The Stalking of the President | History | Smithsonian
A concise article describing the assassination of James Garfield, a narrative almost exclusively ignored by US History survey courses, textbooks and curricula.
10: Industrializing Society
Iola Register - Nov 13 1896 - "Fake News"
Providing evidence that there is seldom anything new in history, this 1896 Iowa newspaper uses the phrase "fake news" in describing falsely reported election results
How the Fake News Crisis of 1896 Explains Trump - The Atlantic
Columbus Day, 1892 - not 1492 - Lesson
From "THinking Like an Historian", this 14 page lesson provides teacher background and context along with a complete lesson and resources.
William Allen White What's the matter with Kansas? August 16 1896
This wonderful example of sarcastic invective can be used by teachers to illustrate the argument against populism in the late 1890s. Better yet, it can be used in a lesson on sarcasm itself - can students read this without any introduction and recognize it as sarcasm?
We have an old mossback Jacksonian who snorts and howls because there is a bathtub in the state house; we are running that old jay for Governor. We have another shabby, wild-eyed, rattle-brained fanatic who has said openly in a dozen speeches that "the rights of tee user are paramount to the rights of the owner"; we are running him for Chief Justice, so that capital will come tumbling over itself to get into the state. We have raked the old ash heap of failure in the state and found an old human hoop-skirt who has failed as a businessman, who has failed as an editor, who has failed as a preacher, and we are going to run him for Congressman-at-Large. He will help the looks of the Kansas delegation at Washington. Then we have discovered a kid without a law practice and have decided to run him for Attorney General. Then, for fear some hint that the state had become respectable might percolate through the civilized portions of the nation, we have decided to send three or four harpies out lecturing, telling the people that Kansas is raising hell and letting the corn go to weeds.
How Robber Barons hijacked the “Victorian Internet” | Ars Technica
When teachers think of telegraph and later telephone networks as a "Victorian Internet", they can build lessons that capitalize on student's interests an connect real issues of the past and the present. Students can be tasked with researching net neutrality and looking for precedent in the age of the Robber Barons. Essays that connects the past and present. A worthwhile alternative to standard textbook reading
Congressional Tribute to the inventor of the telephone (Not Alexander Graham Bell)
How many history students in the United States lost points on history tests by not choosing "Alexander Graham Bell" on a multiple choice question? How many PowerPoint presentations list Bell as the inventor the the telephone? This shows that provisional nature of that fact
How Typewriters Changed Everything | JSTOR Daily
Usually the light bulb, phonograph and telephone get all of the invention attention of the late 19th century - perhaps the typewriter needs to be included. This short article makes the pitch, the links in it may close the deal. It does not mention the prominent role it played in the novel Dracula. This might connect more clearly with Chromebook students
Condition of the Indian Tribes. Report of the Joint Special Committee ..1867
This is the complete report at the Internet Archive. Students an either flip through the pages of the book, or search key phrases. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=3&psid=710
Evaluating Historical Sources on Juana Briones | Stanford History Education Group
Although this document lesson would fit into the chronological sequence in the late 1880s, it can be used earlier in the school year to focus student's differentiation between an historical source's strengths and limitations.
Time To Make Life Hard For The Rich
Trying to get students to understand labor unrest in the United States in the Gilded Age? How about populism? Perhaps you can let them know what class rhetoric sounds like today - this reading should do it
Residential school survivor talks about the electric chair at St. Anne's school | Video News | EBL News
Chilling 8 minute video
The Tacoma Method - 1885
This site chronicles the forced remove of more than 700 Chinese residents of Tacoma, Washington in 1885.
Expulsion: The Tacoma Method | Chinese Reconciliation Project Foundation
This page offers a concise account of the forced expulsion of the Chinese residents of Tacomo Washington in 1885 . Teachers looking for events that show continuity and change in the history of immigration in the United States can use event to show students the nature of anti-immigrant sentiment through the lens of a real event with real people - rather than the antiseptic factoid of federal legislation like the Chinese Exclusion act.
