Been Here So Long: Selections from the WPA American Slave Narratives

Dick Parsons

These three lessons use the American Slave Narratives gathered between 1936 and 1938 by journalists and other writers employed by the Federal Writers Project, part of the New Deal's Works Progress Administration (WPA). The site supplies 17 narratives for student use and also provides information on online and printed sources for additional narratives (approximately 2,300 were collected). The lessons ask students to explore the slave narratives to gain an understanding of the experiences of African Americans in nineteenth-century America and to consider the nature of oral history and personal narratives as historical evidence. One lesson requires students to use selected slave narratives to construct a "Document Based Question" for fellow students to answer. The lessons are accompanied by an essay on "The Ex-Slave Interviews in the Depression Cultural Context." This activity comes from the New Deal Network Web site.

Resources Available: TEXT.

Runaway from Freedom

Michael O'Malley

This module provides background information on different types of bonded servitude in 18th-century Virginia. Students are asked to research runaway slave advertisements and use an Excel spreadsheet to analyze their data.

Resources Available: TEXT.

Civil War in Living Memory

Michael O'Malley

Because the Civil War was so divisive, it is interesting to look at how it is portrayed in "living memory." This module asks students to visit the websites of various Civil War re-enactor groups to determine what they're trying to portray or remember through their re-enactments.

Resources Available: TEXT.

Who Owns This Land?

Michael O'Malley

This module contains a detailed essay on the history of land redistribution during and after the Civil War. Dispersed throughout the essay are links to relevant primary source documents. Students are then asked to write a speech as a Senator in 1870 in support or opposition of a bill providing for land confiscation.

Resources Available: TEXT.

Indentured Servitude

Paula Petrik

This module allows students to explore the hardships of indentured servants in 17th-century Virginia. It features an indentured servant's letter to his parents and an "Indentured Servant's Confession," published in 1684.

Resources Available: TEXT.

All History Is Local: Students as Archivists

American Memory, Library of Congress; Neal Gibson; and George West

This project--which can last for a few weeks, a semester, or an entire year--requires students to choose historical topics; collect primary source materials from their families or local communities; and analyze them within the context of the interplay of national, state, local, and personal history. Students delve into their topics via traditional print sources as well and gain a broader sense of historiography that informs their collection and analysis of primary sources. Finally, students build Web sites using the primary sources they have collected and their interpretations of them. This site includes detailed lists of online resources, samples and worksheets, and a lesson-by-lesson breakdown of steps to follow, providing an easy to follow model for teachers and students in other places to create local history "Memory Projects" of their own.

Resources Available: TEXT.

Valley of the Shadow Online Lessons

The Valley of the Shadow, a site rich with documentary evidence about two counties during the Civil War, provides these thorough and well-organized lessons for students in grades 7-12 in which students contend directly with various kinds of primary documents. Lessons include using census data to explore antebellum occupations; using newspapers to study debates over slavery and secession, the impact of railroads, and the experience of German and Irish immigrants; using a variety of sources to put the Gettysburg Address in context; and analyzing slaveowners' wills to answer the question "What happened to slaves when their owners died?" The site also provides paper topics (both traditional essays and creative writing), with guided suggestions for using the extensive Valley collections to find material on each topic.

Resources Available: TEXT.

George Washington: Images of History

Sue Luftschein and David Jaffee

This activity, developed as part of the Learning to Look Faculty Development program at The Graduate Center, City University of New York, asks students to consider how artists' depictions of George Washington have shaped perceptions of "the father of our country" in different eras. The activity requires students to read about Washington; view a variety of images of him; choose a selection of those images; and prepare a written or oral presentation about how an immigrant in the turn-of-the-twentieth-century U.S. might have perceived the nation's first president based on the images chosen.

Resources Available: TEXT, IMAGES.

“The Terrible Transformation”: From Servants to Slaves in Virginia

American Social History Project

In the seventeenth century, Virginia underwent a fateful transition that would shape much of the rest of American history: planters shifted their labor force from one composed primarily of indentured European servants bound for a period of years to one made up largely of enslaved Africans held for life. Designed for college-level students, this detailed and clear activity walks students through the basic steps of analyzing quantitative data and asks them to use the data to test a historical hypothesis about Virginia's “terrible transformation.”

Resources Available: TEXT.

Ladies, Contraband and Spies: Women in the Civil War

American Memory, Library of Congress; Susan Allen; and Mary Rockwell

This lesson uses diaries, letters, and photographs from the Library of Congress American Memory Collection to explore the experiences of slave women, plantation mistresses, female spies, and Union women in the Civil War. Students work in groups to analyze the primary documents then make individual oral presentations with visual back up (such as Power Point). Finally, students must synthesize what they have learned into a 500 word textbook entry, offering an opportunity to discuss the nature of historical synthesis and what gets left out of textbooks. Designed for high school sophomores and juniors, this lesson provides a good model that can be adapted to other historical topics and grade levels.

Resources Available: TEXT, IMAGES.

Indentured Servitude

Dr. Paula Petrik

This module allows students to explore the hardships of indentured servants in 17th-century Virginia. It features an indentured servant’s letter to his parents and an “Indentured Servant’s Confession,” published in 1684.

Resources Available: TEXT.

“The Terrible Transformation”: From Servants to Slaves in Virginia

American Social History Project

In the seventeenth century, Virginia underwent a fateful transition that would shape much of the rest of American history: planters shifted their labor force from one composed primarily of indentured European servants bound for a period of years to one made up largely of enslaved Africans held for life. Designed for college-level students, this detailed and clear activity walks students through the basic steps of analyzing quantitative data and asks them to use the data to test a historical hypothesis about Virginia’s “terrible transformation.”

Resources Available: TEXT.