Story Maps are immersive web applications that tell the incredible stories of the Library’s collections through narrative, multimedia, and interactive maps. The story maps are created within a Geographic Information Systems (GIS)-based software platform created by Esri. Story Maps are chock full of primary sources, including photographs, illustrations, texts, newspaper articles, and even maps. “I find story…
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Benjamin Franklin was a man of many talents and one of the key figures in the founding of the United States. Franklin was also a printer and a writer. One of his most well known publications was an almanac, or yearly handbook, published under the pseudonym (a made-up name) of Richard Saunders. The source above, Poor…
George Westinghouse & his companies George Westinghouse; his life and achievements 1918 The Inventor of the Air-Brake: George Westinghouse 1921 from Conquests of Invention Inside an American Factory: Films of the Westinghouse Works, 1904 George Westinghouse image set George Westinghouse historical newspaper coverage American Dynamo: The Life of George Westinghouse Inside Adams July 1, 2021 Meet…
Today in History–September 08–the Library of Congress features the Quarry Workers’ International Union of North America, which was granted a charter by the American Federation of Labor (AFL) on this date in 1903. While granite had been mined around the area of Barre, Vermont for years, new waves of immigrants with a strong tradition of unionism arrived in the late 19th…
![The San Francisco call. (San Francisco [Calif.]), 13 Nov. 1904](https://primarysourcenexus.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/AFL.jpg)
Primary source sets Library collections Image collections Chronicling America historical newspaper collections Articles from the Library Labor teaching resources
Today in History–July 30–the Library of Congress features automobile magnate Henry Ford, born on this date in 1863 in Dearborn, Michigan. When incorporating his company in 1903, Ford proclaimed, “I will build a car for the great multitude.” Ford made good on that proclamation, selling more than 15 million Model T cars in the United States alone. Learn more about the…
Have students use the primary sources in this set to tell a story about the period 1876-1900 when industrial growth helped transform the United States, producing a new class of wealthy industrialists, a prosperous middle class, and a vastly expanded working class comprised of millions of migrants from rural areas and new immigrants from overseas. The…
Today in History–December 20–the Library of Congress features the first American cotton mill, opened on this day in 1790. Learn more about the history of cotton mills in America by reviewing the Today in History section, then click the links below for related primary sources. The First American Cotton Mill Began Operation from America’s Library Cotton mill image set…
Click here to save and download this primary source in .pdf format. Open up the document and use the magnification dropdown to look carefully at the political cartoon; if you are having trouble reading the text, use the transcription provided in the summary above. The illustration shows both northern and southern points of view. What…
This morning I saw a tweet mentioning primary sources related to immigration in the Gilded Age and I began to wonder . . . What learning activities related to the Gilded Age could we imagine using Library of Congress primary sources? What other teaching resources and strategies are available on LOC.gov and elsewhere? See the results…
The Teaching with Library of Congress blog provides some great tips for finding articles in the Chronicling America Historic Newspaper Collections and provides some teaching ideas as well. Be sure to check out, too, the following learning activity: Comparing Reports: Battle of Little Bighorn. Below is a list of topic guides by subject, each of which…