2 02 us history honors assignment

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In This Section

• Classroom Materials: Digitized Primary Sources
• Classroom Materials: Rubrics and Syllabi
• Classroom Materials: Sample Assignments
• Classroom Materials: Teaching Modules
• Classroom Materials: History Skills
• Classroom Materials: Reflections on Teaching
• Classroom Materials: History Lessons and Background Materials

Sample Assignments

Sample assignment showcasing the importance of local/regional history in the early american survey course.

Brittany Adams focuses on incorporating more regional history into the early survey. She also emphasizes the importance of de-centering the British colonial narrative when teaching students who identify more with western US history, as do many of her students at UC Irvine.

Assignment: Social History of the Atlantic Slave Trade

Shannon Bontrager not only incorporated global contexts into his survey, but he also used non-traditional and digital pedagogical tools to engage his students.

Chinese Immigrants in America in the 19th Century: A Study Module

These materials, produced by Vincent A. Clark as a result of his work in the Bridging Cultures program, consist of an illustrated introduction, excerpts from four contemporaneous articles, an online quiz (not included in these materials), and an assignment for an e-mail discussion. The introduction describes not only the life of the immigrants in the United States but their economic and cultural background in China. The goal is to expand the students’ knowledge to include the China from which these immigrants came. Two of the articles oppose Chinese immigrants; two praise them. They are designed to let students see the varying perceptions of the immigrants, the arguments for and against Chinese immigration, and the complex class and ethnic dimensions of this controversy.

Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Extra Credit Assignment

As part of her work in the Bridging Cultures program, Cheryll Cody designed a course assignment using the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database. It requires students to answer a series of questions by looking at the database’s extensive collection of maps and charts.

The US Becomes an Empire, Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries

As part of his work in the Bridging Cultures program, Carlos Contreras provided some classroom assignments and activities that challenge students to think "Atlantically" and "Pacifically" as they think broadly about American history. This set of discussion questions focuses on the expansion of the US as it becomes an imperial power and has students critically examine the US-Caribbean relationship, Hawaii and the Philippines in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Discussion Questions on the Film Manifest Destiny

History and policy education program.

Oct. 2, 2015 -  Modeled on the National History Center's Congressional Briefings by Historians program, the History and Policy Education Program aims to help students appreciate the importance of bringing historical perspectives to contemporary policy conversations.  Designed to be adaptable to many courses and teaching styles, the Mock Policy Briefing initiative provides a guide for history educators to develop and host briefings about the historical dimensions of current policy questions.  Read more about the background of the initiative in the October issue of  Perspectives on History. 

Paper Assignment: Encountering Commodities in the Atlantic and the Pacific Worlds

This sample assignment requires students to use primary and secondary sources to connect American history with the Atlantic and Pacific worlds and write a paper that focuses on the circulation of commodities, peoples, and ideas throughout those worlds. This paper assignment has three major parts: a list of sources for students to read and study along with guiding questions on each reading; a mapping exercise; and the five page paper.

Paper Assignment: Localizing Global Encounters, Case Study: New Netherland/New York (Suffolk County Community College)

This sample assignment requires students to use primary and secondary sources to connect American history with the Atlantic and Pacific worlds and write a paper that focuses on encounters between different groups of Europeans in New Netherland/New York. This paper assignment has three major parts: a list of sources for students to read and study along with guiding questions on each reading; a mapping exercise; and the five page paper.

Sample Assignments from Globalized US History Courses

As part of her work in the Bridging Cultures program, Amy Forss employed wide-ranging techniques such as PechaKucha presentations, oral history research, and greater study of maps to engage her students in their globalized US history courses. She even had her students find historical recipes and try them out.

Revolutions, Independence and New Nations: The Great Transformation

As part of his work in the Bridging Cultures program, Carlos Contreras provided some classroom assignments and activities that challenge students to think "Atlantically" and "Pacifically" as they think broadly about American history. This set of discussion questions helps students consider the implications of revolution in the Atlantic world.

Discussion Questions on the Film Black in Latin America

As part of his work in the Bridging Cultures program, Carlos Contreras provided some classroom assignments and activities that challenge students to think "Atlantically" and "Pacifically" as they think broadly about American history. This set of readings and discussion questions helps students consider the complexities of the Transatlantic slave trade and the broader Atlantic world during the colonial era, particularly considering the film "Black in Latin America."

Films and Readings on the African Slave Trade and the Atlantic World

As part of his work in the Bridging Cultures program, Carlos Contreras provided some classroom assignments and activities that challenge students to think "Atlantically" and "Pacifically" as they think broadly about American history. This set of discussion questions helps students consider the complexities of the Transatlantic slave trade and the broader Atlantic world during the colonial era.

Africans in the Americas: Discussion Questions from Lepore, Benjamin, Articles, and Film

Video assignment based on isabel allende's daughter of fortune.

Oscar Cañedo crafted this creative assignment about the California Gold Rush and the experiences of people traveling from South America to get to California. He used a story from prominent Latin American novelist Isabel Allende as a backdrop for the assignment. Students craft their own characters based on Isabelle Allende's novel Daughter of Fortune and produce videos to explain why they wished to make the arduous journey to California

Plagiarism: Curricular Materials for History Instructors

History instructors can use this guide to teach students how to avoid plagiarism. It includes a discussion of how the American Historical Association defines plagiarism, tips on preventing and detecting plagiarism in student work, exercises to sharpen students’ understanding of plagiarism, a list of suggested readings for graduate students, an annotated bibliography, and a list of useful web sites.

