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Turn of the Century: 1900 - 1909

Daughter of Earth: Reading, Writing, and Social Class

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. 7 pages. Students read a poignant excerpt from Agnes Smedley's novel, Daughter of Earth, and use it to think and write about how schooling—their own included—teaches lessons about social class.

Time Periods: 20th Century, Turn of the Century: 1900 - 1909

Themes: Education, Social Class, Women's History

Exploring Women’s Rights: The 1908 Textile Strike in a 1st-grade Class

Teaching Activity. By Dale Weiss. 3 pages. Rethinking Schools. A teacher's reflections about a curriculum unit on women's rights contextualizes the history of the feminist movement within the broader struggle of people working for greater equality in the United States.

Time Periods: 20th Century, Turn of the Century: 1900 - 1909

Themes: Labor, Organizing, Women's History

History Textbooks: “Theirs” and “Ours”: A Rebellion or a War of Independence?

Teaching Activity. By John DeRose. 4 pages. Rethinking Schools. Analysis of textbook passages from different countries, videos and books are used to explore different perspectives about the same event in history, i.e. "Philippine-American War" vs. "War of Philippine Independence."

Time Periods: 20th Century, Turn of the Century: 1900 - 1909

Themes: Imperialism, US Foreign Policy, Wars & Related Anti-War Movements, World History/Global Studies

Lewis Hine’s Photographs

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Bob Peterson. 4 pages. Rethinking Schools. Using photographs to spark creative writing and critical thinking about child labor issues and social justice.

Time Periods: 19th Century, Industrial Revolution: 1877 - 1899, 20th Century, Turn of the Century: 1900 - 1909

Themes: Art & Music, Immigration, Labor, Media, Social Class

One Country! One Language! One Flag!

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. 3 pages. Rethinking Schools. Discussion questions and teaching ideas for examining the history of the Pledge of Allegiance and the political milieu in which it was written.

Time Periods: 20th Century, Turn of the Century: 1900 - 1909

Themes: Democracy & Citizenship, Education, Immigration

What the Tour Guide Didn’t Tell Me: Tourism, Colonialism, and Resistance in Hawai’i

Teaching Activity. By Wayne Wah Kwai Au. 5 pages. Rethinking Schools. Lesson on the history of Hawai'i and the impact of colonization and tourism.

Time Periods: 20th Century, Turn of the Century: 1900 - 1909

Themes: Asian American, Imperialism, Pacific Islander, Racism & Racial Identity, US Foreign Policy

Labor Matters

Teaching Activity. By Teaching Tolerance. Introduces students to the role of the labor movement in securing contemporary benefits such as the 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, and workplace safety regulations.

Time Periods: 20th Century, Turn of the Century: 1900 - 1909, World War I: 1910 - 1919, Prosperity, Depression, & World War II: 1920 - 1944

Themes: Labor, Laws & Citizen Rights, Organizing

Race and Membership in American History: The Eugenics Movement

Teaching Guide. By Alan Stoskopf. Facing History and Ourselves. 2002. Resources for teaching about the eugenics movement in the United States.

Time Periods: 20th Century, Turn of the Century: 1900 - 1909

Themes: Racism & Racial Identity, Science

Lawrence, 1912: The Singing Strike (Teaching Activity) | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History

Socialists and Wobblies

Teaching Activity. By Gayle Olson-Raymer. Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 13 of Voices of a People's History of the United States on the labor movement at the turn of the century.

Time Periods: 20th Century, Turn of the Century: 1900 - 1909, World War I: 1910 - 1919

Themes: Democracy & Citizenship, Immigration, Labor

Vietnam and Beyond: The Historic Resistance

Teaching Activity. By Mike Benbow and Robin Pickering. Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 18 of Voices of a People's History of the United States on opposition to the Vietnam War.

Time Periods: 20th Century, Turn of the Century: 1900 - 1909, People’s Movement: 1961 - 1974

Themes: Imperialism, Social Class, US Foreign Policy, Wars & Related Anti-War Movements

Ballad of an American: A Graphic Biography of Paul Robeson

Book - Non-fiction. Written and illustrated by Sharon Rudahl. Edited by Paul Buhle and Lawrence Ware. 2020. 142 pages. The first-ever graphic biography of Paul Robeson charts Robeson’s career as a singer, actor, scholar, athlete, and activist who achieved global fame.

Time Periods: 20th Century, Turn of the Century: 1900 - 1909, World War I: 1910 - 1919, Prosperity, Depression, & World War II: 1920 - 1944, Cold War: 1945 - 1960

Themes: African American, Art & Music, Sports, US Foreign Policy, World History/Global Studies

Civil Rights Unionism: Tobacco Workers and the Struggle for Democracy in the Mid-Twentieth-Century South

Book - Non-fiction. By Robert Rodgers Korstad. 2003. 576 pages. Chronicles the rise and fall of the union that represented thousands of African American tobacco factory workers in Winston-Salem, N.C.

