The lesson plans below are catered to specific sites or states, but can still illustrate the experience of the Underground Railroad and teach valuable lessons. These plans can also be presented and taught as written, or can serve as a starting point to stimulate more ideas and conversations for the classroom.
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Fort Pulaski National Monument
What was once a Confederate held fort, Union forces captured Fort Pulaski in Savannah, GA, freeing hundreds of African Americans. The Fort would eventually become a site of some of the nation's fist colored troops. The War for Freedom unit gives students closer insight to the day-to-day lives of African Americans from enslavement to emancipation.
Frederick Douglass National Historic Site
A famous leader of the abolition movement and having escaped slavery himself, Frederick Douglass has important history and significance to the Underground Railroad. Douglass' Historic Site provides lesson plans, teacher workshops and distance learning opportunities for the classroom to learn more about his life from slave to statesman.
From Hampton to New Bedford: A Network to Freedom
Aimed at students in 5th grade, these web based lesson plans tell the compelling story of the Underground Railroad at Hampton National Historic Site (Maryland) and New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park (Massachusetts). The lesson uses role playing, critical assessment and exploration activities to consider the conditions of bondage and freedom seekers' desire for freedom.
Lincoln Home National Historic Site
Lincoln Home National Historic Site, a Network to Freedom Member, offers distant learning opportunities. Their curriculum based education programs illustrate the reality of slavery through firsthand accounts by those who endured it.
A site that is part of the Network to Freedom, Mount Clare served as a plantation but was also a site of at least four documented instances of freedom seekers escaping. The lesson plan, Freedom Seekers, provides students with an overview of Charles and Margaret Carroll, the plantation owners, and their industrialized plantation, the Mount Clare house, so that students can fully examine and deconstruct the enslaved population and: a) how they lived and worked on the Carroll's estate; and b) the various ways that they negotiated for their freedom.
Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) uses historic places in National Parks and in the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places to enliven history, social studies, geography, civics, and other subjects. The following lesson plans are based on these parks and historic places and relate to the Underground Railroad.
- Mary Ann Shadd Cary House: Publisher, activist, teacher, and lawyer Mary Ann Shadd Cary was born free in a slave state. She was exceptional, but her migrations between the U.S. and Canada were typical. They are evidence of where African Americans moved in North America during the 19thCentury and her surviving D.C. home is evidence of where and how a woman of her status lived.
- New Philadelphia, Illinois: New Philadelphia, IL was not a typical pioneer town. It was the first town platted and registered by an African American before the American Civil War. A formerly enslaved man called "Free Frank" McWorter founded New Philadelphia in 1836 as a money-making venture to buy his family out of slavery. New Philadelphia is one of the thousands of locations listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
- The Old Courthouse in St. Louis: Based on the National Register of Historic Places, this lesson brings important stories of historic places into the classroom. It can be used in sectional conflict leading to the Civil War or a variety of civic issues. Students will study the role the Old Courthouse in St. Louis played in national events of the 19th century, including the Dred Scott v. Sandford.
Last updated: June 9, 2022