ChronoZoom Memory and History Project Rubric

Discovering american social history on the web.

Dan Kallgren developed several sample assignments for use in his undergraduate survey course "United States History Since the Civil War," in the spring of 2000. Assignments can be used inidividually or in series, as each is accompanied by suggested reading and primary sources.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

One of Dan Kallgren's assignments. Students read a section from "Out of Many; A History of the American People" by John Mack Faragher, et al., to contextualize primary source documents about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. After analyzing the sources, the students write a short report.

The Anti-Saloon League

One of Dan Kallgren's assignments. Students analyze digital primary sources in order to contextualize and understand the motivation of the Anti-Saloon League members.

Mapping Suburbanization

One of Dan Kallgren's assignments. Using topographical maps from the University of New Hampshire, students explore how the landscape surrounding a 1950s New Hampshire city changed over time. Students are asked to consider how sociopolitical factors such as the Cold War might have affected the development of the United States.

World Civilizations: The Ancient Period to 500 CE

In David Smith's project, students use world history methods (Big Picture, Diffusion, Syncretism, Comparison, and Common Phenomena) to interpret secondary and primary materials. Primary material is handled through directed reading questions that focus on three classics: the Odyssey, the Ramayana and the Analects.

JFK's Executive Orders and the New Frontier

One of Dan Kallgren's assignments. Students analyze executive orders from President Kennedy to draw out themes and place them in the context of Kennedy's agenda.

United States History from the Civil War to the Present Syllabus

Sue C. Patrick's syllabus for her United States History from the Civil War to the Present course, which includes assignments and links to digital primary sources.

United States History through the Civil War Syllabus

Sue C. Patrick's syllabus for a United States History through the Civil War course. The syllabus includes assignments and links to digital primary sources.

Sample Assignment: Charting Your Journey with ORBIS

Created by John Rosinbum as part of his Teaching with #DigHist series on AHA Today, This assignment asks students to craft a hypothetical journey using ORBIS, a digital humanities project at Stanford University that allows users to plot a route between sites in the Roman Empire and simulate the journey. After rationalizing the choices made when planning their trip, students use a comic strip or travel diary to recount the trials and tribulations of their journey. The assignment helps develop skills in writing narratives, real or imagined. In addition, it develops the historical skills of contextualization and causation by asking the students to ground their narratives in a place they have already learned about and then justify the steps in their journey. While designed for middle school students, the assignment and attached rubric could easily be adapted for students ranging from elementary school to entry-level undergraduate.

Sample Assignment: Comparing Spatial Depictions of the Roman World

Created by John Rosinbum as part of his Teaching with #DigHist series on AHA Today, this assignment requires students to analyze the depictions of the Roman world created in digital projects ORBIS and the Digital Atlas of Roman and Medieval Civilizations. Designed for high performing high school students and freshman/sophomore undergraduate students, the assignment pushes students to compare the two projects and gives them the opportunity to explore how purpose, argument and data shape a project.

Sample Assignment: Visualizing the Transatlantic Slave Trade with Voyages

Created by John Rosinbum as part of his Teaching with #DigHist series on AHA Today, this assignment offers students the opportunity to use their visual and/or technical skills to create a visualization of the transatlantic slave trade. Students will use the information provided by Voyages to create either a digital or an analog data visualization of the trade. In addition they will write a detailed guide explaining their process and defending their choices. This assignment asks them to think deeply about the process of visualizing history and personally involves them in the process of generating a better understanding of the past.

Sample Assignment: Tracking a Slave Ship with Voyages

Created by John Rosinbum as part of his Teaching with #DigHist series on AHA Today, asks students to investigate a specific slave vessel and contextualize its journeys within their broader knowledge of the trade and concurrent historical events/processes that might have affected it.

Teaching the Slave Trade with Voyages: The Transatlantic Slave Trade Database (AHA Today)

New perspectives on 19th-century america [assignment].

John Rosinbum uses American Panorama, a digital atlas created by the University of Richmond's Digital Scholarship Lab, to teach students about the economic, cultural, and territorial transformations that changed America during the 19th century. In this assignment, students must create their own visualization of changes in 19th-century America. Students must also develop a guide that defends their research choices in the creation of the visualization, explains how the visualization extends our current understanding of the period, and distinguishes their visualization from American Panorama.

Analyzing Visual Depictions of America's Expansion with American Panorama

John Rosinbum uses American Panorama, a digital atlas created by the University of Richmond's Digital Scholarship Lab, to teach students about the economic, cultural, and territorial transformations that changed America during the 19th century. In this sample assignment, he asks students to compare two maps from American Panorama dealing with the 19th century and explore how each map presents American expansion differently.

Creating Maps Using Carto [Assignment]

Lindsey Passenger Wieck (St. Mary's Univ.) explains how students in her history classroom use Carto to create maps. The exercise helps students become critical consumers of maps and media, while designing and implementing digital projects that communicate historical content. In this assignment, students explain the significance of maps they created using Carto.

