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Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: America in Class: America in the 1920s: Modern City

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
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National Humanities Center presents collections of primary resources compatible with the Common Core State Standards - historical documents, literary texts, and works of art - thematically organized with notes and discussion...
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Unit Plan
Schools of California Online Resources for Education

Score: European Immigrant Journey Museum

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Students will feel like they one of the immigrants as work through this web lesson that includes everything from preparing for the journey to arrival in the new city.
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Primary
Calisphere: University of California Libraries

University of California: Calisphere: 1900 1940s: Growing Ethnic Diversity

For Students 9th - 10th
Primary source images highlighting the diverse immigrants who came to California in the early 20th century and some of the challenges they faced.
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Website
Other

Demographic Brief: u.s. Urbanized Areas 1950 2000

For Students 9th - 10th
Collection of sites that display statistics for a number of different characteristics for urban areas. Click on site of your choice.
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Handout
Other

Chicago L: The Original L Companies

For Students 9th - 10th
As part of a larger site, this article gives the history of the famous Chicago "L" and its development in the last part of the 19th century. Hyperlinks to photos, many of which are period photos.
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Unit Plan
Other

Industrialization, Urbanization, and Immigration in the Gilded Age

For Students 9th - 10th
A study guide for an American History course that explores trends and issues from the Gilded Age. The guide has many links to key resources and primary source materials, as well as questions for further study or discussion.
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Primary
Other

On the Lower East Side: Observations of Life in Lower Manhattan

For Students 9th - 10th
Links to contemporary essays about life on the Lower East Side of New York City in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These essays cover a range of topics and are well worth exploring to find out what problems writers were exposing...
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Handout
Other

City Journal: The Man Who Gilded the Gilded Age

For Students 9th - 10th
A fascinating account of the life of Richard Morris Hunt, foremost architect of the Gilded Age of America.
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Website
The Newberry Library

Newberry Library: Chicago and the Great Migration, 1915 to 1950

For Students 9th - 10th
Primary source material with lesson and classroom activities in which students analyze the causes and effects of the African American Great Migration to Chicago between 1915 and 1950.
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Unit Plan
The Newberry Library

Newberry Library: Chicago Workers During the Long Gilded Age

For Students 9th - 10th
Learning module in which students use primary source material to examine the plight of workers in Chicago during the 19th and 20th Centuries, their efforts to make changes to working conditions and public response to those efforts.
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Unit Plan
The Newberry Library

Newberry Library: The Struggle for Civil Rights in the Urban North

For Students 9th - 10th
Learning resource using primary sources in which students study de facto segregation in the North following the Civil War and examine how African-Americans responded to segregation and racism compared to the South.
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Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Associations (I), Making of African American Identity: V. 2

For Students 9th - 10th
Newspaper articles that illustrate how benevolent and charitable societies fostered racial solidarity among African Americans in late-nineteenth-century America are provided. Links to these articles can be found on the second page.
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Unit Plan
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: People: Assimilation and the Crucible of the City: The American Metropolis

For Teachers 9th - 10th
A photograph of State Street in Chicago and George Bellows' painting of Lower Manhattan, both depicting the vigorous, gritty, energetic urban life in the early-twentieth century.
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Unit Plan
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: People: Assimilation and the Crucible of the City: Street Life in New York

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Excerpt from Horatio Alger's well-known novel, "Ragged Dick, Or, Street Life in New York," that describes the values and attitudes needed to make it in the capitalistic, urban America of the late-nineteenth century.
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Unit Plan
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Assimilation and the Crucible of the City: Reading Guide to Yerzierska

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Two short stories from Polish immigrant, Anzia Yerzierska, about the challenges of Americanization that immigrants faced in the early-twentieth century. Includes questions for discussion.
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Unit Plan
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Assimilation and the Crucible of the City: Reading Guide: Two Stories

For Teachers 9th - 10th
An excerpt from Abraham Cahan's novel, "Yekl: A Tale of the New York Ghetto," and Charles Chesnutt's short story, "The Wife of His Youth," that describe challenges of assimilation into American culture for both European immigrants and...
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Unit Plan
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: People: Assimilation and the Crucible of the City: Zitkala Sa

For Teachers 9th - 10th
A photograph and an autobiographical excerpt about the changes experienced and challenges faced by Native Americans at the turn of the twentieth century.
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Website
Library of Congress

Loc: African American Mosaic: Chicago: Destination for the Great Migration

For Students 9th - 10th
Discusses the housing arrangements of African Americans and those with incomes in the Chicago area. Includes several pictures and links to further related information.
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Lesson Plan
Library of Congress

Loc: Change in Early 20th Century America: Doing the Decades

For Teachers 9th - 10th Standards
This unit provides a flexible investigative structure for the study of selected themes in U.S. history and culture using the American Memory collections and related resources. Core goals are the development of relationships between...
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Primary
Internet History Sourcebooks Project

Fordham University: Modern History Sourcebook: The Social Gospel, 1908

For Students 9th - 10th
An excerpt from Walter Rauschenbusch's "Christianity and the Social Crisis." Rauschenbusch was a Baptist minister and proponent of The Social Gospel movement.
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Graphic
US National Archives

Portrait of Black Chicago: John H. White

For Students 9th - 10th
From June through October 1973 and briefly during the spring of 1974, John H. White worked for the federal government photographing Chicago, especially the city`s African American community. His photographs portray the difficult...
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Handout
Other

Minisink Valley Hist. Soc.: Port Jervis & the Gilded Age

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
Although this site concerns itself primarily with Port Jervis, New York, it does gives us a good overview of the building boom America experienced in the Gilded Age.
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Website
Other

New York City Subway: Early Transit in New York City

For Students 9th - 10th
Pictures, primary source documents, and articles about the subway system and rapid transit in New York City at the end of the 19th century and early 20th century.
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Website
Other

Wake Forest University: The Social Gospel, Part Ii

For Students 9th - 10th
A continuation of Part I of "The Social Gospel", the underlying causes for the reform movements in the last part of the 19th century and early 20th century.