Chinese Labor in America - Scientific American 1869
This article welcoming Chinese immigration appeared in Scientific American in 1869 - how do students consider the racism in this article? How do we reconcile messages that seem to welcome immigrants yet are still racist? What information in this article foretells the change in sentiment in the early 1880s that brings the Chinese Exclusion Act?
The Dark Side of the Gilded Age - The Atlantic
Was Were the gains of the Gilded Age worth its costs? Using this book review, students can research the question on their own to defend their own answer to that question
Rise of the Populists and William Jennings Bryan |
Students use primary and secondary sources to analyze the arguments of the populists and the look for similarities between the rhetoric of the 1890s and the 2010s
The Divorce Colony — The Atavist Magazine
What will happen to your US History high school students when you replace your Pullman Strike or Cross of Gold Lesson with a reading into divorce in the 1890s? It's a question worth finding the answer. They are either the child of a divorced family or the close friend of someone who is but your history course might have been ignoring divorce as if it never happened in the past. People have always gotten divorced, but like most in the past, its both the same and different than now.
Poverty party invitations from the Gilded Age.
How many teachers and students would believe that middle and upper class Americans hosted costume parties in which their guests were invited to dress, talk and act like poor people? This short article should pique the interest of anyone who reads it, though perhaps it's worth following some of the links to see how it can be incorporated into a lesson.
1880 Census: Volume 1. Statistics of the Population
Eye on the East: Labor Calls for Ban on Chinese Immigration
Some of the anti-immigration is motivated by economics. There were many white workers who saw Chinese immigration as a means to drive down their wages. Their support for anti-immigration legislation is motivated by economics
Statistical atlas of the United States based on the results of the ninth census 1870 with contributions from many eminent men of science and several departments of the government - Copy 1 | Library of Congress
"Our Misery and Despair": Kearney Blasts Chinese Immigration
To add to our misery and despair, a bloated aristocracy has sent to China—the greatest and oldest despotism in the world—for a cheap working slave. It rakes the slums of Asia to find the meanest slave on earth—the Chinese coolie—and imports him here to meet the free American in the Labor market, and still further widen the breach between the rich and the poor, still further to degrade white Labor.
California must be all American or all Chinese. We are resolved that it shall be American, and are prepared to make it so. May we not rely upon your sympathy and assistance?
"THE HISTORY OF THE LANDLORD'S GAME & MONOPOLY"
Although many may be tempted to refer to the board game in the mistaken context of the Great Depression when the game actually traces it roots to the late 1890s. This site provides the most comprehensive set of links to articles, images and resources associated with the various versions of the game
The tragic death of President James Garfield - YouTube
8 minute video including Candice Millard describing the amazing life of one of the least known presidents
The Dramas of Haymarket | AHA
This AHA description of a college lesson that takes several classes to complete gives high school teachers a couple options to cherry pick or cut out which element or documents would be most helpful for their classes. The lesson is based on primary source documents organized by the Chicago Historical Society
Introduction | The Great Chicago Fire & The Web of Memory
The Great Chicago Fire & the Web of Memory consists of two main parts. The first part, titled The Great Chicago Fire, includes five chronologically organized sections that together present a history of the fire. The sections of the second part, The Web of Memory, examine six ways in which the fire has been remembered: eyewitness accounts, contemporary journalism and illustrations, imaginative forms such as literature and art, the legend of Mrs. O'Leary and her cow, fire souvenirs of many different kinds, and formal commemorations and exhibitions. Each of the sections has three integrated components: thematic galleries of images, a library of texts, and an interpretive essay.
Pessimists Archive
Newspaper headlines and excerpts from articles voicing fears and complaints about the telephone. Great way to show students the reception of new technology at different points in history. What does this tell us about what people thought about the telephone - does this help us understand reactions to new technology today?
The First Telephone Directory, and Later the First Telephone Book, are Published in New Haven, Connecticut : History of Information
"New Haven, Connecticut"
Syndicate records of the Morgan financial firms, 1882–1933
Teachers and students who want to know how big business functioned before computers can look through some of these handwritten and typewritten pages of JP Morgan & Co.