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Middle School

19th Century, Activities, Middle School

John Hossack’s Speech on the Fugitive Slave Law

Speech given by John Hossack at his sentencing for violating the Fugitive Slave Law.

Jennifer Paulsen
October 5, 2026

19th Century, Classroom Materials, High School, Lesson Plans, Middle School

Indenture and Enslavement in Illinois

Indenture contract between John Posey and Phillis

Hilary Mac Austin
December 19, 2024

19th Century, Activities, High School, Lesson Plans, Middle School

Nineteenth-Century Currency

$1 bank note with illustrations (clockwise from top) of industrious white farmers, stateman Daniel Webster, and three Indigenous people.

Hilary Mac Austin
November 18, 2024

20th Century, Classroom Materials, Lesson Plans, Middle School

Black Childhood and the Great Migration

Hand-colored portrait of seven young Black men in basketball uniforms. Another Black man stands in the back row wearing a suit. The young man sitting in the front holds a basketball with the text "YMCA Champs 1921."

Dr. Michael Hines & Alexandrea Henry, Stanford University
September 12, 2024

20th Century, Classroom Materials, Lesson Plans, Middle School

Black Labor and the Great Migration

Chart in a printed book showing the percentages of white and Black workers employed in different industries in 1930. Substantially larger percentages of Black men and women work in semi-skilled and unskilled jobs than white men and women. The difference is more pronounced for women, because 55.7% of Black women work as servants.

Dr. Michael Hines & Alexandrea Henry, Stanford University
September 12, 2024

20th Century, Classroom Materials, Lesson Plans, Middle School

The Black Church and the Great Migration

Large, multi-story stone church on a residential streetcorner.

Dr. Michael Hines & Alexandrea Henry, Stanford University
September 12, 2024

17th Century, Activities, Middle School

Mapping Early America: Peoples, Animals, and Environments

Dr. Danielle Alesi
May 28, 2024

17th Century, Classroom Materials, High School, Lesson Plans, Middle School

Early European Travel in Illinois: Land, Animals, and the Environment

Engraved illustration of a bison standing in a wooded landscape with a stork or pelican and an opossum nearby.

Dr. Danielle Alesi
May 28, 2024

20th Century, Classroom Materials, Lesson Plans, Middle School

Women of the Great Migration, Part II: Women Journalists

Eighteen well-dressed African American women posing for a picture. They sit and stand in three rows in an alleyway between a fence and a building.

Freda D. Brown, 2024 DAR Fellow
May 6, 2024

20th Century, Classroom Materials, Lesson Plans, Middle School

Women of the Great Migration, Part I: Letters from the South

Colored glass slide showing 15 Black women working at sewing machines in a large hall. Completed dresses hang on the walls around them.

Freda D. Brown, 2024 DAR Fellow
May 6, 2024

20th Century, Classroom Materials, Lesson Plans, Middle School

The Chicago Defender as the North Star

Approximately 30 Black men in suits and ties sit at two long tables in a small, well-decorated room. Most have reading material in front of them. Two stand at a rack of newspapers on the side of the room.

Freda D. Brown, 2024 DAR Fellow
May 6, 2024

Classroom Materials, Elementary School, Middle School, Skills Lessons

Skills Lesson: Ephemera

Anti-women's-suffrage postcard showing an angry white man nursing a baby while a white woman, implied to be his wife, is protesting for women's votes outside.

Hilary Mac Austin
March 4, 2024