Creating a Dataset [Assignment]

Lindsey Passenger Wieck (St. Mary's Univ.) explains how students in her history classroom use Carto to create maps. The exercise helps students become critical consumer of maps and media, while designing and implementing digital projects that communicate historical content. In this assignment, students develop and analyze a dataset and consider its potential for mapping.

Mapping the Early Modern World [Instructions)

Julia M Gossard (Utah State Univ.) uses the widely available Google Maps to assign a mapping project to her students. The assignment allows students to think carefully about the economic, political, religious, and ideological connections between Europe and the rest of the world in the early modern period.

The Historian's Toolbox: Source Evaluation [Worksheet]

Julia M Gossard (Utah State Univ.) uses the widely available Google Maps to assign a mapping project to her students. The assignment allows students to think carefully about the economic, political, religious, and ideological connections between Europe and the rest of the world in the early modern period. In this worksheet, Gossard asks her student to carefully evaluate the sources they use for their Google Map entries.

Visualizing the Past [Sample Assignment]

John Rosinbum looks at a spectrum of digital archives available on the web today and explores how teachers can use them in the classroom. In this sample assignment, students are asked to use data from a digital archive to visualize the past.

Operation War Diary Project [Sample Assignment]

In this assignment, Susan Corbesero (The Ellis School) discusses using the crowdsourcing project, Operation War Diary, to help students learn about the First World War. The project contains over one million digitized images of war diaries from British and Indian troops.

Teach Your Family

In this project, you will show your instructor—and your family or friends—what you’ve learned in class.

HIS 132 - American History II: Primary Sources for HIS132 Assignment

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How to Use This Page

Helpful Databases for Primary Documents

• Library of Congress The Library of Congress is an agency of the legislative branch of government. It is the country's oldest federal cultural institution as well as the largest library in the world.

Trans-Mississippi West and a Growing Industrial Economy 1860-1900

• Two Editorials from the Rocky Mountain news The Sand Creek Massacre of November 29, 1864, in which 700 men of a Colorado territorial militia attacked an encampment of unarmed Cheyenne and Arapaho waiting to commence peace negotiations, shocked the nation. Many locals regarded the action as a genuine battle rather than a massacre, as is evident from the following Rocky Mountain News editorials, which reported Chivington's attack as a brilliant victory against a formidable enemy.

• Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty signed in Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico, on February 2, 1848, ending the 1846–1848 Mexican-American War between the United States and Mexico. Under the terms of the t
• Homestead Act of 1862 The Homestead Act, enacted on May 20, 1862, provided 160 acres of unoccupied public land to any citizen (or intended citizen) who was willing to occupy and cultivate the land for five years and who was either head of a family or at least twenty-one years old. The land was free except for a small filing fee. By 1870 nearly 14 million acres had been homesteaded.
• Hatch Act, 1887 Federal U.S. legislation introduced by Missouri congressman William H. Hatch that provided federal funds for establishing experimental stations to conduct agricultural research.
• Forest Reserve Act Federal legislation passed on March 3, 1891, that codified many public land laws. The act authorized the president to reserve certain public lands from the public domain and reversed the previous policy of transferring public lands to private ownership. Though the act failed to specify the purpose of these reserves and to provide for their administration (the Forest Management Act of 1897 did both), President Benjamin Harrison used the authority to reserve twenty-two million acres, thus beginning the national forest system.
• Dawes Severalty Act Federal U.S. legislation enacted on February 8, 1887, that provided for the dissolution of the Indian tribes as legal entities and the distribution of tribal lands among individual members. In an attempt to remove any remaining authority from the Native peoples, the act granted citizenship to Indians who renounced tribal allegiance and "adopted the habits of civilized life." It allotted to heads of families 160 acres of reservation land and to adult single people 80 acres; the land was initially awarded in trust, with full title to be transferred after twenty-five years.

Democracy and Empire 1870-1900

• Speech for the Literacy Test Bill Senator Henry Cabot Lodge (R-MA) gave this speech on March 16, 1896, in favor of his Literacy Test Bill, which would have required prospective immigrants over age 14 to prove they could read and write their own language. Congress first passed legislation restricting immigration in 1875, banning convicts and prostitutes from immigrating to the United States.
• Chinese Exclusion Act, 1882 In 1879 Congress passed a bill prohibiting further Chinese immigration, but it was vetoed by President Rutherford B. Hayes. The following year a new treaty with China gave the United States the right to limit or suspend the entry of Chinese labor, but not to prohibit it absolutely. The 1882 suspension of immigration was renewed in 1892 and was followed by other exclusionary legislation. These acts were repealed in 1943.
• Harper's Weekly Editorial Criticizing the Chinese Exclusion Bill The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first major law to restrict immigration into the United States. Specifically, the act excluded all Chinese laborers from entering the country for a period of 10 years. During the debate leading up to its passage in Congress, the influential political magazine Harper's Weekly ran an editorial criticizing the bill, which it said betrayed a key aspect of American democracy that traditionally welcomed "the oppressed of every clime and race."

