Building A More Perfect Union Lesson Book

Toward a More Perfect Union

Author: Dr. Serena Zabin, Carleton College

This essay examines the protests and resistance movements that ultimately boiled over into what would become the American Revolutionary War. From the end of the French and Indian War, through the Stamp Act and the actions of the Sons of Liberty, to the Peace of Paris in 1783, this essay covers the origins and events that moved the colonies toward becoming an independent nation.

The American Revolution in Four Questions: Digging Deeper for Unfamiliar Stories

Author: Adrienne Whaley, Museum of the American Revolution

Using questions and primary sources to explore the roots and events of the American Revolution, this essay offers a fresh examination of the era and provides a series of questions for teachers and students to consider for further research.

Authored by Kyle Johnson (Topeka, KS), this lesson on the effects of the French and Indian War is framed by the guiding question "How did the French and Indian War influence colonial attitudes toward British rule?"

EDSITEment materials related to this lesson include:

• Colonial Broadsides and the American Revolution
• Empire and Identity in the American Colonies
• Humanities Feature: The History of the Stamp Act Shows How Indians Led to the American Revolution
• Coming of the American Revolution

Author Josh Elders's (McMurray, PA) lesson on the Whiskey Rebellion poses the guiding question "To what extent was the U.S. government’s handling of the Whiskey Rebellion justified?" to investigate this turning point in U.S. history. 

EDSITEment materials related to this lesson include:

• Washington and the Whiskey Rebellion
• Federalists and Democratic-Republicans: The Platforms They Never Had
• The Federalist Debates: Balancing Power Between State and Federal Governments
• The First American Party System: A Documentary Timeline of Important Events (1787-1800)

Created by Katherine Corrado (Purcellville, VA), this lesson on the Monroe Doctrine combines primary sources from across the 19th century to engage students in a debate in response to the guiding question "How has U.S. involvement in foreign affairs shaped a “more perfect union?”"

EDSITEment materials related to this lesson include:

• The Monroe Doctrine: Origin and Early American Foreign Policy
• The Origins of “Wilsonianism”
• 50 Core Documents That Tell America’s Story
• The Spanish-American War

Erik Peterson's (Santa Ana, CA) lesson on the work of women during the Abolition movement of the 19th century asks students to investigate the guiding question "How was women’s involvement in the Abolitionist Movement an important step toward their political agency?"

EDSITEment materials related to this lesson include:

• The Forgotten Suffragists
• How Reconstruction Transformed the Constitution
• Chronicling and Mapping the Women’s Suffrage Movement
• Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad
• Legislation Impossible: The Civil Rights Act of 1964

Authored by Jeffrey Hinton (Las Vegas, NV), this lesson on African American suffragists asks students to evaluate primary and secondary sources when considering "To what extent did African Americans advance the woman’s suffrage movement?"

EDSITEment materials related to this lesson include:

• “How Black Suffragists Fought for the Right to Vote and a Modicum of Respect”
• Chronicling and Mapping the Women’s Suffrage Movement
• Who Were the Foremothers of the Women’s Suffrage and Equality Movements?
• The Declaration of Sentiments by the Seneca Falls Conference (1848)

Amie Dryer (Prince Frederick, MD) created a lesson on Chinese American resistance to segregation during the 19th and 20th centuries that is framed by the compelling question "How did Chinese Americans challenge the doctrine of separate but equal schools in California and Mississippi?"

EDSITEment materials related to this lesson include:

• “The Chinese Exclusion Act Raised the Price of Becoming an American”
• Asian American & Pacific Islander Perspectives within Humanities Education
• BackStory: To Be a Citizen? The History of Becoming American
• JFK, LBJ, and the Fight for Equal Opportunity in the 1960s
• “Massive Resistance in a Small Town”

This lesson on the history of labor unions and worker movements by Kristen Rentschler (Columbia City, IN) asks students to consider the guiding question "How did American labor unions work to create a more perfect union for workers?"