Time Periods: 20th Century, Turn of the Century: 1900 - 1909, World War I: 1910 - 1919, Prosperity, Depression, & World War II: 1920 - 1944

Themes: Labor, Racism & Racial Identity

Dark Sky Rising (Book) | Zinn Education Project

Dark Sky Rising: Reconstruction and the Dawn of Jim Crow

Book - Non-fiction. By Henry Louis Gates Jr. with Tonya Bolden. 2019. Readers trace the rise and fall of racial equity during Reconstruction as increasingly violent white supremacy and new forms of oppression take hold at the turn of the 20th century.

Time Periods: 19th Century, Reconstruction Period: 1865 - 1876, Industrial Revolution: 1877 - 1899, Turn of the Century: 1900 - 1909

Themes: African American, Reconstruction, Civil Rights Movements, Democracy & Citizenship, Organizing

Death in the Haymarket: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement and the Bombing that Divided Gilded Age America

Book - Non-fiction. By James Green. 2007. History of the late 19th century labor movement.

Time Periods: 20th Century, Turn of the Century: 1900 - 1909

Themes: Labor

Fannie Never Flinched (Book) | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History

Fannie Never Flinched: One Woman’s Courage in the Struggle for American Labor Union Rights

Book - Non-fiction. By Mary Cronk Farrell. 2016. 56 pages. Biography of labor union activist Fannie Sellins.

Time Periods: Industrial Revolution: 1877 - 1899, 20th Century, Turn of the Century: 1900 - 1909, World War I: 1910 - 1919

Themes: Labor, Women's History

A Peoples History of the United States Book | Zinn Education Project

A People’s History of the United States: 1492 – Present

Books - Non-fiction. By Howard Zinn. 2005, with a new introduction by Anthony Arnove in 2015. 784 pages. Howard Zinn's groundbreaking work on U.S. history. This book details lives and facts rarely included in textbooks—an indispensable teacher and student resource.

Time Periods: Colonization: 1492 - 1764, Revolution & Constitution: 1765 - 1799, Early 19th Century: 1800 - 1849, Civil War Era: 1850 - 1864, Reconstruction Period: 1865 - 1876, Industrial Revolution: 1877 - 1899, Turn of the Century: 1900 - 1909, World War I: 1910 - 1919, Prosperity, Depression, & World War II: 1920 - 1944, Cold War: 1945 - 1960, People’s Movement: 1961 - 1974, Post-Civil Rights Era: 1975 - 2000, 2001 - Present, All US History

Themes: African American, Reconstruction, Civil Rights Movements, Democracy & Citizenship, Economics, Education, Immigration, Imperialism, Labor, Laws & Citizen Rights, Native American, Organizing, Racism & Racial Identity, Slavery and Resistance, Social Class, US Foreign Policy, Wars & Related Anti-War Movements, Women's History

Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell About Life in the Segregated South

Book - Non-fiction (with CD). Edited by William H. Chafe, Raymond Gavins and Robert Korstad. 2008. Extensive oral history of African American life under segregation.

Time Periods: 20th Century, Turn of the Century: 1900 - 1909, World War I: 1910 - 1919, Prosperity, Depression, & World War II: 1920 - 1944, Cold War: 1945 - 1960, People’s Movement: 1961 - 1974

Themes: African American, Laws & Citizen Rights, Racism & Racial Identity, Social Class

Right to Ride: Streetcar Boycotts and African American Citizenship in the Era of Plessy v. Ferguson

Book - Non-fiction. By Blair L. M. Kelley. 2010. Examines acts of protest and resistance to segregated trains and streetcars during the early Jim Crow era.

Time Periods: 20th Century, Turn of the Century: 1900 - 1909

Themes: African American, Civil Rights Movements, Democracy & Citizenship

The Strange Careers of the Jim Crow North: Segregation and Struggle Outside of the South

Book — Non-fiction. Edited by Brian Purnell and Jeanne Theoharis with Komozi Woodard. 352 pages. 2019. This important work shows how the Jim Crow North maintained inequality in the nation’s most liberal places, and chronicles how activists worked to undo those inequities born of Northern Jim Crow.

Time Periods: 19th Century, 20th Century, Turn of the Century: 1900 - 1909, World War I: 1910 - 1919, Prosperity, Depression, & World War II: 1920 - 1944

Themes: African American, Civil Rights Movements, Laws & Citizen Rights, Racism & Racial Identity

They Left Great Marks on Me: African American Testimonies of Racial Violence from Emancipation to World War I

Book - Non-fiction. By Kidada Williams. 2012. 281 pages. This book documents African Americans' testimonies about racial violence during Jim Crow, and the crusades against that violence that became political training grounds for the Civil Rights Movement.

Time Periods: Reconstruction Period: 1865 - 1876, Industrial Revolution: 1877 - 1899, Turn of the Century: 1900 - 1909, World War I: 1910 - 1919

Themes: African American, Racism & Racial Identity