The political landscape in the South underwent significant change during the twentieth century. Political and social change in Southern states was directly connected to some of the landmark events of American history, particularly the Civil Rights Movement. An understanding of the role of politics in the South is essential to comprehension of the history and culture of the region.

The oral histories in this site illuminate changes in Southern politics from the end of the Civil War up to the present day. The recollections and opinions of the important political figures interviewed in these oral histories help form an impression of the role of Southern politics in the tumultuous events of the twentieth century in America. Listen as eyewitnesses recount the effects of politics and changing political beliefs on the story of the American South.

In this lesson, students will learn about the use of child labor in the cotton mills of the Carolinas during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They will learn what life was like for a child worker: how much the workers made, how many hours they worked each day, what their homes were like and what they did for fun. Students will then write an investigative news report exposing the practice of child labor in the mills, using quotations from oral histories with former child mill workers and photographs of child laborers taken by social reform photographer Lewis Hine.

For many years scholars have recognized that late nineteenth-century Durham, North Carolina makes an ideal case study for examining emancipation, industrialization, immigration, and urbanization in the context of the New South. "With its tobacco factories, textile mills, black entrepreneurs, and new college," the historian Syd Nathans observes, "Durham was a hub of enterprise and hope." By the early twentieth century, Durham became renowned for its vibrant entrepreneurial spirit. Both W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington wrote articles for the national press about their visits with members of Durham's African-American community. After his visit in 1910, Booker T. Washington dubbed Durham the "City of Negro Enterprises."

The Digital Durham website offers students, teachers, and researchers a range of primary sources with which they can investigate the economic, social, cultural, and political history of a post-bellum southern community. Letters from mothers to daughters, parents to children, and husbands and wives give insight into the domestic lives of some of Durham's elite citizens. Entries from Atlas Rigsbee's general store ledger together with data from the 1880 census provide a view into the social experience of those Durham citizens who have not left written documents. Taken together the new materials on Digital Durham touch on over 600 topics including African American business enterprise, the emergence of textiles, tobacco production and marketing, child labor, prohibition, evangelical revivalism, nineteenth-century medical practices, women's experience of childbirth, and public and private education.

The holdings of the website provide access to a wide range of manuscript and printed materials from the 1870s through the 1920s. The site also features a new collection of maps that depict Durham from the late 1860s to the present day. Digital Durham offers its users a selection of manuscript letters taken from the Southgate-Jones family papers and James Southgate papers, accounts from Atlas M. Rigsbee's general store ledger, photographs, ephemera, census data, printed works as well as a rich collection of maps. The site also includes audio postcards created by Duke students in an undergraduate research seminar on the history of Durham and the New South. Additionally, the site includes resources for K-12 educators--a reference section with glossary of terms used in the 1880 census and lesson plans that tie to the North Carolina Standard Course of Study.

Gilded Age Plains City: The Great Sheedy Murder Trial and the Booster Ethos of Lincoln, Nebraska explores the development of towns and cities on the Great Plains through the lens of a murder case in the 1890s that evolved into a fascinating story that drew the attention of nearly everyone in town and people from across the region and country.

We have three goals. Tell a good story about a fascinating episode in Great Plains urban history in a new way. Explore the various factors and developments that explain why the story became a cause celebre and thus make the story a window into a past society and culture. And, finally, explore through digital presentation new and innovative ways to do local and regional history and explain historical events.

In this lesson, students will study photographs of tobacco bag stringers in rural North Carolina, taken to illustrate the report the Virginia-Carolina Service Corporation prepared for Congress in 1939. Students will critically analyze the photographs, making observations about the content of the images, their reactions to them, and what they tell us about the Great Depression. These observations will be structured into a "Know/Want to Know/Learned" chart, in which students will record their prior knowledge about the Great Depression, the New Deal and its effects on rural Americans, information they would like to learn about the topic, and what they learned about the Depression and its impact.

