In this extensive, PDF unit focused on the women's movement in the United States from the 19th century to present day, students will examine how women gained rights in an America that was not always receptive to their efforts. Students will utilize primary source documents in order to investigate varying opinions on women's rights and examine how even after women gained some rights, they were still oppressed in other ways, through both actual laws and the culture.

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 extensive, PDF unit, students consider forces that “pushed” immigrants out of their home regions and those that “pulled” them towards the United States. They also examine the hardships experienced by many immigrants on their journeys to America. Specifically, the students compare Jewish immigrant Pauline Newman’s account of her life in a Lithuanian village with descriptions and images of life on the Lower East Side of New York City. These exercises highlight the ways that America truly was a “New World” for pre-industrial villagers who were transplanted into urban metropolises like New York. Later in the lesson, students read about the debate over whether or not immigrants like Pauline should have been able to come to the United States. This section of the lesson also asks the students to think about the differences between primary and secondary sources. At the end of the lesson, the students do a creative assignment in which they design a story-board for a film about Pauline’s life.

In this extensive, PDF unit focused on the the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis, the lessons will help students to understand how the Soviet Union and the United States grappled for power over small places in a world that was becoming increasingly decolonized. Students will also examine how small conflicts could set the stage for potential nuclear holocaust.

In this extensive, PDF unit focused on the Red Scare, Palmer raids, and civil liberties, the lessons will root the events of 1919-1920 in the disruptions generated by the First World War. The rise of Soviet Russia after 1917, as well as the wave of labor strikes that reverberated across the United States following the Armistice, serve as an entry point for this unit’s analysis of attacks on civil liberties during this period. Students will examine the American state’s suppression of dissent in the name of domestic security. It introduces students to the popular discourse that framed social critics like Emma Goldman as dangerous agitators. It also discusses legislation (such as the Sedition Act of 1918) and statements by American government officials (A. Mitchell Palmer’s “The Case Against the Reds”) that justified the arrest and deportation of individuals whom the United States deemed “undesirable.” Red Scare! encourages students to analyze and debate the often tenuous nature of constitutionally-protected freedoms in times of civil distress.