Social Studies Curriculum

Has many primary sources useful for research projects or seminar.  This site contains digital interactive resources.

The National Archives offers a copy of the U.S. Constitution and biographies of the document's fifty-five framers. The article "A More Perfect Union" is an in-depth look at the Constitutional Convention and the ratification process. "Questions and Answers Pertaining to the Constitution" presents dozens of fascinating facts about the Constitution.

Grades 7-12

The Yale Law school offers documents on The Roots of the Constitution, Revolution and Independence, Credentials of the Members of the Federal Convention, The Constitutional Convention, and Ratification and Formation of the Government.

Grades k-12

This site by the U.S. Government Printing Office teaches K-12 students how the U.S. government works. There are resources for teachers and parents as well.

Grades 6, 8, 10

This site explores the history and operation of the American presidency. The exhibit displays more than 375 images of documents, paintings, photographs, buttons, posters, paraphernalia, and objects along with short texts explaining their significance.

Grades 6-12

This Web site is geared toward teaching the history of the American presidency, primarily to high school students, and contains detailed biographies of each president.

The Constitution Society is a private non-profit organization dedicated to research and public education on the principles of constitutional republican government. It publishes documentation, engages in litigation, and organizes local citizens groups to work for reform. It offers a Liberty Library of Constitutional Classics, a Constitutional Weblog, and a Constitutional Examination.

Grades 7-12

This is the online archive of Bill of Rights in Action, Constitutional Rights Foundation's curricular newsletter. Constitutional Rights Foundation seeks to instill in American youth a deeper understanding of citizenship through values expressed in the Constitution and its Bill of Rights, and to educate them to become active and responsible participants in American society. Each edition has a lesson (reading, discussion questions, and interactive activity) on U.S. history, world history, and a current issue and lessons are balanced to present various viewpoints. Bill of Rights in Action has been published for more than 30 years and the Constitutional Rights Foundation has archived about 10 years of the newsletter.

Grades 7-12

Provides full texts of Supreme Court decisions since 1893.

Grades 6-12

This site provides a unit that includes four lessons using primary sources to examine continuity and change in the governing of the United States. Lessons one and two are focused on a study of the Constitution and Bill of Rights and provide access to primary source documents from the Library of Congress. Lesson three investigates important issues which confronted the first Congress and has students examine current congressional debate over similar issues. Lesson four features broadsides from the Continental Congress calling for special days of thanksgiving and remembrance. The first three lessons are intended for middle and high school students. Lesson four provides a historical context for elementary school lessons that focus on celebrating national holidays.

Grades 6-8

In this study of the Bill of Rights, students create a television news program about controversial issues today that relate to the Bill of Rights.

Grades 6-8

"You are a journalist for a school newspaper. In your research you have discovered that many of your peers do not know anything about the US Constitution. Your task is to complete this WebQuest so that you may understand the US Constitution and teach your classmates about its origins, significance, and relevance to our society."

This little mini-lesson uses a class activity to teach students about checks and balances.

Grades 6-12

Digital History features resource guides by topic and period. Reference resources include classroom handouts, chronologies, encyclopedia articles, glossaries, and an audio-visual archive including speeches, book talks and e-lectures by historians, and historical maps, music, newspaper articles, and images. Teacher Resources.

Grades 8-12

New York Times Newspaper. In this New York Times lesson, students learn about the departments within the judicial and executive branches of United States government and create a trivia game to test their knowledge.( Published June 9, 2002).

Grades 8-12

Has useful information including timelines, descriptions of battles (state by state), letters, documents, and links.

Grades 8-12

This Library of Congress exhibition contains succinct overviews of several aspects of the Civil War and Reconstruction and features primary sources, maps, and images.

Grades 9-12

This site highlights collections of the Virginia Military Institute, including manuscripts and battle resource guides. Special topics include VMI's Civil War generals, Stonewall Jackson's resources, a war chronology, Robert E. Lee's funeral, and more.

