What did Manifest Destiny mean to the United States? How did Native Americans and African-Americans fit into Westward Expansion? This lesson plan compares Emanuel Leutze's 1861 study of Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way to the final mural in the United States House of Representatives. Analysis of the artwork and the changes made to the final version teach the history of Westward Expansion and Manifest Destiny.

As part of their study of Richard Wright's "Black Boy", students research and reflect on the current black-white racial divide in America. By examining the work of literature in the context of contemporary events, students will deepen their understanding of the work and of what it means to be an American today.

This collection uses primary sources to explore early exploration of the Americas. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

This collection uses primary sources to explore The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

This collection uses primary sources to compare and explore the relationships between Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

This collection uses primary sources to explore the history, successes, and failures of the Freedmen's Bureau during Reconstruction. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

This collection uses primary sources to explore the Great Migration. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

A selection of Library of Congress primary sources exploring the Harlem Renaissance. This set also includes a Teacher's Guide with historical context and teaching suggestions.

This collection uses primary sources to explore Ida B. Wells and anti-lynching activism. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

This collection uses primary sources to explore immigration to the US and immigrant Americanization between 1880 and 1930. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

This collection uses primary sources to explore Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

In The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander explores complex questions about the criminal justice system and the history of race and racial justice in the United States.

Students will engage in viewing and researching videos and artifacts about thriving black communities that developed in the early 20th century amidst the violence of Jim Crow. The dominant narrative about US History from the end of Reconstruction to the mid-20th century has often portrayed Black people as hopeless and destitute. In reality, many Black people left the south, moved north or Midwest to establish flourishing communities. Black communities in Tulsa, Knoxville and Chicago were making great progress in the first two decades of the 20th century. But during the Red Summer of 1919, the aforementioned communities and others were burned down by white mobs and never rebuilt. One community was burned down and filled in with water, later becoming a lake. These mobs murdered blacks, decimated their townships, and then attempted to conceal this history, often erasing it entirely from history books.

Students’ culminating project is research, documentation, and presentation of their findings through a student-led Community Action Event.

This collection uses primary sources to explore Japanese American internment during World War II. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

This Latinx History curriculum outlines a yearlong course, one which can be taught on its own, but which is being conceived as part of a course that will integrate both African American and Latinx history. The curriculum begins by naming the problematic dominant narratives that one may internalize or reproduce when learning about or teaching Latinx history, along with the counter narratives that tell a more accurate, complete, and political history. The five units covered in this curriculum begin with an analysis of the various terms used for Latinx people, and a history of them, concluding with a debate that asks: Are these terms more helpful or harmful to the community they claim to serve? Following this unit, the course takes on a chronological format, beginning with the history of the indigenous people of Latin America and their resistance to Spanish colonization. Next, the unit follows the independence and revolutionary movements across Latin America in the 1800s and early 1900s, followed by U.S. imperialism and changing borders throughout the second half of the 19th century and into the 20th century. The curriculum concludes with a unit on the intersectional Latinx movements of the 20th century, with an emphasis on culture as a tool of resistance and survival.

In 1957, Little Rock African Americans made their city the most significant test case for the United States Supreme Court’s 1954 and 1955 Brown v. Board of Education rulings.

This collection uses primary sources to explore the idea of Manifest Destiny and its influence. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

Students will display their understanding of the symbolism and references that Dr. King used to enrich his famous speech on August 28, 1963 from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial by constructing a "jackdaw," a collection of documents and objects.

This collection uses primary sources to explore the Bracero Program. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

A selection of Library of Congress primary sources exploring the history and civil rights legacy of the NAACP. This set also includes a Teacher s Guide with historical context and teaching suggestions.