• Treaty of Paris, 1898 Treaty signed on December 10, 1898, ending the Spanish-American War (1898). According to the treaty terms, Spain would abandon its claim to Cuba (which remained a U.S. protectorate until 1934) and cede Puerto Rico and Guam to the United States (both of which remain U.S. territories).
• "Women Nurses in the American Army" Anita Newcomb McGee (1864–1940) was born and raised in Washington, D.C., the daughter of a noted mathematician and astronomer. She received a medical degree from Columbian College (today George Washington University) in 1892, then studied gynecology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore. McGee delivered this speech in Kansas City, Missouri, in September 1899. It was subsequently published in Proceedings of the 8th Annual Meeting of the Association of Military Surgeons.
• Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis (excerpt) Josiah Strong, a Protestant clergyman and the secretary of the Congregational Home Missionary Society, called for Christian-based imperialism in Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis (1885), excerpted below. Passionately prejudicial, Strong was convinced that Americans must be properly Christianized, especially because of the "perils" they faced from wayward immigrants, Roman Catholics, Mormons, alcohol abusers, socialists, and newly wealthy industrialists.
• The Comstock Law - 1873 The Comstock law, named for Anthony Comstock, head of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, was passed in 1873. It declared contraceptive devices and materials discussing contraception, abortion, or sex education, to be obscene, and prohibited their distribution through the U.S. Postal Service.
• Minor v. Happersett The case involved the 1872 presidential election, during which a suffragist from Missouri named Virginia Minor attempted to vote but was denied. The registrar officiating the voting pointed to a Missouri law granting voting rights only to "every male citizen."

The Twenties 1920-1929

• Appeal to the U.S. Senate to Submit the Federal Amendment for Woman - 1918 Suffrage Speech delivered by President Woodrow Wilson to the United States Senate, asking that the Senate vote to submit the Nineteenth Amendment to the states for ratification.
• Air Conditioning Invented in the early 20th century, air conditioning became popular in the 1920s. In the following article from the New York Times in 1928, a journalist describes the growth of climate-controlled facilities in cities.
• "Guarding the Gates Against Undesirables" (excerpt) This excerpt comes from an article originally published in Current Opinion in April 1924. Many Americans believed that some populations were simply "unassimilable" into the nation, as the unidentified author of the following document reports.
• "Lynch Law National Disgrace" African Americans were lynched at a rate more than three times greater than that of white Americans. While lynchings took place throughout the United States, the great majority occurred in the South. This editorial, originally published in the Cleveland Advocate on May 15, 1920, called for strict enforcement of antilynching legislation.
• "The New Frontage on American Life" Charles S. Johnson, a leading African American social scientist and editor of his day, examined black urbanization in this 1925 essay that appeared in the famous anthology The New Negro, published the same year. According to Johnson, the city changed those African Americans who migrated northward, particularly in terms of economics as well as servility and obsequiousness to whites.
• Remarks on the Appalachian Trail The Appalachian Trail was one of the first large trail systems to be established in the United States. Benton MacKaye described the development of the Appalachian Trail in these remarks to the National Conference on Outdoor Recreation in 1924.
• "Tragedy in North Carolina" In November 1929, seven months after David Clark's editorial appeared in the Charlotte (N.C.) Observer, the North American Review published this defense of the Loray Mill strikers. In the article below, Margaret Larkin attempts to answer some of the charges that Clark made against the striking textile-mill workers.

World War 2 1941-1945

• Account of a Japanese Submarine Attack (October 29, 1944) The U.S. Merchant Marine carried the life's blood of the Allied war effort. Ships were lightly armed and vulnerable to attack, especially by submarines. Sailors of the merchant marine were civilians, but their duty was perhaps the most hazardous of World War II.
• "The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb" After the war, Henry L. Stimson published the following article in Harper's Magazine, which summarized the Manhattan Project and the decision to drop the bombs. Since his appointment as Franklin D. Roosevelt's secretary of war in 1940, Stimson had been intimately involved in the atomic bomb project.
• "Day of Infamy" Speech Address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress delivered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on December 8, 1941, the day after Japan's surprise naval air attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Calling December 7 "a date which will live in infamy," Roosevelt announced that Japanese forces had also attacked other Pacific targets: Malaya, Hong Kong, Guam, the Philippines, Wake Island, and Midway Island. He asked Congress to declare war on Japan because of this "unprovoked and dastardly attack." Within an hour Congress complied, with only one dissenting vote, and the United States entered World War II (1939–1945).
• Account of the "Trinity Test," the First Atomic Bomb Explosion On July 18, 1945, General Leslie R. Groves, chief of the Manhattan Project, which had produced the atomic bomb, sent a top-secret report to Secretary of War Henry A. Stimson narrating the successful test two days earlier. Groves appended General Thomas Farrell's eyewitness account, which was written from the perspective of the observation post he had occupied. Farrell's account is excerpted from an official U.S. State Department publication.
• Account of the Attack on the USS Arizona, Pearl Harbor The Japanese surprise air raid on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, devastated the U.S. Pacific Fleet—albeit not beyond recovery—and propelled the United States into World War II. Corporal E. C. Nightingale was a member of the U.S. Marine detachment assigned to the USS Arizona, one of the battleships moored along "Battleship Row," the principal target of the first wave of the attack.
• Account of Iwo Jima The taking of Iwo Jima consumed five bloody weeks and the lives of 6,821 Americans and some 21,000 Japanese soldiers. The Japanese garrison defending this small volcanic island fought from the cover of a complex network of caves, tunnels, and bunkers, which allowed the defenders to hold off conquest for more than a month. More U.S. Marines died here than anywhere else in the Pacific theater. What follows is excerpted from a collection of reports by five official USMC combat writers, published after the battle.

