Stephen Ambrose says that the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1868 was the great achievement of the 19th century.
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This iCue Mini-Documentary describes how the Native Americans fought back throughout the 19th century, as the U.S. Army tried to contain them on smaller and smaller parcels of land.
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Historians Susan Schoelwer and Kelly Nolin believe they have found the flag that Lincoln was holding onto at the time of his assassination in 1865.
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Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin discusses President John Quincy Adams and the challenges of his presidency.
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Author David McCullough discusses his book John Adams, profiling the life of the second president of the United States. McCullough talks about the relationship between Adams and Thomas Jefferson, and also with his wife Abigail.
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Time Magazine's Christopher John Farley discusses the election of 1800 and the presidency of Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson's term in office is remembered for a war on terror, and the Louisiana Purchase, and a scandal.
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This iCue Mini-Documentary describes Chief Pontiac's attempts to push British and Americans out of Indian territory in the Ohio Valley. In a concession, the British government issued the Proclamation of 1763.
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EDSITEment, a website of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), is spotlighting classroom materials related to the Public Broadcasting Series (PBS) series, The Presidents.
Materials include lesson plans on Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John Kennedy and link these lesson plans to related segments of online video from the series. They highlight major policies and events during each presidency within the context of the era. One lesson plan on Harry Truman, for example, examines origins of the Cold War, then discusses major policies such as the Strategy of Containment.
These lesson plans are directed towards grades 912, but incorporate materials that may be useful for younger students.
Match each of the selections below with the president (in the pull-down menu) who received or sent it.
1. 
John Adams, from Abigail Adams (pictured). Abigail Adams wrote this to her husband in a December 23, 1782 letter. The original letter can be read here, at the website of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
2. 
Woodrow Wilson, to Edith Bolling Galt (pictured). This is from a letter that widower President Wilson wrote from the White House on September 19, 1915, to Edith Bolling Galt, whom he would marry. The full text of the letter is in volume 34 of The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, ed. Arthur Stanley Link (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), page 491.
3. 
Ronald Reagan, to Nancy Reagan (pictured). This is from a letter written on White House stationery by Ronald Reagan, to his wife Nancy on March 4, 1981. From Nancy Reagan, I Love You, Ronnie: The Letters of Ronald Reagan to Nancy Reagan (New York: Random House, 2002).
4. 
Theodore Roosevelt, about Alice Lee (pictured). This is from Roosevelt's diary entry of February 13, 1880. On that evening, he became engaged to Alice Lee, whom he married. On Valentine's Day, 1884, she died while giving birth to their daughter Alice. Roosevelt's mother died the same day. His diary entry for that day is simply a large black X with the words, "The light has gone out of my life." The Library of Congress has made scans of the original diary pages, available online here.
The relationship between John and Abigail Adams remains famous in U.S. history, largely due to the many letters they exchanged on issues both personal and political. In this Massachusetts Historical Society presentation, you can listen to politicians read aloud some of this correspondence; the full text of much of 1,198 of their letters can be read at the Adams Family Papers website.
For more on the First Ladies and their relationships to their husbands (and their accomplishments on their own), try a search in the upper right-hand corner of the website using the keywords "First Ladies." You'll find resources including a quiz on First Ladies' firsts while in office, Hillary Clinton's thoughts on the role of First Lady, a Library of Congress website featuring portraits of presidents and their wives, Ohio's National First Ladies' Library website, a Colonial Williamsburg re-enactor presenting Martha Washington's memories of the American Revolution, a National Portrait Gallery talk on the relationship between Mary and Abraham Lincoln, and more.
Every four years, television programs break for ads for those most American of products—the U.S. president and the ideals of democracy. For more than half a century, presidential candidates have used television ads to communicate their platforms and criticize their opponents. Decide whether the following statements are true or false.
1. The advertising executive who planned the first candidate television ad campaign had previously created the Coca-Cola "Passport to refreshment" campaign.
False. Advertising executive Rosser Reeves had previously created the "melts in your mouth, not in your hands" campaign for M&Ms. The campaign he planned for Eisenhower—20-second spots designed to run before or after popular television shows like I Love Lucy—featured "normal Joe" citizens asking Eisenhower questions about taxes, foreign policy, and other issues. Eisenhower answered in a brief, blunt, homey fashion, with the format giving the campaign its name: "Eisenhower Answers America." Prior to this campaign, presidential candidates had brushed off the potential of television advertising; following it, ads became an accepted and increasingly central aspect of campaigning.
2. In 1960, John F. Kennedy's television ad campaign included non-English-language advertisements.
True. JFK's 1960 campaign for the presidency, run by two different advertising agencies, included a multitude of television advertisements and a dizzying array of techniques and appeals. Several of the ads spoke out to specific demographics—including a spot in which Jackie Kennedy, speaking in uneven Spanish, assured voters that, in the face of the danger of communism, "Mi esposo siempre vigilará los intereses de todos los sectores de nuestra sociedad que necesitan la protección de un gobierno humanitario" (or, "My husband will always watch over the interests of all sectors of our society who are in need of the protection of a humanitarian government"). Other ads spoke to the African American community, assuring the public that Kennedy's Catholicism would not compromise his presidential duties.
3. As the Vietnam War continued despite his promises to end it, Richard Nixon's 1972 presidential ad campaign depicted him as stern and focused entirely on withdrawing troops from Vietnam.
False. Nixon's 1972 campaign for reelection cast him as a man of "compassion, courage, and conscience," concerned about many issues, including environmentalism and international diplomacy, as well as withdrawing from Vietnam. President Nixon, one ad declared, was willing to press for change, because "without change there can be no progress." The ads crafted the argument that Nixon, far from being cold and unapproachable, was personable and personally interested in a global push for peace and wellbeing nationally and internationally. Nixon won the campaign against South Dakota Senator George McGovern by a landslide.
4. A 1984 ad for Ronald Reagan's reelection used the threat of a bear in the woods to suggest the need for better gun control laws.
False. Though most of Ronald Reagan's ads stressed the economic wellbeing of the U.S., using montages of small-town Americans engaged in rituals such as weddings and buying new homes, one stuck out. The unusual ad showed a bear lurking in the woods; the accompanying narration suggested that the bear might or might not exist and might or might not be dangerous, but "since no one can really be sure who's right, isn't it smart to be as strong as the bear? If there is a bear?" Though the ad never explicitly states what the bear stands for, the advertisement's creators intended it to symbolize the Soviet Union. The ad's watchers, however, took it as commenting on any number of issues, including gun control and the need for change in environmental laws. Despite its ambiguity, the ad gained attention and later served as inspiration for an ad in George W. Bush's 2004 reelection campaign.
To watch all of the ads mentioned in this quiz, check out the Museum of the Moving Image's website The Living Room Candidate. Featuring more than 250 ads from all presidential campaigns since 1952, the site also presents commentary on each ad campaign, as well as detailed critical commentary on 15 ads selected as exemplary by the collection's curators and eight lesson plans for high school teachers.
For suggestions on using advertisements in the classroom, refer to Making Sense of Advertisements, a guide to primary source analysis by historian, professor, and author Daniel Pope.
