curated lists of links to primary source teaching resources
We all can learn a lot from Abraham Lincoln. Below you will find links to primary source activities, lessons, and projects from the Library of Congress and TPS Consortium members. Abraham Lincoln: Rise to National Prominence primary source set and teacher’s guide Lincoln’s Life Lincoln’s Death Collection Connections Letters to Lincoln Transcription Project Teaching with…
Have students use the primary sources in this set to tell a story about protest and reform in the United States. (For background information, check the bibliographic records for dates then review the relevant sections of the American Memory timeline.) Related primary source collections highlighted on the Primary Source Nexus are linked to below. The…
Overview Haymarket Affair Digital Collection—presents original manuscripts, broadsides, photographs, prints and artifacts regarding the Haymarket Affair, an 1886 conflict between labor protestors and members of the Chicago police force. Materials document the events leading up to the May 1886 riot, the arrest and trial of those accused of throwing a bomb that killed several police…
Have students use the primary sources in this set to tell a story about immigration to the United States. (For background information, review the following: Immigration to the United States, 1851-1900 and Immigrants in the Progressive Era). The story may be in digital or print form. It could be nonfiction, fiction, poetry, or even a song. These questions about…
Have students use the primary sources in this set to tell a story about the period 1945-1968. The wartime economy led to new economic prosperity for the United States and expanded opportunities for many, but certainly not all its citizens. As a result, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and American women took up the fight for civil…
Have students use the primary sources in this set to tell a story about the period 1929-1945. At the depths of the great depression, which followed the stock market crash in October 1929, over one-quarter of the American workforce was out of work. But President Franklin D. Roosevelt instituted a variety of “New Deal” programs and told…
Have students use the primary sources in this set to tell a story about the period 1900-1929. The Progressive Era was one of economic growth and prosperity but also one in which many worked to make American society a better and safer place through environmental, business and government reforms. The story about this time of…
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…
Have students use the primary sources in this set to tell a story about a timeframe from the period 1861-1877 when the United States was wracked by civil war, fighting to preserve the Union and end slavery. This costly war (recent research puts the death toll at 750,000) raged for four years but putting the…
Have students use the primary sources in this set to tell a story about the period 1815-1860, when the United States expanded dramatically geographically, displacing native peoples. But this time was also one of striving for social reforms (promoting temperance, creating public school systems, improving the treatment of prisoners, the insane, and the poor, abolishing…
Have students use the primary sources in this set to tell a story about the early years of the United States as a young, new nation. The story may be in digital or print form and could be nonfiction, fiction, poetry, or even a song. Click on each thumbnail image below to access the full…
Have students use the primary sources in this set to tell a story about the American Revolution. The story may be in digital or print form and could be nonfiction, fiction, poetry, or even a song. Click on each thumbnail image below to access the full size primary source. You may also use this primary…