- Zinn Education Project

Lewis Hine’s Photographs

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

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

The Power in Our Hands: A Curriculum on the History of Work and Workers in the United States

Teaching Guide. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond. 1988. 184 pages.
Role plays and writing activities project high school students into real-life situations to explore the history and contemporary reality of employment (and unemployment) in the U.S.

Teaching Activity by Norm Diamond

Resistance in Paradise: Rethinking 100 Years of U.S. Involvement in the Caribbean and the Pacific

Teaching Guide. Edited by Debbie Wei and Rachel Kamel. 1998. 199 pages.
Readings and teaching ideas for high school students on the Spanish-American War.

Ballots for Belva: The True Story of a Woman’s Race for the Presidency

Picture book. By Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen. Illustrated by Courtney E. Martin. 2008. 32 pages.
Biography of Belva Lockwood who ran for president in 1884.

Carter Reads the Newspaper

Picture book. By Deborah Hopkinson. Illustrated by Don Tate. 2019. 36 pages.
This picture book chronicles the young life of Dr. Carter G. Woodson, an Appalachian-born Harvard scholar and advocate for African American history. He founded Negro History Week in 1926 (which grew into Black History Month), the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), and the Journal of Negro History.

Kid Blink Beats the World

Picture book. By Don Brown. 2004. 32 pages.
The story of the 1899 strike by the children who sold newspapers on the street for grades K-4.

Alligator Bayou

Book — Historical fiction. By Donna Jo Napoli. 2010. 288 pages.
Historical fiction for young adults based on the true story of the lynching of Italian Americans in late 19th century Louisiana.

Black Reconstruction in America

Book — Non-fiction. By W. E. B. Du Bois. Edited by Eric Foner and Henry Louis Gates. 2021. 1097 pages.
Originally published in 1935, Du Bois’ Black Reconstruction was the first book to challenge the prevailing racist historical narrative of the era and in sharp, incisive prose, tell the story of the Civil War and Reconstruction from the perspective of African Americans.

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. 240 pages.
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.

The Era of Reconstruction, 1861-1900

Book — Non-fiction. By National Park Service. 2017. 165 pages.
A theme study on the history of the Reconstruction era.

Escape to Gold Mountain: A Graphic History of the Chinese in North America

Book — Non-fiction. By David H.T. Wong. 2012. 240 pages.
A graphic novel that gives a panoramic but also an intimate look at the Chinese experience in North America.

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.

Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America’s Empire

Book — Non-fiction. By Jonathan M. Katz. 2022. 432 pages.
This book traces a path from the first wave of U.S. overseas expansionism to the rise of fascism in the 1930s to the crises of democracy in our own time.

Teaching Activity by Jonathan M. Katz

House of Purple Cedar

Book — Fiction. By Tim Tingle. 2014. 326 pages.
A young girl's story of growing up in Indian Territory in pre-statehood Oklahoma.

In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse

Book — Fiction. By Joseph Marshall III. Illustrations by Jim Yellowhawk. 2015. 176 pages.
A contemporary Native American boy learns about the history of Crazy Horse in a journey with his grandfather.

Missing from Haymarket Square

Book — Fiction. By Harriette Gillem Robinet. 2003. 142 pages.
Historical fiction chapter book on the Haymarket labor struggles and massacre.

Monumental: Oscar Dunn and His Radical Fight in Reconstruction Louisiana

Book — Non-fiction. By Brian K. Mitchell, Barrington S. Edwards, and Nick Weldon. 2021. 256 pages.
This Reconstruction history graphic novel tells the story of Oscar James Dunn, a New Orleanian who became the first Black lieutenant governor and acting governor in the United States.

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

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

Book — 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.

A Short History of Reconstruction, Updated Edition

Book — Non-fiction. By Eric Foner. 2015. 352 pages.
A people's history view of the Reconstruction era.

Slave Nation: How Slavery United the Colonies & Sparked the American Revolution

Book — Non-fiction. By Alfred Blumrosen and Ruth Blumrosen. 2006. 304 pages.
A detailed account of the role slavery played in the Revolutionary War and the writing of the U.S. Constitution.

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.

To ‘joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women’s Lives and Labors After the Civil War

Book — Non-fiction. By Tera W. Hunter. 1998.
An examination of post-Civil War lives of African American women, focusing on their labor organizing, leisure, hope, and struggle.

The Untold History of the United States: Young Readers Editions, Vols 1 (1898-1945) & 2 (1945-1962)

Book — Non-fiction. By Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick. Adapted by Susan Campbell Bartoletti and Eric S. Singer. Vol 1. 2014. 400 pages. Vol 2. 2019. 320 pages.
These are two volumes of illustrated histories, adapted for students from a documentary book and film of the same name.

Mary Harris “Mother” Jones

Profile. Mother Jones (1830–1930) was a labor leader and organizer.

Roudanez: History and Legacy

Digital collection. The work of Dr. Louis Charles Roudanez, founder of the first Black daily newspaper in the U.S., the New Orleans Tribune, with articles, excerpts, videos, and a timeline.