Browse Examples of Historical Thinking
Can you trust a biography? What questions can you ask about a book's writer, subject, and audience? Historian Tiya Miles analyzes an 1869 biography of abolitionist Harriet Tubman. [...] »
What is the key line in Franklin D. Roosevelt's second inaugural address? Historian David Kennedy gives his answer. [...] »
What can a photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 reveal? Donald A. Ritchie looks at the people captured in this photograph. [...] »
Donald A. Ritchie, Historian of the U.S. Senate, asks how a political cartoon captures a moment of change in the 1932 presidential campaign. [...] »
Watch J. Douglas Smith discuss the Massive Resistance policy enacted by U.S. Senator, Harry F. Byrd, Sr., in 1956. [...] »
Watch Smithsonian curator Barbara Clark Smith discuss John Smith’s Map of Virginia published in London in 1612. [...] »
Chandra Manning discusses the song “John Brown's Body,” and how music can be an important source in discovering the past. [...] »
Historian Rosemarie Zagarri reads the Declaration of Independence closely, taking time to define its context and its effects. [...] »
Historian Chandra Manning analyzes Civil War letters from black and white Union soldiers and a Confederate soldier. [...] »
Whitman Ridgway outlines some of the context in which the Bill of Rights was created and arguments surrounding its creation. [...] »