America at Mid-Century - 1952-1963

• Moon Landing Mission Speech 1961 Address given by President John F. Kennedy to a special joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961, in which he appealed for a new program that would put a man on the moon before 1970. Kennedy called the speech his "second State of the Union message of 1961."
• Hawaii Admission Act Hawaii and the United States had a long and complicated relationship before Hawaii was finally admitted to the Union in 1959. Over 100 years earlier, in 1849, the United States signed its first commercial treaty with Hawaii, acknowledging Hawaii's independence.

• Letter to Nikita Khrushchev on the Cuban Missile Crisis Letter from President John F. Kennedy to Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev written on October 27, 1962. In this letter, Kennedy responds to Khrushchev's terms, received the previous day, for settling the Cuban Missile Crisis. Kennedy accepted Moscow's proposal that all Soviet missiles be removed from Cuba under U.N. supervision if the United States suspended its blockade and gave assurances that it would not invade the island.
• "Ich bin ein Berliner" Address Address delivered by U.S. president John F. Kennedy in West Berlin on June 26, 1963, after a visit to the Berlin Wall separating the eastern and western sections of the city. Affirming his support for West Berlin as an island of freedom, Kennedy described the two-year-old wall as an offense against humanity and a demonstration of the failures of the communist system.
• "Great Society" Speech Speech given by President Lyndon Baines Johnson on May 22, 1964, to the annual commencement exercises of the University of Michigan. In it Johnson proposed a major new plan to build a "Great Society" in the United States—one in which the quality of individual lives was elevated and American civilization was advanced.

Civil Rights Movement 1945-1966

• Civil Rights Act, 1964 Federal legislation enacted on July 2, 1964, providing the strongest American civil rights legislation since Reconstruction (1867–1877). It prohibited discrimination in all public accommodations (including hotels, gas stations, restaurants, and theaters), if their operations affect commerce, and in any program receiving federal funds.
• Civil Rights Act, 1968 Federal legislation enacted on April 11, 1968, intended to end discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin in housing in the United States.
• Letter to Martin Luther King Jr. on the Need for a United Front Despite earlier disputes, Malcolm X's letter, below, of July 31, 1963, to Martin Luther King Jr. illustrates his willingness to work with other civil-rights leaders in order to defuse what he called the "racial powder keg." He laments the fact that black leaders have failed to come together due to "minor" ideological differences.
• "I've Been to the Mountain Top" Speech Speech delivered by the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the evening of April 3, 1968, to an African-American congregation at the Masonic Temple in Memphis, Tennessee. It was the last speech King gave before his assassination.
• Speech on Black Power Richard Wright used the phrase "black power" in his 1954 book of the same title, and Malcolm X developed what he called the gospel of black nationalism. But Stokely Carmichael, as Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) chairman, first developed the idea into a full movement ideology. In this July 28, 1966, speech in Chicago, Carmichael laid out a philosophy that Huey Newton and Bobby Seale adopted for their newly formed Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP).
• Brown v. Board of Education Landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision issued on May 17, 1954, declaring that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional.

Inequality in the Global Age 2000-Present

• Inaugural Address, 2013 President Barack Obama delivered his second inaugural speech on January 21, 2013, Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The president acknowledged the date through his calls for unity, equality, and peaceful action, echoing the orations of the civil rights leader.
• Remarks by the President and the Vice President on Gun Violence Vice President Joseph Biden and President Barack Obama delivered speeches at the White House on January 16, 2013, outlining a proposed set of stricter gun control policies in the United States. The speeches were delivered in the wake of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, which occurred on December 14, 2012, and resulted in 26 deaths (20 of whom were children).

• Authorization for Use of Military Force against Terrorists Resolution passed by the U.S. Congress on September 14, 2001, authorizing President Bush to use "all necessary and appropriate force" against those responsible for the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
• Address to the Nation on the National Economy In September 2008 the U.S. economy, hit by the subprime mortgage crisis and subsequent liquidity crisis, was in the middle of the most severe financial disaster since the Great Depression. In a September 24, 2008, televised address to the nation, President George W. Bush urged Congress to approve Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's $700 billion bailout plan.
• Supreme Court legalizes same-sex marriage nationwide Gee, Brandon. "Supreme Court Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage Nationwide." Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, 2015. ProQuest, http://proxy154.nclive.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/trade-journals/supreme-court-legalizes-same-sex-marriage/docview/1692640561/se-2?accountid=13601.
• Victory Speech - Biden 2020 After several days of waiting for absentee ballot vote tallies to trickle in, Joe Biden was finally declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election on Saturday, November 7. Biden delivered a victory speech that evening in Wilmington, Delaware.
• Remarks at the Signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act Passed by Congress on January 29, 2009, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act extended the statute of limitations for employees suing for pay discrimination. The act was passed in response to Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., a 2007 Supreme Court decision that ruled Lilly Ledbetter's gender discrimination suit against her employers to be invalid on the basis of that statute of limitations.