People from around the world continued to come to California in the early 1900s, many in search of work and a better life.

These images reflect some of the diverse ethnic groups that came to the West Coast from locations around the globe. They also illustrate some of the challenges they faced in assimilating into California society.

Historic Pittsburgh, an extensive digital resource created at the University of Pittsburgh, offers both an entry point and substantive classroom resources for teachers of American History at various grade and university levels.

This Web site enables access to historic material held by the University of Pittsburgh's University Library System, the Library & Archives at the Heinz History Center, Carnegie Museum of Art, Chatham College Archives, Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, and Point Park University Archives. The project represents a model of cooperation between libraries, museums and institutions of higher learning in providing centralized access to selections of their respective historic materials.

The books allows teachers to focus on historical currents, social movements and individual historical personalities, both famous and less well-known. Thousands of photographs offer students at all levels opportunities for observation, comparison and inference. The decennial census contains a wealth of information about the occupational, racial, gender, family, and residential structure of a key industrializing region, from pre-Civil War years to the Gilded Age. The chronology captures significant events that took place in Pittsburgh throughout three centuries.

This kit contains all the documents needed to replicate the activity, "Indianapolis in Maps: Now and Then" which is a 1-2 hr. program that introduces learners to the benefits of maps as tools for discovering a city’s (and its people’s) history. Using map navigation skills, participants will be provided with a list of well-known present day landmarks in Indianapolis. They will locate these sites on a current map of downtown Indianapolis and using the information found here (addresses, street crossings, site surroundings) locate the same site on the Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from 1887 or 1898. Some landmarks will be the same, showing learners that many present-day landmarks in Indianapolis existed over a hundred years ago. Participants will also find that many of the same buildings still exist but that they are now used for different purposes. And finally the class will also find that some areas of downtown have completely changed their look and purpose. In addition to finding the specific landmarks listed the participants are also encouraged to explore the maps in-depth (especially the older maps) and record anything that stands out to them, is interesting. While students will work in groups or individually on the formal worksheet activity, the class will come together at the end to share their discoveries and what these discoveries might infer about the city, its people, and its history.

In this lesson, students will learn about the labor union movement in the U.S., specifically the union influence on the cotton mills of North and South Carolina. Students will listen to oral histories from former mill workers explaining why they did or did not become involved with the union, and then will be asked to make that decision themselves. They will provide an explanation for their decision by giving a speech to convince their classmates to join or not join, drawing on the oral histories and what they’ve learned.

For this project students will research a Native American group that played an influential role in Alabama history. The students will then create a powerpoint describing the primary aspects of that group's heritage.

Welcome to the Educator's portal page! This portal is designed to provide tools and information for using digital primary source materials from New Jersey archives, libraries, museums and historical societies. This is your road map for your exploration of New Jersey history and culture with your students.

Often our impression of slavery is one of slaves toiling in the fields of a large plantation, but slaves in North Carolina had diverse experiences. Although some North Carolina slaves did work on large plantations, many more worked on small farms. Others labored as skilled artisans, performed domestic work, worked in the shipping industry near the coast, or were able to “hire out” their time and work for themselves. In this lesson, students will read excerpts from slave narratives written by North Carolinians from different parts of the state. Taking what they’ve learned from the narratives, students will then create a map illustrating the differing types of labor associated with each region.

North Carolina, like other Southern states, relied on slavery to build its economy during the 18th and 19th centuries. Slaves across the state raised crops, did domestic chores, constructed new buildings, sailed ships, and performed countless other jobs, all for no pay. The slave trade separated many families, and punishment and violence were all too common. Despite the extreme hardship of slavery, enslaved blacks in North Carolina created a strong culture that combined their experiences as slaves with elements of African and West Indian traditions.

Read the stories of slaves who lived in North Carolina to better understand what their lives were like. The excerpts here are taken from the North American Slave Narratives collection from Documenting the American South, which holds over 200 autobiographies by slaves or ex-slaves.