Chicago Jewish Historical Society

Description

The Society has as its purpose the discovery, preservation and dissemination of information concerning the Jewish experience in the Chicago area. The Society seeks out, collects, and preserves written, spoken, and photographic records, in close cooperation with the Chicago Jewish Archives, Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies. The Society publishes historical information, holds public meetings at which various aspects of Chicago Jewish history are treated, mounts appropriate exhibits, and offers tours of Jewish historical sites.

Though the Society does not have a museum, it does offer lectures and tours of Jewish historic sites in Chicago.

Organization, without a historic site base of its own. May still be worth including, though?

Swedish-American Historical Society

Description

The Swedish–American Historical Society is a nonprofit organization founded in 1948, with the mission of recording the achievements of the Swedish pioneers. The society is devoted to the mission of studying the Swedish emigration, its history, and the culture of the Swedes in North America through research, publications, programs, and archives.

Does not appear to offer educational opportunities beyond access to archives.

German Immigration

Description

This iCue Mini-Documentary describes the wave of thousands of German immigrants that arrived in America between 1820 and 1860. These immigrants contributed to many early reform movements, and made cultural contributions as well.

This feature is no longer available.

Becoming Modern: America, 1918-1929: A Summer Institute for High-school Teachers

Description

How did World War I affect politics in the United States? Why did the prestige and power of American business dramatically increase in the 1920s? What explains the remarkable cultural ferment of this period? What place did religious and spiritual values assume in the United States during the 1920s? How did concepts of citizenship and national identity change in the decade after World War I? How did women and African Americans struggle to advance social equality? How did modernizing and traditional forces clash during the decade?

This institute will explore these and other questions through history, literature, and art. Under the direction of leading scholars, participants will examine such issues as immigration, prohibition, radicalism, changing moral standards, and evolution to discover how the forces of modernity and traditionalism made the 1920s both liberating and repressive. Participants will assist National Humanities Center staff in identifying texts and defining lines of inquiry for a new addition to the Center's Toolbox Library, which provides online resources for teacher professional development and classroom instruction.

Contact name
Schramm, Richard R.
Registration Deadline
Sponsoring Organization
National Humanities Center
Phone number
877-271-7444
Target Audience
High
Start Date
Cost
Free; $1,000 stipend
Contact Title
Vice President for Education Programs
Duration
Eleven days
End Date

The Most Southern Place on Earth: Music, Culture, and History in the Mississippi Delta

Description

Participants in this workshop will travel throughout the Delta as they visit sites where significant events occurred. They will discuss and learn about issues involving civil rights and political leadership, immigrants' experiences in the Delta, the Blues, the great migration, agriculture, and the Mississippi River, among other things. They will sample Delta foods, visit local museums, and listen to the Blues. Field trips will roam as far as Greenville, Greenwood, and Memphis, with stops in between.

Contact name
Brown, Luther
Contact email
Registration Deadline
Sponsoring Organization
Delta Center for Culture and Learning
Phone number
662-846-4311
Target Audience
K-12
Start Date
Cost
Free; $750 stipend
Duration
Six days
End Date

Immigration

Teaser

Very few of us have ancestors who were not immigrants. Bring the topic of immigration to life.

lesson_image
Description

Primary sources and questions for a unit on immigration to the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Article Body

Primary source documents and statistical tables about immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries anchor this lesson. Analytical questions about the documents and the tables require students to draw conclusions from the data, as well as evaluate opinions regarding immigration as expressed in the primary sources.

These materials are supplemented by Digital History’s larger Immigration Learning Module which provides many hyperlinks to additional primary sources including a timeline and documents. (NOTE: To access these documents, paste the title of the document into the search field when you arrive at the Library of Congress Learning Page.)

Links to primary source sets from the Library of Congress and other features of the Ethnic America section of the Digital History site are also provided.

Overall we feel that the basic lesson plan provides an excellent set of teaching materials, but we encourage you to explore the interrelated hyperlinks of the Learning Module to find additional materials that will inspire you and your students.

Topic
Immigration; early 20th century
Time Estimate
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flexibility_scale
1
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Rubric_Content_Accurate_Scholarship

Yes

Rubric_Content_Historical_Background

Yes
Much information is available on the website. In addition, Digital History’s online textbook provides detailed background information on the topic.

Rubric_Content_Read_Write

Yes

Rubric_Analytical_Construct_Interpretations

Yes
In the basic lesson students are asked to draw conclusions from immigration data. Other documents that you may decide to use from Digital History’s online textbook may elicit student analysis and interpretation as well.

Rubric_Analytical_Close_Reading_Sourcing

Yes

Rubric_Scaffolding_Appropriate

Yes
While no specific audience is stated, we feel the basic lesson and accompanying questions are suitable for middle school. Other materials on the site may be useful for all grade levels.

Rubric_Scaffolding_Supports_Historical_Thinking

No
Teachers will want to provide some scaffolds of their own to help students understand and interpret texts and data tables.

Rubric_Structure_Assessment

No
No assessment criteria are included. As teachers define their goals for this lesson they will have to determine how to assess student learning.

Rubric_Structure_Realistic

Yes
The basic lesson is unstructured, but the questions and activities are clearly presented. It would be easy to use these materials to teach about immigration in normal classroom settings.

Rubric_Structure_Learning_Goals

No
Teachers must provide structure and goals for this lesson.

Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project

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Annotation

The long history of struggle for equal rights by various ethnic groups in Seattle, including Filipino, Chinese, Japanese, African, and Native Americans; Jews; and Latinos is documented on this website. Primary and secondary sources integrate labor rights movements with struggles for political rights, as is evident in the "special sections," that highlight the Chicano/a movement, the Black Panther Party, Filipino Cannery Unionism, the United Construction Workers Association, Communism, and the United Farm Workers. Each section brings together oral histories, documents, newspapers, and photographs that are accompanied by written and video commentary to provide historical context. The collection of more than 70 oral histories of activists is especially useful for understanding the lived experience of racism and its especially subtle workings in the Pacific Northwest. Together, these resources provide important national context for the civil rights struggle, too often understood as a solely southern phenomenon.

Marchand Archive

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Annotation

A memorial to Roland Marchand, the late historian of popular culture and advertising, this website presents a slide library with more than 6,100 images, including more than 2,000 advertisements, drawn from Marchand's collection. The images are organized into more than 40 major categories and close to 200 subcategories.

The site also offers 48 lesson plans designed by Marchand, each with an introduction, an essay assignment, and 10 to 40 primary source documents. The lessons cover a diverse range of controversial topics, including the Antinomian Controversy, the reactions against Chinese immigrants, the Pullman Strike, the Women's Suffrage Movement, and Watergate. The site will be useful for researching popular culture and advertising, as well as numerous other topics in American history, such as women, wars, immigration, labor, and African Americans.

Tangled Roots

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Annotation

These more than 200 documents explore cultural connections between the experiences of African Americans and Irish immigrants in America. Materials relate to individual leaders, historical events, economic, political, and social factors, and cultural achievements. A section entitled "Making Connections" offers 15 questions about historical events and people that represent the intertwined histories of Africans and Irish in America.

Other topics include the end of English participation in the slave trade, the emergence of the nativist Know-Nothing Party in the 1850s, and Ku Klux Klan activities against Catholics and blacks after the Civil War. A section on "Acceptance" explores perceptions of individual and group identities and four timelines focus on displacement, oppression, discrimination, and acceptance in America. "Voices" provides a sample of 13 public statements and interviews on ethnicity and race from ordinary modern Americans. The site also provides a bibliography; an essay by writer James McGowan, a black American with an Irish paternal grandfather; and links to related websites.