Local or NC Sites for Primary Documents

• Religion in North Carolina Religion in North Carolina The Religion in North Carolina Digital Collection is a grant-funded project to provide digital access to publications of and about religious bodies in North Carolina. Partner institutions at Duke, UNC, and Wake Forest University, contributed the largest portion of the items.

• North Carolina Digital Collections The North Carolina Digital Collections contain over 90,000 historic and recent photographs, state government publications, manuscripts, and other resources on topics related to North Carolina. The Collections are free and full-text searchable, and bring together content from the State Archives of North Carolina and the State Library of North Carolina.

Reconstruction 1863-1877

• Reconstruction Acts Series of four related acts that provided for the military occupation of the former Confederacy. They were passed between March 1867 and March 1868 over the vetoes of President Andrew Johnson.
• North Carolina Sharecropping Contract From 1882. Sharecropping was a system of agriculture in the United States and many other parts of the world. In the United States, it existed mainly during the Reconstruction period but also in some parts of the Antebellum South.
• Proclamation on the Wade-Davis Bill In 1863, Abraham Lincoln proposed the 10 Percent Plan, in which 10 percent of all white males in each Confederate state had to take a loyalty oath, in order for their state to be readmitted into the Union. The states also had to recognize permanent freedom for all former slaves.
• Speech on Reconstruction Speech before the U.S. House of Representatives on December 18, 1865, by Radical Republican Thaddeus Stevens urging a harsh policy of reconstruction toward the defeated Confederacy.

• Civil Rights Act, 1875 Federal act designed to prohibit social discrimination against blacks, passed by Congress on March 1, 1875. The act guaranteed to all citizens—regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude—equal rights in public places, such as inns, theaters, restaurants, and public conveyances. Denial of these rights was punishable by payment to the aggrieved person and fine or imprisonment. Many whites refused to obey the act, and in 1883 the Supreme Court struck down the law as unconstitutional on the grounds that Congress did not have the authority to legislate the social customs of any state. The 1875 act was the last federal civil rights legislation until the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

Production and Consumption in the Gilded age 1865-1900

• Sherman Antitrust Act First federal U.S. legislation to regulate trusts, enacted on July 2, 1890. Introduced by Republican senator John Sherman, it declared illegal "every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations."
• "How I Became a Socialist" (excerpt) This excerpt comes from Helen Keller's November 3, 1912, article, "How I Became a Socialist," published in the New York Call, in response to an offensive commentary in Common Cause that suggested her socialism could be explained as a result of her "limited development."
• Editorial on Imperialism (excerpt) Author Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) was living abroad when the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898, but he had long been a vocal critic of what he saw as the rampant greed and corruption that plagued America, as displayed in his work The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, cowritten with colleague Charles Dudley Warner. Upon Twain's triumphant return to the United States, he made the following anti-imperialist editorial statement, recorded in October 15, 1900.
• "The Rise of the Standard Oil Company" (excerpt) Written by muckraking journalist Ida Tarbell, "The Rise of the Standard Oil Company" exposes John D. Rockefeller's unethical business practices in turning his oil company into the largest monopoly in existence at the beginning of the 20th century. The article was originally published in a 16-part series in McClure's Magazine. Tarbell had a particular interest in the Standard Oil Company because it had forced her father's independent oil refinery out of business.
• What Social Classes Owe to Each Other (excerpt) The following is an excerpt from Yale sociologist William Graham Sumner's 1883 piece, What Social Classes Owe to Each Other. For all the criticism of the wealthy, there were also staunch defenders of the new economic order. Sumner, in particular, applied some of Darwin's principles of natural selection and evolution to argue that the laissez-faire approach to economics was the best way to ensure the progress of society.

Progressive Era 1900-1917

• Prohibition Party Platform, 1912 Political platform adopted on July 10, 1912, by the Prohibition Party at its national nominating convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
• "Principles of Conservation" Shortly after President William Howard Taft fired Gifford Pinchot as the first chief of the U.S. Forest Service in 1910, Pinchot published this famous statement summarizing the principles of Progressive Era conservation. Pinchot believed that the conservation of forests and other natural resources was essential to American security, prosperity, and democracy.
• Volstead Act, 1919 Federal U.S. legislation passed on October 28, 1919, to enforce the Eighteenth Amendment, establishing Prohibition. The act, introduced by Representative Andrew J. Volstead of Minnesota and passed over the veto of President Woodrow Wilson, defined intoxicating liquor as any beverage containing more than 0.5 percent alcohol by volume.

• Blue Book (excerpts) Two excerpts from The Blue Book, a collection of essays published in 1917 by the National Woman Suffrage Publishing Company. "Why Women Should Vote," by Jane Addams, and "Objections Answered," by Alice Stone Blackwell take different approaches in arguing for woman suffrage.

US in the Era of the Great War 1901-1920

• Appeal for Neutrality, 1914 Message from President Woodrow Wilson to the U.S. Senate on August 19, 1914, following the outbreak of World War I in Europe. Issued shortly after his Proclamation of Neutrality of August 4, this appeal to the American people called for neutrality "in thought as well as in action."

