National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Plantation Community, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Various retrospective oral accounts from the early-twentieth century and two narratives from the mid-nineteenth century that examine the work, interrelationships, dangers, and lives of slaves on southern plantations.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Making It, Making of African American Identity: V. 3
Excerpts from a novel and an interview that illustrate where the success of the civil rights movement left some middle class African Americans. They explore the obstacles the civil rights movement had to overcome and the movement's...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Slave, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
This resource provides nineteenth-century black narratives that address what it meant to be enslaved and how slaves' identity was formed and changed over time.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Entrepreneurs, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Six mid-nineteenth century accounts by free-born black entrepreneurs about their economic activities and struggles. Links to documents describing each trade are provided within this well-developed resource.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Artists, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
The artwork of four nineteenth-century free blacks expressed in portraits, landscapes, sculpture, and photography. Links to works from Joshua Johnson, Robert Scott Duncanson, Edmonia Lewis, and Augustus Washington are provided.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Soldiers: Making of African American Identity: 1500 1865
Photographs of and letters from black soldiers-both enslaved and free-from the late-eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries that examine military experience for African Americans.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Education, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Nineteenth-century accounts and twentieth-century recollections by former slaves of the absence of and obstacles to education for African Americans. Links to narratives of freed and newly freed slaves are provided.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Emancipation: Death as Freedom
A poem, narratives, and newspaper selections that examine black suicide and death generally as the only dependable source of freedom for slaves. This grim resource provides links to two separate accounts of these experiences.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Civil War I: Slaves, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Photographs of slaves during the Civil War and war memories of former slaves during that conflict. Links to two separate resources can be found here, each focusing on the war memories of former slaves.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: The Institution, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Interviews from the 1930s that reflect on African Americans' experience of the institution of slavery. A narrative with firsthands accounts is linked within this resource.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Booker T. Washington, Making of African American Identity: V. 2
A summary and questions related to an autobiography in which Booker T. Washington describes his early experience of freedom. A link to this full text is provided here as well.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: The Making of African American Identity: Vol. Ii, 1865 1917: Migration
Congressional testimony and a letter that explore late nineteenth-century black migration from the South. Links to both resources are provided within this site.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Mechanics/workers, Triumph of Nationalism: America, 1815 1850
Two statements issued by workers' groups advocating greater equality for all who labor.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Cult of Domesticity: Caroline Gilman: The Planter's Bride
A Northern author who moves with her husband to South Carolina and reflects in this chapter on the domestic roles of women. Through this text, Caroline Gilman examines one woman's definition of a fulfilling life.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Cult of Domesticity: Catharine E. Beecher
A chapter from Catherine Beecher's book, "A Treatise on Domestic Economy for the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School." Read how it contributes to the understanding of the American identity.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Cult of Domesticity: Fanny Fern: Fern Leaves From Fanny's Portfolio
Short periodical pieces that examine the complex and challenging roles that women found thrust upon them in mid-nineteenth century American culture. Discussion questions are provided.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: William Cullen Bryant and Philip Freneau
Two poems examining divinity and concluding that while God is benevolent, one appreciates God either through a romantic lens or a rationalist calculation. Poems are William Cullen Bryant's, "To a Waterfowl," and Philip Freneau's, "On the...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Religion: Frederick Douglass
The National Humanities Center presents collections of primary resources compatible with the Common Core State Standards - historical documents, literary texts, and works of art - thematically organized with notes and discussion...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Religion: Henry David Thoreau
The National Humanities Center presents collections of primary resources compatible with the Common Core State Standards - historical documents, literary texts, and works of art - thematically organized with notes and discussion...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Expansion: Triumph of Nationalism: America, 1815 1850
A collection of eight primary resources--historical documents, literary texts, visual images, maps--illuminated and contextualized by notes, thematic questions, and text-specific discussion questions for classroom instruction and teacher...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Charles Sellers: Triumph of Nationalism: America, 1815 1850
A secondary account from a contemporary historian that examines early nineteenth century forces and the interplay of markets and territorial expansion.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Hezekiah Niles: Triumph of Nationalism: America, 1815 1850
Magazine excerpts that celebrate the government sponsored internal improvements of the early nineteenth century and the market economy that they fueled.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Reading Guide: George Fitzhugh: Chap. 5, "Negro Slavery"
A chapter in George Fitzhugh's apology for slavery in which he argues that slavery brings clear benefits to those who were enslaved.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Expansion: Harriet B. Stowe: Uncle Tom's Cabin, Ch. 1
Discussion questions that guide the reading of Chapter 1 of Harriet Beecher Stowe's influential novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin. Hyperlink to the entire text.