Grades 6-12

The Valley of the Shadow depicts two communities, one Northern and one Southern, through the experience of the American Civil War. The project focuses on Augusta County, Virginia and Franklin County, Pennsylvania, and creates a social history of the coming, fighting, and aftermath of the Civil War. The project is a hypermedia archive of thousands of sources for the period before, during, and after the Civil War for Augusta County, Virginia, and Franklin County, Pennsylvania. Those sources include newspapers, letters, diaries, photographs, maps, church records, population census, agricultural census, and military records. Students can explore the conflict and write their own histories, or reconstruct the life stories of women, African Americans, farmers, politicians, soldiers, and families.

Grades 6-12

Explore the Civil War through the extensive collections of the Smithsonian Institution. Includes a timeline and many images of artifacts and documents.

Grades 9-12

Provides a brief introduction to the Emancipation Proclamation as well as a timeline and four related primary sources.

Grades 6-12

Abraham Lincoln Online brings you news about Lincoln books, speeches and writings, historic places, and events. Sections include This Week in History, Today in Lincoln's Life, Lincoln News Highlights, and Photo Tours of Lincoln Places. Find out about Lincoln events, new books about Lincoln, and more.

Grades 7-12

Lincoln/Net provides historical materials from Abraham Lincoln's Illinois years, including Lincoln's writings and speeches, as well as other materials illuminating antebellum Illinois. This site includes interpretive materials, featuring a brief Lincoln biography and discussions of eight major historical themes. Lincoln/Net provides over fifteen million words of primary source materials, over 1500 images, video commentary on various aspects of Lincoln's life by historians and, and even a sound archive. Lincoln/Net also offers lesson plans that utilize the primary source documents found in the Lincoln/Net database.

Grades 4-12

Teacher resource

The official Web site of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.

Grades 9-12

This teacher-produced site has three main sections: Abraham Lincoln Research Site, Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination, and the Mary Todd Lincoln Research Site. Offers a clear and engaging mix of text, images, and primary sources.

Grades 8-12

For over a quarter of a century, Harper’s Weekly captured the lion’s share of the national newspaper audience. Materials from the magazine are presented in order to give a true historical picture of the leading 19th-century newspaper’s view of black Americans.

Grades 9-12

Presented by the University of Virginia, this site is a case study that explores racial caricature in editorial cartoons at the time of Lincoln.

Grades 8-12

This NPR audio clip features the views of renowned historian James McPherson who argues that Antietam was a turning point in the war.

Grades 8-12

Duke University uses diaries and papers to profile three Civil War era women.

Grades 7-12

This Smithsonian web site skillfully integrates Flash video and text to examine armed conflicts involving the U.S. from the Revolutionary War to the war in Iraq. Each conflict contains a brief video clip, statistical information, and a set of artifacts. There is also a Civil War mystery, an exhibition self-guide, and a teacher's guide. The Civil War section contains an introductory movie and short essay on the conflict as well as historic images and artifacts.

Grades 8-12

Crisis at Fort Sumter is an interactive historical simulation and decision making program. Using text, images, and sound, it reconstructs the dilemmas of policy formation and decision making in the period between Abraham Lincoln's election in in November 1860 and the battle of Fort Sumter in April 1861. 

Educator Resources

The NARA has compiled many Civil War primary sources, including several sound files of interviews with the last surviving confederate veteran. Lesson plans and activity worksheets are at the bottom of the page and can be applied to any visual document.

Grades 9-12

In this concise lesson, students use primary sources from the Library of Congress’ American Memory collections to research and understand the impact of the Civil War on women. By studying women who had different roles in and perspectives on the war, ranging from plantation mistresses to slave women and spies, students have to consider how the war affected women based on their position in society. In addition to advancing skills in using primary sources.

Grades 9-12

In this this lesson plan, students examine Abraham Lincoln's decision to mobilize the Union Army against the South. Particular attention is paid to external factors that influenced the President's decision.

Grades 8-12

This NARA lesson plan contains a lot of good background information and many online resources, as well as Teacher activities and Student assignments.

Grades 8-12

This web site has been designed in order to assist students in the creation of an ethnography of the United States during the Civil War Era.

Grades 7-12

Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was read at the September 11 anniversary ceremony. Read the Gettysburg Address and discuss with your partner(s) its main themes. Why do you think the Gettysburg Address is appropriate now?