• Selective Service Act, 1917 Federal legislation enacted on May 18, 1917, establishing registration and classification for military service of all men between the ages of twenty-one and thirty, inclusive. Local civilian draft boards were given responsibility for administering the draft. Exemptions were allowed for alienage, physical unfitness, and conscientious objections on religious grounds.
• "It's Duty Boy" Even after the American declaration of war against Germany, Socialists, pacifists, Progressives, and other Americans were not convinced the United States had a vested interest in the European conflict. In 1917, in order to sell the war to the American people, President Woodrow Wilson mobilized public opinion through the establishment of the Committee of Public Information, headed by Denver journalist George Creel.
• Zimmermann Telegram In early 1917, while the U.S. Congress was debating arming merchant ships to offset Germany's unrestricted submarine attacks on neutral vessels, the British government released a telegram intercepted and deciphered by their Royal Navy from German foreign secretary Alfred Zimmermann to Heinrich von Eckhardt, the German minister to Mexico; the telegram, sent January 19, 1917, is reprinted below.

The Great Depression and New Deal 1929-1940

• Press Release Declaring Confidence in the American Economy From the start of the Great Depression, with the spectacular stock-market crash of October 1929, President Herbert Hoover continually declared his confidence in the soundness of the American economy. In the following press release from November 15, 1929, he notes his recent meetings with business leaders and reaffirms his belief in the general strength of the economy.
• Second Fireside Chat: Outlining the New Deal Program The New Deal established public programs that fought to alleviate the widespread unemployment, poor economy, and unstable financial system that plagued the United States during the Great Depression. In a Fireside Chat on May 7, 1933, Roosevelt outlined the New Deal legislation that had already been approved by Congress, and he campaigned for legislation that had yet to be passed, including what became the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).
• "Forgotten Man" Radio Speech National radio address delivered by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Democratic governor of New York, on April 7, 1932, in which he argued that hope for national economic recovery from the Great Depression resided with the ordinary farmer and industrial worker—"the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid."
• "Both Will Kill a Man" Arturo, an Italian-American stonecutter in his fifties, was interviewed by Mary Tomasi and Roaldus Richmond of the WPA's Federal Writers' Project (FWP) in Barre, Vermont, in 1938. Arturo alternated his time between working as a letter-cutter for a local quarry and engaging in days-long drinking binges. The health and safety hazards of stonecutting, Arturo told them, had the potential to kill him if his drinking habit did not, but neither had thus far destroyed him.
• "All Our Folks Was Farmers" In a Federal Writers' Project (FWP) interview with a family of tenant farmers near Fletcher, North Carolina, Anne Winn Stevens described the striking contrast between the palatial estate occupied by the farm's owners and the ramshackle cabin in which the Riddle family lived.

Cold War Begins 1945-1952

• "Iron Curtain" Speech Widely considered to be former prime minister Winston Churchill's most important speech as leader of the opposition in Parliament (1945–1951). He delivered the speech, formally entitled "A Shadow Has Fallen Over Europe and Asia," on March 5, 1946 at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. Churchill expressed alarm and concern at the Soviet Union's expansion in eastern Europe.
• Truman Doctrine Doctrine enunciated by President Harry S. Truman in a speech to Congress on March 12, 1947, proclaiming a U.S. commitment to help non-communist countries resist Soviet expansion.
• "Consequences of the Korean Incident" Written on July 8, 1950, approximately two weeks after the start of the Korean conflict, this document is titled "Consequences of the Korean Incident." Here the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analyzes Soviet motives for launching an attack on South Korea, probable developments of the conflict, and immediate effects of a failure to hold South Korea.
• Korean War Armistice (excerpt) The Korean War (1950–1953) solidified the country's divide into two states—North Korea and South Korea. The war also set the stage for the coming cold war, situating the communist nations of the Soviet Union and China against the United States in the nuclear age.
• Control of Atomic Energy Joint declaration on control of atomic energy issued by U.S. president Harry S. Truman, British prime minister Clement Attlee, and Canadian prime minister W. L. Mackenzie King on November 15, 1946. In January 1946 the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission was formed to establish international control over atomic energy and devise a scheme for nuclear disarmament.

