The stock market crash on October 29, 1929 -- known as Black Tuesday -- was the "worst economic collapse in the history of the modern industrial world." It spread from the United States to national economies across the globe. It ended a decade known for its high-spirited free-spending, called the Roaring 20s, and began almost 10 years of financial desperation that would touch nearly every citizen of the United States. The Great Depression caused bank closures and business failures and by its end, saw "more than 15 million Americans (one-quarter of the workforce)" unemployed. Herbert Hoover, president at the time, did not acknowledge the depth of the crisis and assumed that the American characteristics of individualism and self reliance would quickly bring the nation out of the disaster without a need for federal intervention. But, layoffs and financial desperation at the personal level were growing: "an empty pocket turned inside out was called a 'Hoover flag' [and] the decrepit shanty towns springing up around the country were called 'Hoovervilles'." Three years into the financial crisis, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, running on a platform of federal recovery programs called the "New Deal," easily took the presidential election of 1932.

Images can be a useful component in any subject. This lesson will guide students through an analysis of an image. Students will use critical thinksing skills to interpret an image. Students will then generate a hypothesis about the source and construct questions for further investigation.

Students individually consider a visual text and draw conclusions based on what they see. They write about their conclusions and explain the evidence used to make that determination. Students will be able to analyze a visual text. Students will be able to develop and support a claim about the visual text based on evidence found in the text.

The purpose of this Roadmap is work on the Science and Engineering Practices—specifically engaging in argument from evidence and obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information. During this roadmap students will synthesize information from several articles about plastics and the environment and the role regulation plays in our communities. At the end of their research students are expected to write an opinion essay answering the question: Should we ban plastics?.
This opinion piece is also an opportunity for students to practice writing in Claim-Evidence-Reasoning. As an extension, students can then engage in a debate but this is optional based on time constraints and how ‘in depth’ you want this to be for your students.

Overall expect this to take several days 2 for research and synthesis, 1 to write their papers, and then additional time for debate.

This collection uses primary sources to explore the Atomic Bomb and the Nuclear Age it started. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

This collection uses primary sources to compare American responses to Pearl Harbor and September 11. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

In this 1949 photo from the National Archives an automobile is shown with a man on horseback.

The American Red Cross (officially named The American National Red Cross) was founded in 1881 by Clara Barton, an American humanitarian and civil rights activist. Barton modeled the American Red Cross (ARC) after the International Red Cross, based in Geneva, Switzerland, which she encountered while volunteering in Europe during the late 1800s. She envisioned an organization that would provide humanitarian aid during wartime and in the event of national calamities.

This collection uses primary sources to explore Toni Morrison's Beloved. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

It was approximately 40,000 years ago that mankind first donned a pair of shoes. During humanity’s long history of footwear, and an equally broad array of styles, the basic fundamentals of Western shoemaking remained mostly unchanged until the mid-nineteenth century. In the 1800s, the small state of Massachusetts revolutionized the shoemaking industry, cladding the feet of consumers nationwide in unprecedented numbers. One of America’s original colonies, Massachusetts found itself at the heart of the nation’s shoemaking industry by attracting and retaining skilled shoemakers and shoe machinery engineers. Only when the technology that Massachusetts' shoemakers invented became available beyond the state did the industry’s market expand throughout the country. Even with the spread of industrialization, Massachusetts remained the largest producer of shoes in the United States through World War I, responsible for nearly forty percent of America’s shoes and home to an equal percentage of its shoemakers. This exhibition was created as part of the DPLA’s Public Library Partnerships Project by collaborators from Digital Commonwealth. Exhibition organizer: Anna Fahey-Flynn.

This collection uses primary sources to explore the Black Power Movement. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

In 1803, the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory—800,000 square miles of land in the interior of North America. Most of this land had not been previously explored or documented. President Thomas Jefferson chose Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to lead an ambitious military expedition, seeking a northwestern passage to the Pacific Ocean and to document their journey in this unknown territory. Starting in what is now Missouri, the expedition followed the Missouri River and passed through present-day Montana on its way to the Pacific. The explorers commented on the beauty of the landscape and the abundance of animals, and their descriptions attracted fur traders and others ready to take advantage of the region's abundant natural resources. The discovery of gold in 1862 brought in the first rush of people and subsequent mining forever changed the region. The mining industry demanded support in the form of towns, railroads, logging, ranching, and farming. These industries shaped Montana and the people who settled there. This exhibition explores the industries that brought settlers to Montana from the early days to the 1920s. Each industry had its own “boom and bust” cycle that impacted the residents and the future of the state. This exhibition was created as part of the DPLA’s Public Library Partnerships Project by collaborators from Montana Memory Project: Jennifer Birnel, Della Yeager, Cody Allen, Dale Alger, Caroline Campbell, Carly Delsigne, Pam Henley, Stef Johnson, Lisa Mecklenberg-Jackson, Laura Tretter, and Franky Abbott. Exhibition organizers: Jennifer Birnel and Franky Abbott.

