This lesson examines Native American sovereignty and the Constitutional power granted to the president and the Senate to make treaties with foreign nations. The site presents the Treaty and related documents, including a photograph of the Indian leader, Spotted Tail. Explanatory text, materials for teachers, and links to further resources accompany the documents.

Although many people think of the White House as a symbol of democracy, it is also a part of our country’s history of slavery. From the start of White House construction in 1792 until emancipation took effect in Washington, D.C. in 1862, enslaved men, women, and children labored at the Executive Mansion. The stories of these individuals, working under the oppressive institution of slavery in the “People’s House,” demonstrate a stark contrast to the ideals of freedom and democracy that the White House has long represented.

How did westward expansion exacerbate tensions over the institution of slavery? Sal and Kim discuss how slavery was an issue at the birth of the United States and how the issue became more and more central as the country expanded.

In all of the British colonies in North America and the Caribbean, slavery was a staple of the economy during the period from 1607-1754. In this video, Kim discusses the ties between the environment and slavery, the rise of increasingly restrictive slave codes, and the overt and covert methods by which enslaved people resisted the dehumanizing nature of slavery.

Slavery to Liberation: The African American Experience (Second Edition) gives instructors, students, and general readers a comprehensive and up-to-date account of African Americans’ cultural and political history, economic development, artistic expressiveness, and religious and philosophical worldviews in a critical framework. It offers sound interdisciplinary analysis of selected historical and contemporary issues surrounding the origins and manifestations of White supremacy in the United States. By placing race at the center of the work, the book offers significant lessons for understanding the institutional marginalization of Blacks in contemporary America and their historical resistance and perseverance.

This site examines the history of transportation in America, early history of mail service, the Civil War, West Point, profiles of U.S. presidents, Lakota winter counts, Lewis and Clark as naturalists, Japanese Americans during World War II, Brown v. Board of Education, athletes who broke social barriers, how voting systems have evolved, September 11, and America's wars.

This section is intended to supplement the curricula, textbooks, and materials you currently use for lessons on the civil rights struggle. The teacher-developed resources in the section will enhance the classroom experience for both you and your students.
Explore the variety of teaching strategies and guidelines, lesson plans and document-based questions (DBQs), and information about museum objects and other primary sources. You might get started by showing the video, in which Smithsonian curators examine a photograph of civil rights leader Medgar Evers. You can then help the students examine other historic photographs.

This section is intended to supplement the curricula, textbooks, and materials you currently use for lessons on the civil rights struggle. The teacher-developed resources in the section will enhance the classroom experience for both you and your students.
Explore the variety of teaching strategies and guidelines, lesson plans and document-based questions (DBQs), and information about museum objects and other primary sources. You might get started by showing the video, in which Smithsonian curators examine a photograph of civil rights leader Medgar Evers. You can then help the students examine other historic photographs.

This section is intended to supplement the curricula, textbooks, and materials you currently use for lessons on the colonial period. The teacher-developed resources in the section will enhance the classroom experience for both you and your students. The lesson plans and DBQs are organized by grade level. The DBQ primary sources can stand alone in DBQ exercises. Images of the primary sources are independent of any extensive explanatory information, so that the images can be used as handouts.

This section is intended to supplement the curricula, textbooks, and materials you currently use for lessons on American inventions and innovations. The teacher-developed resources in the section will enhance the classroom experience for both you and your students. You might get started by showing the video, which traces the development of the electric guitar.
The lesson plans and DBQs are organized by grade level. The DBQ primary sources can stand alone in DBQ exercises. Images of the primary sources are independent of any extensive explanatory information, so that the images can be used as handouts.

This section is intended to supplement the curricula, textbooks, and materials you currently use for lessons on Native history. The teacher-developed resources in the section will enhance the classroom experience for both you and your students. You might get started by reviewing the video on Lakota winter counts.

This section is intended to supplement the curricula, textbooks, and materials you currently use for lessons that demonstrate the importance of travel and transportation in American life. The teacher-developed resources will enhance the classroom experience for both you and your students. You might start by viewing the short video, in which curators at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum discuss the achievements and legacy of Amelia Earhart.

This section is intended to supplement the curricula, textbooks, and materials you currently use for lessons on the expansion of the United States. The teacher-developed resources will enhance the classroom experience for both you and your students. You might get started by showing the video, in which Smithsonian art curator Richard Murray examines Emanuel Leutze's epic painting Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way.

The rhetoric of the American Revolution, which emphasized that "all men are created equal," led many to question existing social norms in the years after the Revolution. The ideals expressed by the Founders influenced the expansion of voting rights, the gradual abolition of slavery in the North, and a new role for women through republican motherhood.

The New England colonies organized society around the Puritan religion and family farming. In this video, Kim explores New England settlers' reasons for immigrating to North America and their farming and fishing economy.

In this video segment, poet Sonia Sanchez recites her poem Malcolm, as a eulogy to the slain civil rights leader, Malcolm X. Recorded for Eyes on the Prize.

From 1945 to 1991, the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) engaged in the Cold War, a conflict in which the communist Soviet Union and the democratic United States competed for influence over countries around the world. During this era, the US and USSR also took their rivalry beyond earth into space through a series of aeronautic developments and flight tests known as the Space Race. After advances in defense technology during World War II and the United States’ use of atomic bombs, each side looked to propel its scientific and technological capability forward by building new missiles, rockets, and spacecraft. The Soviets had many early successes in the Space Race, including the launch of the first satellite, Sputnik (1957), and the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin (1961). However, the United States caught up and eventually overtook the Soviet Union, particularly when American astronaut Neil Armstrong and the crew of the Apollo 11 mission became the first humans to land on the moon in 1969.

This collection uses primary sources to explore the history of Spanish missions in California. 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 years after Columbus's first voyage, Spanish adventurers known as conquistadores began to colonize the surrounding areas of the Caribbean and the Americas. In this video, Kim explores the social changes that Spanish colonization created in the New World.

Students will be able to cite the origins and outcome of the War of 1812 and be able to place the creation of the Star-Spangled Banner in a chronological framework.