Building the Erie Canal
![](/sites/default/files/lesson_image/Building-the-Erie-113x150.jpg)
How would the Erie Canal have changed your life and the lives of those around you? Politics, trade, and the land itself were all affected.
This lesson from Teachers’ Domain examines how the construction of the Erie Canal affected the geographic, economic, and political landscape of the United States. In exploring these issues, students are presented with four computer-based activities.
The first two activities—viewing documentary video clips—are engaging, brief, and informative. These clips could be projected to the whole class if a teacher does not have access to multiple computers.
The third—an interactive graphic organizer—allows students to categorize different consequences of the construction of the Erie Canal in terms of geographic, political, and economic effects. The interactive graphic organizer allows students to draw connections between consequences in different categories and explain how they are interconnected in a pop-up comment box. After they are done, students can print out the graphic organizer.
The final activity in the lesson, which requires students to read and write, can be done either on a computer or not. It asks students to synthesize information from the video clip and a background reading (available in two different reading levels), and students can choose from three different writing assignments.
![](/sites/default/files/ErieCanal432x240.jpg)
Yes
Featured video contains interviews with reputable scholars.
Yes
Historical background provided in videos and handouts.
Yes
Students take notes throughout the assignment and write a short essay evaluating the major changes resulting from the construction of the Erie Canal.
Yes
Using evidence from the documentary video and a background reading, students assess and examine the economic, political, and geographic effects of the Erie Canal on the nation.
No
Yes
Two versions of background handout are included for different grade levels.
Yes
A graphic organizer helps students organize their ideas and draw connections between the various effects resulting from the Erie Canal’s construction.
Yes
Students can write an essay on the canal’s effects on America or New York State. Students can write a journal from the perspective of someone who experienced the effects of the Erie Canal five years after its construction.
Yes
No
Requires access to multiple computers, but can be adapted for classroom use in which only one computer and a projector are needed to stream the video.
Enduring Outrage: Editorial Cartoons by Herblock
![](/sites/default/files/website_image/image-herblock.jpg)
Political cartoonist Herbert Block's career spanned more than 70 years, over the course of which he produced more than 14,000 cartoons and won three Pulitzer Prizes in 1942, 1954, and 1979. He spent the majority of his career at the Washington Post, where he critiqued Democrats and Republicans alike, and covered topics from McCarthyism (a term he coined in a cartoon published in 1950) and the Nixon Administration to Chernobyl, the Vietnam War, and the Yugoslav Wars in the mid-1990s. This website presents 32 of his cartoons, relating to seven prominent themes in his work: the environment, ethics, extremism, voting, the Middle East, privacy and security, and war. Each cartoon is enlargeable and downloadable, and accompanied by a brief description of the context surrounding its creation and publication, as well as several sketches drawn by Herblock made in preparation for drawing the cartoon. Useful for those interested in U.S. political history and foreign relations, as well as the history of editorial cartoons.
U.S. Electoral College
![](/sites/default/files/website_image/ElectoralCollege_Image.jpg)
Basic statistical data and explanatory material on the workings of the Electoral College, provided by the Federal office that coordinates its operations. Data includes electoral and popular vote totals for presidential elections since 1789; listings by state of electoral college members for 1992-2000; facsimiles of certificates of ascertainment and certificates of votes for the 2000 election; and a digest of current state laws and requirements. Also offers a 2,700-word procedural guide; relevant federal law provisions; a 1,600-word description of state responsibilities; and 10 links to additional National Archives sites of relevance. A quick and easy way to locate vote tallies and legal information regarding the institution of the Electoral College.
Remembering Herblock
![](/sites/default/files/website_image/RemeHerbImage_0.jpg)
Presents an exhibit of 36 political cartoons and five essays by Herblock (Herbert Block), the acclaimed Washington Post political cartoonist who died in October 2001 after a career spanning seven decades. This tribute includes cartoons and the essays originally put together in 1995 for the exhibit "Five Decades of Herblock," as well as cartoons from 1998 to 2001, 12 photographs, three essays of appreciation, and the editorial that appeared in the newspaper the day after he died. As if to illustrate Herblock's observation that "Political cartoons, unlike sundials, do not show the brightest hours," the exhibit addresses such "dark" American topics as the "fear and smear" era of HUAC and McCarthyism (a term Herblock himself coined), Jim Crow in the 1950s and 1960s, the Vietnam War, Watergate and other Nixon-era scandals, Reagonomics, the 1994 Republican "Revolution," the Clinton impeachment, the Columbine shootings, and the Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore. Although the site is marred by annoying pop-up ads, this remains a valuable site for those studying popular culture and the history of political cartoons.
Presidential Elections and the Electoral College
![](/sites/default/files/website_image/ElecElecImage.jpg)
This website is part of the Library of Congress exhibit, "A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: United States Congressional Documents and Debates 17741873." It provides links to the Library's extensive holdings on American presidential elections and the electoral college.
Ten links to resources from the Library's feature "Today in History" provide 250-word discussions of noted events and include links to 2030 online documents for each feature. These documents include presidential campaign and inauguration speeches, government documents such as the certification in Congress of the first electoral college's balloting, controversies regarding the electoral college, and journals from late-18th and early-19th century political figures like William McLay.
Keyword searches make all of the Library's digitized documents on any given subject available through this site as well. This site is ideal for researching America's first century of political history.
Presidential Elections
![](/sites/default/files/website_image/PresElecImage.jpg)
This site documents the American presidential elections from 1860 to 1912. For each election, the site provides a detailed, 3,000-word overview that places the election within political and cultural context, and discusses the major issues relevant to the election. The producers have also included an essay on the practice of campaigning (4,500 words): how it has changed over the centuries, how those changes have resulted in an increased democratization of the political process, and how the press has shaped the process. In addition, the site exhibits about 90 political cartoons (from Harpweek, Vanity Fair, and Puck, among others) from elections, and provides biographies for each of the candidates. Also included for each election are "Events" sections that discuss major events before, during, and after each election period.
Teachers should be aware that some materials contain racial epithets. Notwithstanding the relatively few primary sources, this site is an excellent introduction to the 1860 to 1912 elections.