those books and write their own persuasive letters urging the books' purchase.
The New Nation, 1783-1815
National Expansion and Reform, 1815-1860
Tinker, Tailor, Farmer, Sailor

 

4-8 Students examine a variety of primary sources to determine why colonists were drawn to settle in a particular region of the country. Colonization and Settlement, 1585-1763
To Kill a Mockingbird

 

7-12 Students are guided on a journey through the Depression Era in the 1930s. They become familiar with Southern experiences through the study of To Kill a Mockingbird, and African American experiences through the examination of primary sources.
Literature Poetry
Great Depression/World War II, 1929-1945
To Market, To Market

 

11 Students investigate and examine the impact transportation has had on peoples' lives by comparing and contrasting the turn of the centuries.
Rise of Industrial America, 1876-1900
Progressive Era to New Era, 1900-1929
Tracking Down the Real Billy the Kid 8-12 Students analyze the role that gunfighters played in the settlement of the West and distinguish between their factual and fictional accounts.
Civil War and Reconstruction, 1861-1877
Rise of Industrial America, 1876-1900
Turn-of-the-Century Child

 

6-8 Students develop a richly realized "persona" from the same geographic region and ethnic background as a child photographed at the turn of the century. Students identify, place, and interpret these images as part of their scrapbooks of an imagined child born in 1900.
Rise of Industrial America, 1876-1900
Progressive Era to New Era, 1900-1929
Twain's Hannibal

 

9-10 Students locate and analyze resources relating to the influences that growing up around Hannibal had on Twain's work. This information is integrated with the reading of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Literature/Poetry
Two Unreconciled Strivings

 

11-12 Students examine how African-Americans in the Gilded Age were able to form a meaningful identity for themselves and reject the inferior images fastened upon them.
Rise of Industrial America, 1876-1900
Progressive Era to New Era, 1900-1929
United We Stand 8-10 Students study the working conditions of American laborers at the turn of the century in order to answer the question, "Was there a need for organized labor unions?"
Rise of Industrial America, 1876-1900
Progressive Era to New Era, 1900-1929
Using Oral History

 

7-12 Students study social history topics through interviews that recount the lives of ordinary Americans. Based on these excerpts, students develop their own research questions. They then plan and conduct oral history interviews with members of their communities.
Great Depression/World War II, 1929-1945
Visions in the Dust

 

5-8 Students gain an understanding of Dust Bowl history through the eyes of a child, using Karen Hesse's Newbery Award-winning Out of the Dust.
Literature/Poetry
Great Depression/World War II, 1929-1945
Voices for Votes: Suffrage Strategies

 

4-6 Students examine a variety of primary source documents related to the women's suffrage movement and then create original documents encouraging citizens to vote in current elections.
Civil War and Reconstruction, 1861-1877
National Expansion and Reform, 1815-1860
Progressive Era to New Era, 1900-1929
Rise of Industrial America, 1876-1900
Waldseemüller’s Map: World 1507 6-8

The 1507 World Map by Martin Waldseemüller is one of the world’s most important maps. Students investigate this map by looking closely at the details of each section of the map and then draw conclusions on the revelation of this new and unusual world to the people of 1507.

Three Worlds Meet, Beginnings to 1620

What Are We Fighting For Over There?

 

10-12 Students create World War I era newspapers with different perspectives on American involvement in the war.
Progressive Era to New Era, 1900-1929
What Do You See

 

5-12 Students analyze Civil War photographs, and develop links between the Civil War and American industrialization.
Civil War and Reconstruction, 1861-1877
Rise of Industrial America, 1876-1900
What is an American?

 

8-12 Students will look at life histories from the Depression era to see if an American still is as Crèvecoeur described them in 1782: a "descendent of Europeans" who, if he were "honest, sober and industrious," prospered in a welcoming land of opportunity which gave him choice of occupation and residence.
Great Depression/World War II, 1929-1945
When Work is Done

 

11 Students develop albums that reflect a thesis about leisure time in the United States between 1900 and 1950. Progressive Era to New Era, 1900-1929
Great Depression/World War II, 1929-1945
Postwar United States, 1945-1968

Who Really Built America?

 

6-12 Students examine child labor in America from 1880-1920 to gain a personal perspective of how work affected the American child within a rapidly growing industrial society.
Rise of Industrial America, 1876-1900
Progressive Era to New Era, 1900-1929
Women: Struggle and Triumph

 

7-12 Powerful stories of brave women who helped shape the history of the United States are revealed to students through journals, letters, narratives and other primary sources. Synthesizing information from the various sources, students write their impressions of women in the Northeast, Southeast, or the West during the Nineteenth Century. National Expansion and Reform, 1815-1860
Civil War and Reconstruction, 1861-1877
Rise of Industrial America, 1876-1900
Women, Their Rights & Nothing Less

 

9-12 Students create timelines and papers that explore the long route women traveled to receive the right to vote.

National Expansion and Reform, 1815-1860
Civil War and Reconstruction, 1861-1877
Rise of Industrial America, 1876-1900
Progressive Era to New Era, 1900-1929

Lessons by Title — A-G  H-P  R-Z

The Library of Congress | American Memory Contact us
Last updated 04/17/2008