Grades 7-12

The Digital Resource Guides provide links to American history web sites by period, historical overviews, readings (online textbook chapter, Reader's Companion), primary source documents (documents, maps, cartoons), teaching resources (chronologies, maps, quizzes), audio-visual resources, and additional resources.

Grades 8-12

"You will learn about military battles and the lives of women during the American Civil War, 1861-1865, using both the Internet and other resources.

Educator Resources

The companion web site to The American People offers blank maps related to various topics in American history. The maps can be printed or placed in a PowerPoint presentation.

Grades 8-12

Library of Congress.

A first-rate exhibition created by the Chicago Historical Society and Northwestern University. There are two major parts: the history of Chicago in the 19th century, and how the Chicago Fire has been remembered over time. Included are essays, galleries, and sources.

A detailed look at the issues and personalities that dominated the era. Many primary source excerpts.

Contained here are dozens of texts and manuscripts, scores of contemporary reviews and articles, hundreds of images, and many different kinds of interactive exhibits.

A detailed look at the issues and personalities that dominated the election.

Grades 9-12

Jim Crow Online is the official companion Web site to the PBS documentary, The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow. The Web site, exploring segregation from the end of the Civil War to the onset of the Civil Rights Movement, uses interactive features that enable visitors to learn more about the history of Jim Crow in the United States and the real-life crusaders of the period who fought against it. There are first-hand narratives and interactive maps and in the Tools and Activities section students can analyze images, post their comments online, and explore the legacy of Jim Crow.

The Philadelphia Library has digitized artifacts from the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, which featured the wonders of the Industrial Age and exhibits from 37 countries. The most lasting accomplishment of the Exhibition was to introduce America as a new industrial world power, soon to eclipse the might and production of every other industrialized nation, and to showcase the City of Philadelphia as a center of American culture and industry.

Digital History features resource guides by topic and period. Reference resources include classroom handouts, chronologies, encyclopedia articles, glossaries, and an audio-visual archive including speeches, book talks and e-lectures by historians, and historical maps, music, newspaper articles, and images. 

Grades 6-12

Has three history sections: 1820-1880, 1880-1940, and 1940-1997.  Virtual Museum tour.

Part of a university course, this set has excellent lecture notes on major topical areas in American History from 1865. Check out lecture number four, "The Gilded Age and the Politics of Corruption."

The collections in the Library of Congress's Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division contain an extraordinary range of the surviving products of Edison's entertainment inventions and industries. This site features 341 motion pictures, 81 disc sound recordings, and other related materials, such as photographs and original magazine articles.

Educator Resources and Grades 6-12

The American Variety Stage is a multimedia anthology selected from various Library of Congress holdings. This collection illustrates the vibrant and diverse forms of popular entertainment, especially vaudeville, that thrived from 1870-1920.

Using historic photographs and primary sources, students will research and learn about child labor in America with this LOC lesson plan. The plan provides its own printable handouts and discussion questions.

Designed by The Learning Page of the LOC, this lesson plan focuses on the problems that went unsolved throughout reconstruction. Students are encouraged to conduct research using primary sources.

This resourceful site offers nine different lesson plans including “The WCTU and the Lynching Controversy”, “‘Death to King Alcohol!’ Temperance in the 19th Century”, and “Is there such a thing as too much profit? The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887.”

In this DiscoverySchool.com lesson plan students will understand that in addition to being, except for Native Americans, a country of immigrants, the United States is also now remarkable for the frequency with which people move around the country, from region to region.

New York Times, Learning Network
In this New York Times lesson, students explore the economic repercussions of a potential Major League Baseball strike. Then, through researching other labor strikes in American history, students will consider the importance and impact of labor unions in United States history.

Grades 6-12

(AMONG THE BEST I DISCOVERED) The Digital Resource Guides provide links to American history web sites by period and provide historical overviews, readings (online textbook chapter, Reader's Companion), primary source documents (documents, maps, cartoons), teaching resources (chronologies, maps, quizzes), audio-visual resources, and additional resources. The Guides are an excellent and comprehensive teaching resource.

The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History offers lessons, quizzes, activities and primary source documents for a variety of topics including The Farmer's Revolt, and Responses to Industrialization. 

Grades 6-12

A multimedia web site with many useful links.

History News Network