EDSITEment materials related to this lesson include:

• The Industrial Age in America: Sweatshops, Steel Mills, and Factories
• National History Day Resources: Conflict and Compromise in History
• “Railroad Melee”
• BackStory: Women at Work

Marian Cronin-Connolly (Philadelphia, PA) created a lesson on the founding and work of the NAACP for the advancement of civil rights that asks students to investigate the guiding question "How has the NAACP’s mission helped the United States to forge “a more perfect union?”

EDSITEment materials related to this lesson include:

• Birth of a Nation, the NAACP, and Civil Rights
• NAACP’S Anti-Lynching Campaigns: The Quest for Social Justice in the Interwar Years
• BackStory: Shattering the Glass Ceiling
• W.E.B. Du Bois Papers

Westley Green's (Gautier, MS) lesson on the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act provides a collection of primary sources for students to analyze when evaluating the guiding question "How have American Indians and the U.S. government debated the meaning of American citizenship?"

EDSITEment materials related to this lesson include:

• What Does it Mean to Be American?
• Exploring the Great Plains Indian Wars and Military Forts in Kansas
• A Nation of Treaties
• American Indian History and Heritage

This lesson on Supreme Court cases brought forth by Japanese Americans created by Robbie See (Livermore, CA) poses the guiding question "As Japanese immigrants struggled to own farmland in California, who was most influential in building an inclusive society: the state, the nation, or the people themselves?"

EDSITEment materials related to this lesson include:

• Japanese American Internment Camps During WWII
• Pearl S. Buck: “On Discovering America”
• Connecting the Past and Present with the Immigrant Stories Project
• Everything Your Students Need to Know About Immigration History

Using a dinner party-inspired activity, this lesson on women and the civil rights movement by Emily Lewellen (Nashville, IN) asks students to discuss the guiding question "How did women contribute to the Civil Rights Movement in the United States?"

EDSITEment materials related to this lesson include:

• Grassroots Perspectives on the Civil Rights Movement: Focus on Women
• Voices of Democracy: Women Leaders of the Civil Rights Struggle
• “Tune in Tuesdays: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi”
• The Freedom Riders and the Popular Music of the Civil Rights Movement

Chris Stewart (Forest Lake, MN) created a lesson on Native American civil rights and citizenship that includes the guiding question "How did the rights of American Indians change between the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 and the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968?"

EDSITEment materials related to this lesson include:

• Not “Indians,” Many Tribes: Native American Diversity
• “American Originals”
• Darkness over the Plain: The Bison in American History
• Teacher’s Guide: American Indian History and Heritage

This lesson on policies and issues related to immigration to the U.S. during the mid-20th century by Sharon Gillette (New Taipei City, Taiwan) asks students to investigate the guiding question "How did Cold War foreign policies shape immigration to the U.S. during the twentieth century?" 

EDSITEment materials related to this lesson include:

• The Origins of the Cold War, 1945–1949
• Civil Rights and the Cold War
• The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962: The Missiles of October
• The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and Escalation of the Vietnam War
• Everything Your Students Need to Know About Immigration History

Author Deanna McDaniel's (Westerville, OH) lesson on competing perspectives about the Equal Rights Amendment provides an array of primary sources for students to analyze as they consider the compelling question "To what extent has the debate over the Equal Rights Amendment contributed to a more perfect union?"

EDSITEment materials related to this lesson include:

• BackStory: Shattering the Glass Ceiling
• Teacher's Guide: Women's History in the United States
• Women’s Equality: Changing Attitudes and Beliefs
• Super Role Model

Suzan Turner's (Nashua, IA) lesson on the Americans with Disabilities Act includes multimedia and primary source materials for students to examine as they investigate the guiding question "How did the Americans with Disabilities Act lead to a more perfect union?"

EDSITEment materials related to this lesson include:

•  “50 States of Preservation: The Museum of disABILITY History in Buffalo, New York”
• The Helen Keller Archive: Access for All 
• Digitization of the Helen Keller Archival Collection at the American Federation of the Blind
• Veterans Speak: War, Trauma, and the Humanities