Although antiwar organizations existed even before World War I, it was during the interwar period that pacifism became the fastest-growing movement in America. Numerous American politicians, businessmen, journalists, and activists made proposals for multilateral agreements on arms control and collective security. Through an examination of memoirs, photographs, and other primary source documents, students examine the rise of antiwar sentiment in the United States, as well as some of the concrete measures taken during the 1920s to prevent the outbreak of future wars.

Students listen to a biography of Martin Luther King, Jr., view photographs of the March on Washington, and study King's use of imagery and allusion in his "I Have a Dream" speech.

This lesson is meant to look at Mass Culture and Consumerism in the 20th Century specifically the 1920s, 1950s, and 1980s.  To better understand the importance of this in American life, it also involves a concept of comparing and contrasting these to today’s culture.Teachers have the ability to adjust this unit to deal with each Era/Decade separately 1920s=Unit 4; 1950s=Unit 6) or to look at the issue of Mass Culture/Consumerism as a whole in Unit 8, going back over the earlier periods. 

This collection offers a brief video introduction into the March on Washington in 1963, which brought national attention to many of these issues, and asks students to analyze a photograph and three artifacts from the March. Students will answer the question "What problems did participants in the March on Washington aim to solve?" and consider how these issues continue to have relevance in the United States today.

The NAACP fights to establish anti-lynching laws in the years between the World Wars

With this digital collection, students will examine documents exploring several New Deal programs, highlighting how Chicago and Midwestern-based workers negotiated new welfare reforms. It provides a snapshot of how new agencies reshuffled family relations, mobilized immigrants, and sometimes reached across racial barriers. With a particular focus on labor and employment, these documents represent a broad range of responses to President Roosevelt’s policies, demonstrating the praise and protest elicited as policymakers established a growing welfare state. Students will consider the following essential questions as they review the documents: 1. Who benefited from New Deal labor reforms? 2. What effect did new social programs have on Chicagoans across class, racial, and ethnic divides? 3. How did the politics of the New Deal change ordinary Americans’ relationship to the federal government?

This Educator Notebook provides information on Women’s History in North Carolina for teachers to use as a resource, either as stand-alone units, or integrated into standard curriculum. Included is research from museum curators and educators, and articles published in the Tar Heel Junior Historian magazine which are written for students in grades 4-12. Lesson plans and suggested activities complement many of the topics. Adaptable to multiple ages, they meet curriculum goals set forth by the NC Department of Public Instruction and connect to classes in national and world history, geography, economics, and the arts, and can be part of any unit of social studies. This resource's link takes you to a very short form that gives you free downloadable access to the complete PDF book.

This learner resource includes a 26 minute documentary where Charles Moore explains the context of many of his most famous civil rights images. Then, students examine the images and think about the importance of photojournalism to the civil rights movement. Finally, students are presented with Andy Warhol's image based on a Charles Moore photograph and asked to consider why certain images remain culturally significant.

This lesson requires students to analyze editorial cartoons focusing on progressive reform and further research the message of the cartoons. Questions accompany the editorial cartoons to guide student research. Students will compare their analysis and research before presenting the consequences of progressive reform. This lesson is designed to conclude with a discussion of the cost of reform leading to the creation of a national income tax through the passage of the 16th Amendment.

In this lesson, students will learn about Prohibition as a restriction of a civil liberty in editorial cartoons. Students will analyze political cartoons from the Prohibition period and research political cartoons of current civil liberties issues. The class will discuss the differences and similarities.

In this activity students learn about literacy tests and other barriers that kept black Southerners from being able to vote. Students also take a 1960s literacy test from Alabama.

In this lesson, students investigate where on the bus Rosa Parks sat on the day of her arrest. They explore two primary documents—one that contests and one that supports—the account presented in the textbook. First, the teacher elicits students’ beliefs about where Rosa Parks sat, and asks where students learned their information. Then, students read a textbook passage and two conflicting primary documents. Finally, students decide which of the primary documents they believe is more trustworthy and write a paragraph defending their choice.

This lesson starts with what students know about Rosa Parks and then uses a series of three primary sources to complicate Rosa Parks’ story. Students read a sample textbook excerpt that includes the familiar narrative; then, after reading and analyzing each primary source, they consider how it compares with that narrative. Using think-alouds from the site, students see historians considering and analyzing significant passages from these documents. Finally, using evidence from both the primary sources and textbook account, students create their own brief narratives of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

In this lesson, students engage in an historical inquiry about the Montgomery Bus Boycott. They watch a short introductory movie, read six documents, answer guiding questions, and prepare to complete the final essay assignment using their notes as evidence from the documents to craft a more complete story of the boycott.

In this lesson, students critique a standard textbook account of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. They read and analyze two primary documents and consider how this evidence specifically contests the textbook’s account. First, the teacher elicits students’ existing knowledge about Rosa Parks. Then, students read a textbook passage and two conflicting primary documents. Finally, students write a revised textbook account or an editorial pointing out the textbook account’s deficiencies and how these affect our understanding of this important event.

In this lesson plan from the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, students will identify and discuss the condition and aspirations of free African Americans in the years following the Civil War, identify the social factors that led to the rise of Jim Crow segregation and evaluate the effects of segregation.

Students analyze photographs from Lewis Hine's collection. They then form and discuss tableaus to explore the perspectives of the photographer, his subjects, and his audience.

In this lesson, students will learn about Herbert Spencer's "social Darwinism" theory and how many Americans enthusiastically embraced it to justify laissez-faire capitalism. A set of discussion questions is provided. In an associated activity, students will review proposed federal estate tax laws and vote on which one they believe is the fairest law.

In this activity, students will identify freedom songs identified with the civil rights movement and consider why these songs particularly resonated with Freedom Summer organizers and volunteers.

This collection traces the African-American civil rights movement through the 20th century and touches on athletes like Jack Johnson, Jackie Robinson, and Muhammad Ali. Students can use the collection independently to learn about this subject and complete the timeline worksheet included at the end. Students will be asked to generalize about the civil rights movement during different time periods in American history, noting the shifts in focus, strategies, and success. In addition, they will draw parallels between events in sports history and the civil rights movement.