This collection uses primary sources to explore twentieth-century mining in the Mojave Desert. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

Boston Sports Temples celebrates the rich histories of Boston’s professional stadiums and arenas. Some, like Fenway Park, still welcome fans today. Others were demolished decades ago, leaving only hints of their former glory amid the urban landscape. This exhibition welcomes modern fans through the gates of venues both famous and forgotten: the various home fields—and courts and tracks and ice—of Boston’s most beloved franchises and hosts to a century of public events, concerts, and gatherings. Featuring historical photographs from the Boston Public Library’s extensive archives, Boston Sports Temples draws from thousands of negatives and prints dating from the early twentieth century through the 1960s. The images capture the unique character of Boston’s historic sports venues, memorable moments, and the communities of athletes, fans, and staff who have come together within their walls. Together, these vintage materials provide an invaluable window into the past and a nostalgic look back at our city, our deep sporting traditions, and generations of passionate fandom. Created by the Boston Public Library.

This collection uses primary sources to explore the Boston Tea Party. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

The Lawrence Textile Strike was a public protest mainly of immigrant workers from several countries, including Austria, Belgium, Cuba, Canada, France, England, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Scotland, Spain, Syria, and Turkey. According to the 1910 census, 65% of mill workers (many of whom eventually struck) lived in the United States for less than 10 years; 47% for less than five years. Prompted by a wage cut, the walkout spread quickly from mill to mill across the city. Strikers defied the assumptions of conservative trade unions within the American Federation of Labor that immigrant, largely female and ethnically diverse workers could not be organized. The Lawrence strike is referred to as the “Bread and Roses” strike and “The Strike for Three Loaves." The first known source to do so was a 1916 labor anthology, The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest by Upton Sinclair. Prior to that, the slogan, used as the title of a 1911 poem by James Oppenheim, had been attributed to ‘Chicago Women Trade Unionists.’ It has also been attributed to socialist union organizer Rose Schneiderman. James Oppenheim claimed his seeing women strikers in Lawrence carrying a banner proclaiming “We Want Bread and Roses Too” inspired the poem, “Bread and Roses.” The poem, however, was written and published in 1911 prior to the strike. Later the poem was set to music by Caroline Kohlsaat and then by Mimi Farina. The song and slogan are now important parts of the labor movement and women’s movement worldwide. This exhibition was made in collaboration with the Lawrence History Center and the University of Massachusetts Lowell History Department.

As the United States began the most deadly conflict in its history, the American Civil War, it was also laying the groundwork for one of its greatest achievements in transportation. The First Transcontinental Railroad, approved by Congress in the midst of war, helped connect the country in ways never before possible. Americans could travel from coast to coast with speed, changing how Americans lived, traded, and communicated while disrupting ways of life practiced for centuries by Native American populations. The coast-to-coast railroad was the result of the work of thousands of Americans, many of whom were Chinese immigrant laborers who worked under discriminatory pressures and for lower wages than their Irish counterparts. These laborers braved incredibly harsh conditions to lay thousands of miles of track. That track—the work of two railroad companies competing to lay the most miles from opposite directions—came together with the famous Golden Spike at Promontory Summit in Utah on May 10, 1869. This exhibition explores the construction of the first Transcontinental Railroad and its impact on American westward expansion. This exhibition was created as part of the DPLA’s Digital Curation Program by the following students as part of Professor Krystyna Matusiak's course "Digital Libraries" in the Library and Information Science program at the University of Denver: Jenifer Fisher, Benjamin Hall, Nick Iwanicki, Cheyenne Jansdatter, Sarah McDonnell, Timothy Morris and Allan Van Hoye.

This collection uses primary sources to explore school desegregation in Boston. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

On January 24, 1848, carpenter James Marshall discovered gold at Sutter’s Mill, a sawmill on the American River in Coloma, California. This news quickly spread across the country and around the world, igniting the California Gold Rush. Between 1848 and 1855, 300,000 fortune-seekers came to California, transforming its population, landscape, and economy. The largest wave of migrants—about 90,000 people—arrived in 1849, earning them the nickname “forty-niners.”