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.
The Fourteenth Amendment
This is the full text of the fourteenth amendment to the US Constitution, which granted citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States,” including former slaves recently freed.
Freedmen's Bureau Agent Reports on Progress in Education
This is an excerpt from a January 1866 Freedmen’s Bureau report on the state of education for freedpeople in the South, written by Freedmen’s Bureau inspector John W. Alvord.
Freedpeople Protest the Loss of Their Land
The Committee of Freedmen on Edisto Island, South Carolina wrote a letter to Freedmen’s Bureau Commissioner O.O. Howard responding to President Johnson’s land policy.
He Was Always Right and You Were Always Wrong
Henry Blake, a freedman from Arkansas, describes how sharecropping limited his freedom, noting that sharecroppers were always kept in debt.
"The Honoured Representative of Four Millions of Colored People"
Historian Douglas R. Egerton describes the life and political career of Mississippi politician Blanche K. Bruce, the first African American to serve a full six-year term in the United States Senate.
No Time to Think
Explore bystander behavior, conformity, and obedience in a German college professor’s account of how he responded to Nazi policies and ideology.
Mendez v. Westminster
Learn about the Mendez family's experience as Mexican Americans fighting against school segregation in Southern California during the 1940s.
Outlawing the Opposition
Learn about Hitler’s early measures against "enemies of the state," including the Enabling Act and the first concentration camp at Dachau.
Pledging Allegiance
Compare the text of Germany's original military oath with Hitler’s new oath, and consider the implications of the oath's promise of allegiance to a single leader.
"Restoring" Germany's Civil Service
Read a letter exchange between Adolf Hitler and President Paul von Hindenburg regarding a law that suspended Jews from positions of civil service in Nazi Germany.
Kimchee on the Seder Plate
Read this reflection on Jewish identity by the daughter of an Ashkenazi, Reform Jewish father and a Korean Buddhist mother.