With this digital collection, students will explore the questions What is dissent? and What role has dissent played in the development of American democracy? The collection of documents are case studies representing four different aspects of dissent. These case studies, in their variety, allow us to consider the different forms that dissent might take, and the different paths that these movements could follow within national history.

In this lesson, students will understand the definition of isolationism as it applies to the U.S. pre-WW II through analysis of political cartoons by Dr. Seuss dealing with isolationism. Students will be able to make their own decisions about whether the U.S. should have stayed out of the war based on his political cartoons.

This film was selected for the 2004 National Film Registry of "culturally, historically and aesthetically significant" motion pictures. It is a famous Civil Defense film for children in which Bert the Turtle shows what to do in case of atomic attack from the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

In this lesson, students will examine photographs, songs, interviews, and other archival documents from the Dust Bowl era. Students will list problems ordinary Americans faced during the Great Depression and cite examples of the attempts of government and citizens to solve these problems.

In this lesson, students will learn about conditions of the Dust Bowl and Great Depression and will consider storytellling and persuasion in images.

In this lesson, students will learn about conditions of the Dust Bowl through song and examine one example of social protest through music.

In this lesson, students will collaboratively analyze the content of editorial cartoons that focus on the rise on Hitler's dominance of Europe. Students will also demonstrate their knowledge of the chronology of WWII in Europe by placing the cartoons in an order that shows a progression of WWII in Europe.

Students will see and read about the differences in food manufacturing practices before and after the new food laws passed in 1906: the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act.

This lesson is designed to explore the Election of 1896 and how editorial cartoons were used to support the candidates. Students will analyze cartoons supporting McKinley's candidacy and create cartoons supporting the candidacy of Bryan. Students will determine the effectiveness in persuading the public's vote.

In this lesson, students will use political cartoons to become familiar with the candidates, issues, results, and interpretations of the presidential election of 1912.

Students will examine the purpose, function, origin, and historical development of the Electoral College in order to gain a better understanding of how Americans elect the President. Students will then evaluate issues of fairness and representation with regard to the Electoral College. Finally, students will participate in a class debate over the pros and cons of the current system.

In this lesson, students will be asked to analyze and evaluate editorial cartoons regarding the Energy Crisis of the 1970s and early 1980s. Students are expected to determine tools the cartoonists use to express his or her opinion. Students will compare and contrast the Energy Crisis with the energy problems of today (2007).

In this lesson, students use editorial cartoons dealing with women’s issues and the Equal Rights Amendment in order to determine some of the major aspects of this social movement. They will discuss political cartoons in groups to identify stereotypes, symbols and text, determine their effectiveness, and then present their findings to the class.

This unit addresses the development of women’s rights in the United States. It begins with an overview of women’s roles in the nineteenth century, then moves to a discussion of the fight for women’s suffrage, and concludes by looking at the ultimately failed battle to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. Students will interpret primary-source documents such as a legal ruling, cartoons and a painting using a Primary Source Analysis Worksheet that teaches them to approach such materials systematically. Throughout the lesson, the students work on detecting the perspectives of various figures and groups in U.S. history in terms of their views on the role of women in society. In particular, the lesson addresses the backlash against the civil and women’s rights movements of the 1960s, focusing on the figure of Phyllis Schlafly and her group, “Stop ERA.”

In this lesson, students learn that economic forces have an impact beyond the financial world. First, they learn that Progressive Era public health reforms inspired a commercial response to the growing demand for sanitation through the rapid increase in bathroom-fixture production. Students then use FRED, economic data from Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, to analyze how bathroom-fixture production changed throughout the 1920s. They examine primary documents—1920s advertising—to see how companies fused the Progressive Era with the new consumer culture. Finally, students complete the lesson by responding to AP U.S. History-style short-answer questions.

Students will analyze documents pertaining to the woman suffrage movement as it intensified following passage of the 15th Amendment that guaranteed the right to vote for African American males. Documents were chosen to call attention to the struggle's length, the movement's techniques, and the variety of arguments for and against giving women the vote.

In this lesson, students analyze how regions such as Texas, New Mexico and California had established Mexican and Indigenous communities already in place as the United States expanded westward in the mid 1800s. Students review the different ways that Mexican citizens come to terms with the expansion of the United States and the ways in which they became foreigners in their own lands within a very short time.

Students will hear stories from former civil rights activists, analyze what motivated students to join the movement, what their experiences were like, and consider the relevance of this history today.

In this activity, students study a photograph and answer a series of questions. The questions are designed to guide students into a deeper analysis of the source and sharpen associated cognitive skills.

In this lesson, students understand the war from the point of view of soldiers in the trenches through analysis of photographs, war poetry, and memoirs. Students will explore the power of visual images, including propaganda posters, political cartoons and postcards, that emphasize how governments and civilians prepared for war.