Curated OER
USH Reform in the Late 19th Century
Eleventh graders explain the methods that social critics advocated to improve society. They examine efforts to help the urban poor and critique a variety of pictures that depict both the rich and the poor in different time periods and...
![Nccp: Who Are America's Poor Children? [Pdf] Website](https://d15y2dacu3jp90.cloudfront.net/images/attachment_defaults/resource/large/FPO-knovation.png "Nccp: Who Are America's Poor Children? [Pdf] Website")
Other
Nccp: Who Are America's Poor Children? [Pdf]
Learn the basic facts regarding children in American who are living at poverty levels or below. The numbers of children in poverty appear to be increasing to almost 13 million. The sheet identifies which ethnic groups have the most...
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Bayard Rustin: A Freedom Budget, Part 2
This audio excerpt from Bayard Rustin's 1967 "Freedom Budget" speech outlines a nine-year plan to end poverty in America.
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Black Urban Poor, William Julius Wilson
In this 1998 FRONTLINE interview, Harvard sociologist Dr. William Julius Wilson explains why, despite an overall increase in the standard of living among African Americans, a segment of the population is falling farther and farther behind.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: People: Assimilation and the Crucible of the City: How Other Half Lives
Photographs and an excerpt from Jacob Riis's famous tour of the distressing conditions of the tenements in New York City. Includes questions for discussion.
National Endowment for the Humanities
Neh: Edsit Ement: Revolution '67, Lesson 1: Protest: Why and How
In this lesson plan, students examine the reasons for protests by reading about the riots in Newark, New Jersey, in 1967. By using primary source documents, learn historical reasons for protesting and compare them with the situation in...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Neh: Edsit Ement: Revolution '67:What Happened in July 1967? How Do We Know?
In this lesson plan, students learn about the riots in Newark, New Jersey, in 1967. Using primary sources, identify the causes of the disturbance in July, 1967. Links to the relevant information is provided.
Other
Hoover Institution: "Broken Cities" by Steven Hayward
This article discusses the loss of population in urban centers. Its main focus is the policies of the 1960's.
Chicago History Museum
Encyclopedia of Chicago: Charity Organization Societies
As urban populations increased along with poverty in urban areas, charities began to offer help. Read about the Charity Organization Society that attempted to coordinate charitiable giving. Read about the evolution of the coordination of...
Smithsonian Institution
National Portrait Gallery: American Women: Jane Addams
See a portrait of activist Jane Addams painted by American painter, George deForest Brush, and read a brief discussion of Addams' important role as a reformer.
Independence Hall Association
U.s. History: The Long, Hot Summer
The "long, hot summer" in reality spread over several years of summers in the mid-1960s. Read about the Watts riots in 1965, and the reasons behind racial upheaval in hundreds of American cities over the next three years.
Independence Hall Association
U.s. History: The Underside of Urban Life
Read about the plight of the urban poor in the rapidly growing cities. In addition to the modern skyscrapers, the cities also had tenement housing where the poor lived. Find a description of that housing and the problems this housing bred.
Franco Cavazzi
The Roman Empire: Gaius Gracchus
A in-depth look at Gaius Gracchus' life as a leader in Rome. The article covers his election to office, his proposal to extend citizenship to Latium, the angry demonstration on Aventine Hill, and his death.
Other
Tenement Museum: New York Tenement Museum
From the online home of the museum, take a virtual tour of the restored apartments in a tenement building located at 97 Orchard Street in New York's Lower East Side. Learn about the lives of actual past residents and experience what life...
Digital History
Digital History: Newsies
Read about the real lives of young, poor urban boys who tried to make a living selling newspapers on the street corners of American cities.
Independence Hall Association
U.s. History: A New Civil Rights Movement
A very brief overview of the inception of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s, its successes and failures into the 1960s, and a prediction of despair in the 1970s.
Encyclopedia Britannica
Encyclopedia Britannica: Guide to Black History: William Julius Wilson
This entry from Encyclopedia Brittanica's Guide to Black History features William Julius Wilson, an American sociologist whose views on race and urban poverty helped shape U.S. public policy and academic discourse. This site, rich in...