Resource Library
Find compelling classroom resources, learn new teaching methods, meet standards, and make a difference in the lives of your students.
We are grateful to The Hammer Family Foundation for supporting the development of our on-demand learning and teaching resources.
Introducing Our US History Curriculum Collection
Draw from this flexible curriculum collection as you plan any middle or high school US history course. Featuring units, C3-style inquiries, and case studies, the collection will help you explore themes of democracy and freedom with your students throughout the year.
"Of Course He Votes the Democratic Ticket” (en español)
Wood engraving by Thomas Nast from Harper’s Weekly (1876)
The Road to Brown
This film shows the legal case against segregation that launched the civil rights movement.
Glenn Ligon, Untitled - Four Etchings [A]
In this white on black etching, Glenn Ligon repeats "I do not always feel colored," a phrase from Zora Neale Hurston's essay "How It Feels to Be Colored Me."
Glenn Ligon, Untitled - Four Etchings [B]
This black-on-white etching quotes Zora Neale Hurston's essay "How It Feels to be Colored Me."
Glenn Ligon, Untitled - Four Etchings [C]
In this black-on-black etching, Glenn Ligon uses Ralph Ellison's quote from the prologue of his novel, Invisible Man (1952): "I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids—and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus side-shows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only themselves, or figments of their imagina-"
Pardon/Franchise Engravings by Thomas Nast
Wood engravings by Thomas Nast depict the tension between the demands of healing and justice during the Reconstruction era.
"Shall We Call Home Our Troops?" (1875)
Wood engraving by Thomas Nast from Harper's Weekly depicting the reaction of the radical South toward African Americans after the North does not follow up their promises.
"The Birth of a Nation" Summarizes Reconstruction
Title cards, or intertitles, from The Birth of a Nation, a 1915 film portraying D.W. Griffith's racist vision of life in the South during the Civil war era.
Part Three: The Political Struggle, 1865-1866
Scholars discuss the different visions for Reconstruction held by Congress and President Johnson.
Part Two: Defining Freedom
Scholars discuss the evolution of the definition of freedom for emancipated slaves after the Civil War.
“Emancipation” (1865)
Thomas Nast's celebration of the emancipation of Southern slaves with the end of the Civil War. Nast envisions a somewhat optimistic picture of the future of free blacks in the United States.