Between the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln (February 12) and George Washington (February 22), our commercial republic* has come to celebrate a national holiday unofficially called “Presidents' Day” (February 16), which generically honors all the presidents. Washington and Lincoln stand out as unrivaled figures in American history. Their importance is reflected in the large number of lessons about them in our collection.
In their book Salem Possessed, Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum remark upon the prominent place the Salem witch trials have in America's cultural consciousness. They observe, “For most Americans the episode ranks in familiarity somewhere between Plymouth Rock and Custer's last stand.”
This feature outlines the context of The Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 which produced the “Declaration of Sentiments,” a CCSS exemplar for grades 11 – CCR. This document made a bold argument, modeled on the language and logic of the Declaration of Independence that American women should be given civil and political rights equal to those of American men, including the right to vote.
Learn how to make the most of STEM in your humanities classroom and how to incorporate nonfiction into STEM with the National Library of Medicine's lesson plan resources.
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.
This collection focuses on presidential inaugurations across U.S. history and includes audio and video excerpts of speeches, links to full texts of speeches, lesson ideas, and other resources for teaching about this quadrennial event.
We know General George Washington crossed the Delaware River to attack Britain’s Hessian army at Trenton on Christmas night in 1776. At the mention of this event, most Americans imagine a heroic Washington standing in a small boat. But, did this happen? How has the art of Emanuel Leutze influenced the telling of history?
This holiday season learn about different cultural traditions of Mexico! Attend a fiesta, break a piñata, make a traditional feast, sing popular songs, and decorate with poinsettias, a flower prized by Congress and the Aztec nobility.
Use this feature to understand the lives of people in Southern Italy before, during, and after the famous eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 CE, as well as learn how it inspired Neoclassicism.