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.

In this project, you will explore a real-world problem, and then work through a series of steps to analyze that problem, research ways the problem could be solved, then propose a possible solution to that problem. Often, there are no specific right or wrong solutions, but sometimes one particular solution may be better than others. The key is making sure you fully understand the problem, have researched some possible solutions, and have proposed the solution that you can support with information / evidence.Begin by reading the problem statement in Step 1. Take the time to review all the information provided in the statement, including exploring the websites, videos and / or articles that are linked. Then work on steps 2 through 8 to complete this problem-based learning experience.

Why is Harriet Tubman considered a hero?During this seminar, you will learn about one brave railroad conductor named Harriet Tubman. By the end of the seminar, you will identify and explain the characteristics she possessed that enabled her to save many lives. Using the complex reasoning skill of constructing support, you will relate several events from her life and experiences with the Underground Railroad to explain why Harriet Tubman is considered a hero.

During this seminar you will learn about one brave railroad conductor named Harriet Tubman. By the end of the seminar you will identify and explain the characteristics she possessed that enabled her to save many lives. Using the complex reasoning skill of constructing support, you will relate several events from her life and experiences with the Underground Railroad to explain why Harriet Tubman is considered a hero.StandardsStandard - 5.1.U.CAnalyze the principles and ideals that shape United States government.

The Revolution and Early America Unit covers the standard eighteenth century topics that would appear in any textbook. These lessons, however, will push students to dig deeper as they read the documents and develop historical arguments about topics ranging from the Great Awakening (why was George Whitefield so popular?) to the Stamp Act (why were Colonists upset about the Stamp Act?) to the Constitution (why did the Founding Fathers keep slavery in the Constitution?). Each lesson offers primary documents that promote conflicting interpretations. The unit will introduce students to historiography, as they contrast Bernard Bailyn's interpretaton of the Declaration of Independence to Howard Zinn's account. These lessons will emphasize the historical reading skills students will practice all year.

Unit 4 primarily cover topics dealing with westward expansion during the nineteenth century. The exceptions are the lessons on Nat Turner and Irish immigration. These are included for chronological reasons, and to show students how historical trends can occur simultaneously. Both themes (slavery and immigration) are revisited in Units 5 and 6. This unit features several elaborate lesson structures: a Structured Academic Controversy (SAC) and and Inquiry. In the SAC on Lewis and Clark, students debate whether or not Lewis and Clark were respectful to the Native Americans they encountered on their journey, while the Inquiry asks students to investigate what motivated Texans to declare their independence. Several lessons, especially on Manifest Destiny and Indian Removal, ask students to consider the perspectives of historical actors whose world views may seem foreign or even incomprehensible.

In the Civil War and Reconstruction unit, students engage in contentious historiographic debates about the period--Was Lincoln a racist? Was Reconstruction a success or failure? Was John Brown a "misguided fanatic"? Did Lincoln free the slaves, or did the slaves free themselves? The unit includes two Structured Academic Controversy lessons, an Opening Up the Textbook lesson on sharecropping, and a look at Thomas Nast's political cartoons.

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.

One of several racist parodies of black American illiteracy, dialect, and manners issued in Boston at various times between 1819 and 1832. Others in the series are "Grand Bobalition or Great Annibersary Fussible" (no. 1821-1), "Grand and Splendid Bobalition of Slavery" (1822, Collections of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania), "Grand Celebrashun ob de Bobalition of African Slabery!!!" (no. 1825-1), "Dreadful Riot on Negro Hill!" (no. 1827-1), and "Bobalition of Slavery" (no. 1832-3). For their apparent range of production dates these are all suspiciously similar in style, language, subject, and typography. The broadsides are in the form of burlesque reports and letters relating to the annual July 14 celebrations, among Boston's black residents, of the anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade. (The American slave trade was actually abolished on January 1, 1808, but was celebrated in July by many American blacks for some time). In his use of black stereotypes, the producer anticipates Edward Williams Clay's "Life in Philadelphia" series of 1828-29. The "Reply to Bobalition" text comprises a "Dialogue between Scipio and Cato, and Sambo and Phillis, occasioned by reading the account of Bobalition proceedings, as detailed in a letter from Cesar Gobbo, to his friend Marco Mushy . . ." Above, two vignettes illustrate the respective conversations, the conversants portrayed as well-dressed, free blacks.|Title appears as it is written on the item.|Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1819-2.

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.