America at War Abroad and at Home 1965-1974

• Account of Captain Thomas J. Hanton's Experience as a POW (excerpt) Officially called Hoa Lo Prison, the "Hanoi Hilton" (as U.S. prisoners of war christened it) had been built by the French to house political prisoners and became infamous during the Vietnam War as the principal repository for American POWs, who were mostly aviators shot down on missions over North Vietnam.
• Accounts of the Tet Offensive The Tet Offensive, which began on January 30, 1968, sent shock waves through the U.S. home front and rapidly eroded waning popular support for the Vietnam War. A massive tactical defeat for the Viet Cong and NVA, Tet was nevertheless a profound psychological and propaganda victory for them and therefore a strategic triumph.
• Address to Nation on Cease-Fire in Vietnam On January 23, 1973, President Richard Nixon announced to the country that the Paris negotiation talks between the United States, North Vietnam, and South Vietnam had resulted in an agreement to cease fire.
• Basic Principles of Relations between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Since even an accidental confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States could have destabilized world peace, the summit of 1972 was a necessary step to peaceful coexistence. Regional conflicts had the potential of setting the two superpowers against each other, and the summit attempted to lessen the possibility that such an event would escalate into a nuclear crisis.
• Eyewitness Account of the Kent State Shootings Immediately after the Kent State shootings on May 4, 1970, it was clear to observers that the events would have a lasting impact on the relationship between American youths and more-conservative elements in the United States. The following statement from the FBI files is a firsthand account of the Kent State shootings by a freshman at Kent State University. It demonstrates the grim realities of that day.
• Title IX Law passed as part of the Educational Amendments Act of 1972, stating that no one could be excluded from or subjected to discrimination because of her sex by any educational program receiving Federal aid.
• Baker v. Nelson In the following 1971 opinion, from Baker v. Nelson, the Minnesota Supreme Court communicates its decision in support of the county clerk who denied an attempt by two men, Richard John (Jack) Baker and James Michael McConnell, both gay-rights activists, to obtain a marriage license in Hennepin County. This case was the first in the United States involving same-sex marriage.
• Civil Rights Amendment, 1972 Legislation enacted on October 14, 1972, that extended the life of the Commission on Civil Rights. In addition, the act extended the jurisdiction of the commission to include sexual discrimination and to authorize appropriations.
• Statement on the Vietnam War - Martin Luther King Address given by civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to a rally of his Southern Christian Leadership Conference on August 12, 1965, in Birmingham, Alabama.
• Statement on Watergate The Watergate scandal, which involved the break-in and subsequent cover up at the Democratic National Committee headquarters, consumed the last two years of Richard Nixon's presidency. On May 22, 1973, after multiple denials of having any connection to the scandal, Nixon issued a 4,000-word statement to the public that defended his involvement in the affair. In the report, Nixon assumed fault for not heeding "the warning signals I received along the way about a Watergate coverup," but he denied having anything to do with either the break-in or cover up.

Conservative Ascendancy 1974-1999

• "A Black Feminist Statement" The statement below was drafted in April 1977 by founders Barbara Smith, Demita Frazier, and Beverly Smith of the Combahee River Collective, a black feminist group formed in 1974. The group held meetings in Massachusetts and New York to assess the state of black feminism and to plan future activism.

• State of the Union Address, 1980 Jimmy Carter's third State of the Union address, delivered before a joint session of Congress on January 23, 1980. The president's third annual message was delivered during a time of national crisis. Nine weeks earlier, the American embassy in Teheran was seized by radical Iranian students, who took 52 Americans hostage.
• Remarks on the Hostage Situation in Iran and the Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan While speaking to reporters on December 28, 1979, President Carter announced his administration's plans to seek a resolution to end the occupation of the American embassy in Iran and free the embassy personnel taken hostage. Carter also went on record as protesting the recent invasion and overthrow of the Afghanistan government by the Soviet Union.
• Challenger Disaster Address Broadcast address given by President Ronald Reagan on January 28, 1986, following the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger shortly after takeoff.
• "Thousand Points of Light" Speech Speech given by Vice President George H. W. Bush to the Republican National Convention in New Orleans on August 18, 1988, as he accepted the party's nomination for president. The speech, widely regarded as perhaps the finest of Bush's career, gave rise to two popular catchphrases: "a thousand points of light" and "a kinder and gentler nation."

Salem Press ebooks

• Current Topics: Selected Essays on Civil Disobedience, Social Justice, Nationalism & Populism, Violent Demonstrations, and Race Relations by Salem Press Publication Date: 2017 Excellent Resource for documents to support rhetorical analysis.
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Course Resources

Discussions and assignments.

The assignments in this course are openly licensed, and are available as-is, or can be modified to suit your students’ needs.

If you import this course into your learning management system (Blackboard, Canvas, etc.), the assignments will automatically be loaded into the assignment tool. The assignment pages within each module link to the live assignment page. You can view them below or throughout the course. There is at least one discussion and one assignment ready to be used in every module of the course. We do not recommend assigning them all, however, and recommend selecting those that work best for you . If you choose to assign the capstone project (explained below), we suggest excluding some of the other assignments so that students have sufficient time to prepare for their capstone work.

To make edits or customized versions of the assignments, we recommend copying and pasting the discussion or assignment text directly into your LMS discussion or assignment page in order to make changes.

Capstone Project

The capstone project is an optional comprehensive assignment that could be assigned to students to complete progressively through the course. The assignment is divided into 3 to 4 pieces and culminates in students creating a PechaKucha presentation.

For this capstone project, students will pick a reformer or activist involved with a progressive or social movement between 1877 and 2000. They will evaluate and analyze the ideas, agenda, strategies, and effectiveness of the work done by their chosen reformer or activist in order to make a claim and present on their findings in the form of a PechaKucha presentation (or another pre-approved format). PechaKucha presentations follow a 20×20 presentation format, meaning that a presenter chooses 20 images and speaks about each image for 20 seconds (totaling 6 minutes at 40 seconds).

The capstone project components are shared as assignments that link to Google Documents. You can make a copy of those documents to customize them. To do so, open the Google Doc and choose “File -> Make a copy” to create your own version.

• Part 0: Social Media Activism  (also found as an assignment in Module 5)
• Part 1: Research and Annotated Bibliography
• Part 2: Draft PechaKucha Outline
• Part 3: Submit Final PechaKucha Presentation
• Assignments. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
• Pencil Cup. Authored by : IconfactoryTeam. Provided by : Noun Project. Located at : https://thenounproject.com/term/pencil-cup/628840/ . License : CC BY: Attribution