Educator Resources

Showing 191 results for Mid 20th century ...

Back Stairs at Brucemore: Life as Servants in Early 20th-Century America

Type: Lesson Plan
Grade Levels: Middle School: Sixth Grade through Eighth Grade

Understand the "servant" experience in early 20th-century America, as well as the pros and cons for women working in factories versus domestic service.

First State National Historical Park

Growing up in the 18th Century

Type: Field Trips
Grade Levels: Upper Elementary: Third Grade through Fifth Grade

Discover what it was like to be a child in the 18th century. This field trip takes place around The Dover Green.

Frederica: An 18th-Century Planned Community

Type: Lesson Plan
Grade Levels: Middle School: Sixth Grade through Eighth Grade

Discover why this British settlement was built and how it functioned as Great Britain and Spain each struggled to control land from Charleston to St. Augustine.

Building America's Industrial Revolution: The Boott Cotton Mills of Lowell, Massachusetts (Teaching with Historic Places)

Type: Lesson Plan
Grade Levels: Middle School: Sixth Grade through Eighth Grade

Learn about the Boott Cotton Mills complex in Massachusetts, which contains mills built from the mid-1830s to the early 20th century.

George Washington Carver National Monument

George Washington Carver - An Original Conservationist: Welcome to the 21st Century

Type: Lesson Plan
Grade Levels: High School: Ninth Grade through Twelfth Grade

This activity will serve as the culmination to an ecological unit, especially those on current environmental problems. Students will take the role of George Washington Carver from 100 years ago. They will evaluate current ecological problems as if they were George Washington Carver. Their goal is to understand how the world has changed in the last century but also to recognize how solutions for today’s problems may have been around for decades and just need to be implemented.

Attu: North American Battleground of World War II

Type: Lesson Plan
Grade Levels: Middle School: Sixth Grade through Eighth Grade

Learn about America's role in World War II and how US troops ousted the Japanese from Attu Island to gain control of the rest of the Aleutians.

Digging into the Colonial Past: Archeology and the 16th-Century Spanish Settlements at Charlesfort-Santa Elena

Type: Lesson Plan
Grade Levels: Middle School: Sixth Grade through Eighth Grade

Both France and Spain raced to settle and control the southern coast of North America. On a small island off the coast of present-day South Carolina lie the ruins of Charlesfort, the French outpost for a year, which later became Santa Elena, a Spanish colonial town from 1566 to 1587. The site has been abandoned now for more than 400 years.

Keweenaw National Historical Park

Commercial and Non-Industrial Occupations Post-Visit 2: Research Careers of Entrepreneurs

Type: Lesson Plan
Grade Levels: Upper Elementary: Third Grade through Fifth Grade

Students will be able to describe at least one entrepreneur or businessman/woman from the local area in the 19th and 20th century.

Arthurdale: A New Deal Community Experiment

Type: Lesson Plan
Grade Levels: Middle School: Sixth Grade through Eighth Grade

Welcome to historic Arthurdale, West Virginia, a New Deal village built from the ground-up for coal miners and their families during the Great Depression.

Canaveral National Seashore

America’s Space Program: Exploring a New Frontier

Type: Lesson Plan
Grade Levels: Middle School: Sixth Grade through Eighth Grade

The lesson can be used in American history, social studies, and geography courses in units on the space program, the Cold War and its effects on American society, or interdisciplinary units on science and technology.

The Shields-Ethridge Farm: The End of a Way of Life

Type: Lesson Plan
Grade Levels: Middle School: Sixth Grade through Eighth Grade

Today the cotton gin is quiet. The commissary, where sharecroppers could buy supplies, looks as if someone just closed and locked the door. Hoes, oxen yoke, and ploughs rust in the blacksmith's shop. What froze this place in time? What clues tell the history of this place? Let's begin the story.

Springfield Armory National Historic Site

Jobs at Springfield Armory

Type: Lesson Plan
Grade Levels: Middle School: Sixth Grade through Eighth Grade

It is known that Springfield Armory manufactured millions of firearms for the U.S. military. Who were the people that were responsible for the assembly of all those weapons? What skills did workers need to have to be hired for work at the Armory, and what jobs did they perform while they were there? This lesson uses newspaper articles from the early to mid-20th century to explore the multitude of trades that were practiced by those employees and the skills that were required for employment.

Keys Ranch: Where Time Stood Still

Type: Lesson Plan
Grade Levels: Middle School: Sixth Grade through Eighth Grade

The lesson could be used in U.S. history, social studies, and geography courses in units on western expansion and settlement, or desert environments. It also could be used in an American Literature course in a unit on the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, particularly his concept of self-reliance. The lesson will help students understand why desert regions were among the last areas settled under the Homestead Act and how settlers in these places survived in a remote environment.

Ybor City: Cigar Capital of the World

Type: Lesson Plan
Grade Levels: Middle School: Sixth Grade through Eighth Grade

This lesson provides a case study of an immigrant community of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and offers a contrast to the typical textbook coverage that emphasizes immigration from eastern and southern Europe to the big cities of the north.

An American Success Story: The Pope House of Raleigh, NC

Type: Lesson Plan
Grade Levels: Middle School: Sixth Grade through Eighth Grade

Meet Dr. Manassa T. Pope, an African-American doctor and entrepreneur in the early 20th century, and learn about his efforts to gain civil rights well before the modern Civil Rights Movement.

Enduring Awatovi: Uncovering Hopi Life and Work on the Mesa

Type: Lesson Plan
Grade Levels: Middle School: Sixth Grade through Eighth Grade

Learn about traditional Hopi culture and farming at Awatovi, a historic pueblo where enduring Hopi traditions and American archeological research reveal much about this important place.

Bryce Canyon National Park

Bryce Canyon National Park: Hoodoos Cast Their Spell

Type: Lesson Plan
Grade Levels: Middle School: Sixth Grade through Eighth Grade

The lesson could be used in U.S. history, social studies, and geography courses in units on westward expansion (especially the Mormon settlement of Utah) and the conservation movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It could also be used in a geology course.

Hot Springs National Park

Bathtub Time Machine

Type: Distance Learning
Grade Levels: Upper Elementary: Third Grade through Fifth Grade

“Bathtub Time Machine” is a virtual program that shares the history of Hot Springs in the 19th and early 20th centuries through images and stories. Students will be able to understand the story of Hot Springs National Park and fit it into the larger picture of the National Park Service.

Castolon: A Meeting Place of Two Cultures

Type: Lesson Plan
Grade Levels: Middle School: Sixth Grade through Eighth Grade

White and yellow soils lie open to the southern sun, woody vegetation is sparse and stunted, and turkey vultures soar overhead. Yet Castolon offers more than severity: its history includes a harmonious mixing of the people along the United States-Mexico border.