The "sawney" (i.e., fool or simpleton) is New York "Herald" editor James Gordon Bennett. The artist gives a comic portrayal of Bennett's celebrated public rebuff by O'Connell in the Corn Exchange in Dublin in August 1843. The print probably appeared in September, when the incident was reported in Bennett's rival New York papers, including the "Courier and Enquirer." Bennett's embarrassment had been reported in British papers in August, and the print bears the subtitle "Second edition revised by "our" Corps of Reporters." The interior of the Corn Exchange is shown. Thomas Steele (with visored cap, far left) has just presented O'Connell with ". . . the Card of an American Gentlemen, Mr. James Gordon Bennett of New York, with whom I have not the pleasure of an acquaintance!" O'Connell holds a paper marked "Repeal Rent" and has let the card fall to the floor. Rising from his chair he replies: "He is just the very Man that we don't want here. He is the Editor of the Vilest Gazette that ever disgraced the Press in any Country, the New York Herald. a more infamous Paper, I suppose never existed!" On the exchange floor, making an undignified exit right is Bennett, who comments, "For the distresses and social evils of the gallant People of Ireland, I have as an American, a sympathy less expansive than Mr. O'Connell's but equally as sincere a hand that may not dive as deep into their pockets." He holds a copy of the "Herald," which says "Black-Mail Buckingham . . . Black-Mail O'Connell . . ." English lecturer Silk Buckingham had charged Bennett with attempting to extort money from him, and O'Connell made mention of this charge in his attack on Bennett in the Corn Exchange. Bennett's paper opposed American support of the repeal movement, and helped to undermine this support by publishing O'Connell's speeches condemning American slavery. (See also "Race between Bennett and Greely for the Post Office Stakes," no. 1843-4, for another reference to "Black-Mail.") Spectators on the floor and in the galleries comment in English and Gaelic. A "Repeal" banner is prominently displayed.|Entered . . . 1843 by H. Robinson.|Litho. & published by H Robinson 142 Nassau St. and 124 Fulton Sts. N.Y.|Probably drawn by Edward Williams Clay.|Title appears as it is written on the item.|Weitenkampf, p. 71.|Forms part of: American cartoon print filing series (Library of Congress)|Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1843-3.

A somewhat tongue-in-cheek dramatization of the moment during the heated debate in the Senate over the admission of California as a free state when Mississippi senator Henry S. Foote drew a pistol on Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri. In the cartoon Benton (center) throws open his coat and defiantly states, "Get out of the way, and let the assassin fire! let the scoundrel use his weapon! I have no arm's! I did not come here to assassinate!" He is attended by two men, one of them North Carolina senator Willie P. Mangum (on the left). Foote, restrained from behind by South Carolina's Andrew Pickens Butler and calmed by Daniel Stevens Dickinson of New York (to whom he later handed over the pistol), still aims his weapon at Benton saying, "I only meant to defend myself!" In the background Vice President Fillmore, presiding, wields his gavel and calls for order. Behind Foote another senator cries, "For God's sake Gentlemen Order!" To the right of Benton stand Henry Clay and (far right) Daniel Webster. Clay puns, "It's a ridiculous matter, I apprehend there is no danger on foot!" Visitors in the galleries flee in panic.|Signed with initials: E.W.C. (Edward Williams Clay).|Title appears as it is written on the item.|Davison, no. 202.|Weitenkampf, p. 102.|Forms part of: American cartoon print filing series (Library of Congress)|Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1850-11.

In this seminar you will learn about the Underground Railroad, a dangerous route that slaves took to escape to the north. After completing the activities, you will understand what the Underground Railroad was and how it is was used. You will explain the challenges that people faced while traveling on the Underground Railroad and use the complex reasoning skill of constructing support.Standards5.1.5.CDescribe the principles and ideals shaping local, state and national government.

Tour guide Eric Finley explains the history of the slave market in Mobile, Alabama.

A broadside condemning the sale and keeping of slaves in the District of Columbia. The work was issued during the 1835-36 petition campaign, waged by moderate abolitionists led by Theodore Dwight Weld and buttressed by Quaker organizations, to have Congress abolish slavery in the capital. The text contains arguments for abolition and an accounting of atrocities of the system. At the top are two contrasting scenes: a view of the reading of the Declaration of Independence, captioned "The Land of the Free," with a scene of slaves being led past the capitol by an overseer, entitled "The Home of the Oppressed." Between them is a plan of Washington with insets of a suppliant slave (see "Am I Not a Man and a Brother?" no. 1837- ) and a fleeing slave with the legend "$200 Reward" and implements of slavery. On the next line are views of the jail in Alexandria, the jail in Washington with the "sale of a free citizen to pay his jail fees," and an interior of the Wasington jail with imprisoned slave mother Fanny Jackson and her children. On the bottom level are an illustration of slaves in chains emerging from the slave house of J.W. Neal & Co. (left), a view of the Alexandria waterfront with a ship loading slaves (center), and a view of the slave establishment of Franklin & Armfield in Alexandria.|Published by the American Anti-Slavery Society, 144 Nassau-street, New-York, 1836.|Title appears as it is written on the item.|William S. Dorr, Pr.|Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1836-23.

The realities of slavery and Reconstruction hit home in poignant oral histories from the Library of Congress. In these activities, students research narratives from the Federal Writers' Project and describe the lives of former African slaves in the U.S. -- both before and after emancipation. From varied stories, students sample the breadth of individual experiences, make generalizations about the effects of slavery and Reconstruction on African Americans, and evaluate primary source documents.

A challenge to the Northern abolitionist view of the institution of slavery, favorably contrasting the living conditions of American slaves (above) with the lot of the industrial poor in England (below). The first scene is impossibly naive: Southern slaves dance and play as four gentlemen--two Northerners and two Southerners--observe. First Northerner: "Is it possible that we of the North have been so deceived by false Reports? Why did we not visit the South before we caused this trouble between the North and South, and so much hard feelings amongst our friends at home?" Southerner: "It is as a general thing, some few exceptions, after mine have done a certain amount of Labor which they finish by 4 or 5 P.M. I allow them to enjoy themselves in any reasonable way." Second Southerner: "I think our Visitors will tell a different Story when they return to the North, the thoughts of this Union being dissolved is to [sic] dreadful a thing to be contemplated, but we must stand up for our rights let the consequence be as it may." The second scene takes place outside a British textile factory. At left a well-dressed gentleman encounters a ragged, stooped figure, and asks, "Why my Dear Friend, how is it that you look so old? you know we were playmates when boys." The stooped figure responds, "Ah! Farmer we operatives are "fast men," and generally die of old age at Forty." Behind them and to the right an emaciated mother laments over her ragged children, "Oh Dear! what wretched Slaves, this Factory Life makes me & my children." Nearby stand a fat cleric, holding a book of "Tythes," and an equally fat official holding "Taxes." In the right foreground two barefoot youths converse. The first says,"I say Bill, I am going to run away from the Factory, and go to the Coal Mines where they have to work only 14 hours a Day instead of 17 as you do here." The second responds, "Oh! how I would like to have such a comfortable place. . . " Near them another man sits forlorn on a rock, "Thank God my Factory Slavery will soon be over." In the distance a military camp is visible. This dismal picture of the lives of the working class in manufacturing towns comes from Chapter V, Book Second, of Edward Lytton Bulwer's "England and the English," first published in 1833. In the lower margin is a portrait of "[George] Thompson the English Anti-Slavery Agitator" and the quote "I am proud to boast that Slavery does not breathe in England," with reference to "his speech at the African Church in Belknap St." Thompson made a speaking tour of New York and New England in 1850-51.|Entered . . . 1850 by J. Haven. |Published by J. Haven, 86 State St. Boston, 1850.|Title appears as it is written on the item.|Bulwer-Lytton, "England and the English, p. 174-225.|Century, p. 68-69.|Library Company, "Negro History: 1553-1903," no. 117.|Weitenkampf, p. 101. |Forms part of: American cartoon print filing series (Library of Congress)|Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1850-6.

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.

In this lesson students will read to understand how Black and Brown men are currently incarcerated in America at a much higher level than any other demographic. Students will evaluate the relationship between slavery and the current criminal-justice system. They will close read two anchor texts from the New York Times 's 1619 Project, i.e., an excerpt from the article “Slavery Gave America…” and an excerpt from the article "The Idea of America." Using these texts, other visuals, and a video as their background knowledge resource bank, students will write to make and support a claim about mass incarceration and the ways in which this practice, much like slavery, significantly conflicts with America’s foundational ideas such as “all men are created equal.”

This site presents two dozen publications written in the 19th century about slavery in America. It includes first-person accounts from former slaves, judicial opinions, abolitionist pieces, and more.