Lesson Ideas

Inquiry Tasks

• The Red Scare, from the University of Ohio, asks students to analyze political cartoons, identifying stereotypes, symbols, and caricature used as propaganda. How do such reflections of public sentiment reflect nativism and protectionism, specifically in regard to the era of the Red Scare?

• The Jury's Still Out, from the New York Times Learning Network, is a lesson in which students work in groups to examine provided evidence in order to determine the guilt or innocence of Sacco and Vanzetti. 

• Palmer Raids, a lesson from the Stanford Education Group, challenges students to contrast the opposing positions of A. Mitchell Palmer and Emma Goldman concerning the potential threat of leftists to national security.   

• World War I: What Are We Fighting For Over There? from the Library of Congress, asks students to use evidence from the library's collection to compose a newspaper editorial explaining motivations for entry into the war or neutrality. To what extent did Great War significantly shaped the course of the twentieth century, both at home and abroad?

• U.S. Entry into World War I, from Read Like a Historian, is a lesson which uses both primary and secondary sources to answer the question, “Why did the U.S. move from neutrality to entering WW1?”   

• Fighting for Peace: The Fate of Wilson's Fourteen Points, from Edsitement, asks the question, “Did the Versailles Treaty fulfill Wilson’s 14 points or betray them?"  Ask students to analyze the provided historical documents as they attempt to answer the question in a brief essay response.

• Ohio State University offers an engaging and student-friendly task, Wilson's 14 Points, using political cartoons to assist students in expanding their understanding of the role of the United States in World War I. How and why did the United States' role in international affairs change following the war?

• Great Migration, from the Stanford Education Group, asks students to identify and describe the push and pull factors which motivated Africans Americans to migrate from southern regions to the north. Encourage students to debate whether social injustices or economic opportunities served as the primary catalyst for this era's migrations.

• League of Nations, a Read Like a Historian lesson, encourages students to examine a set of historic documents to answer the questions, “Why did the U.S. Senate reject the League of Nations?" Ask students to practice skills of sourcing and contextualization as they extend their learning by examining what the average American believed about the League of Nations using the lesson, Debate Over the League of Nations.  

• Labor Strike, a lesson from the National Humanities Center, encourages students to analyze the battle between workers drawn by the promises of unions and the industrialists who had rejected unions as inspired by communist agitators. How did the attempt to unionize fuel the Red Scare and create anti-union feelings among the public?   

•  The First Red Scare, an inquiry-based investigation and authentic assessment developed by the Oklahoma State Department of Education, asks students to formulate an informed response to the essential question, "Should individual liberties be restricted for the common good of domestic peace and security?" Students access an edited collection of visual and textual historic sources provided online in a livebinder format. Using evidence from sources, ask students to assume the role of a member of the Senate committee investigating whether the Immigration Act of 1918 should be repealed. As a committee member, students must decide which witnesses to call for testimony and justify each decision.

• Red Scare: The Palmer Raids and Civil Liberties, from the University of California Irvine, offers a well developed unit of study in which students use background information provided and historical documents to investigate the immediate and long-term impact on Constitutional liberties and due process rights at stake during the the Red Scare and the Palmer raids. 

•  Sedition in World War, a lesson from the Stanford Education Group, challenges students consider whether critics of the First World War were anti-American after examining anti-war documents from socialist leaders Eugene Debs and Charles Schenck, as well as excerpts from the Sedition Act, and a Supreme Court ruling upholding the act.

•  Understanding the Great Migration, from the University of Maryland, provides an extensive inquiry asking students to work collaboratively, analyzing a set of primary documents prior to drawing conclusions to explain the major reasons why African Americans migrated north. Encourage students to participate in a mock town hall meeting, representing historic figures and expressing each person's experiences during this era.

• Use the presentation, World War I in Propaganda, provided by O.C.S.S., to engage student groups in analyzing the motivations for entry into the war, as well as to identify the types of public support recruited for the war effort. Encourage students to conduct independent research regarding the homefront and how the nation mobilized to support its troops. How was the war funded? How did the need to feed the troops change American agriculture? What personal sacrifices were expected of citizens?

• Labor Unions and Prosperity, from the National Humanities Center, asks students to examine documents from the American Federation of Labor to determine the appeal of socialist ideals to laborers, as well as labor's attempt to distance itself from radicalism.

Primary Sources 

Secondary Sources 

• World War I Posters and Cartoons, collection provided by O.C.S.S. for student and teacher reference.

• Letter to Germany, by President Woodrow Wilson, Signed by Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, 1915 (excerpt).

• On the Loyalty Oath, State of the Union, address by President Wilson, 1915. 

• Peace Without Victory, President Woodrow Wilson, Address to 64th Congress, 2nd Session, January 22, 1917 (excerpt provided by O.C.S.S.) 

• Zimmerman Telegram, decoded, 1917.

• America's Entry into the War, William Howard Taft, address at Union College, 1917.

• Espionage Act, excerpt, 1917. 

• Immigration Act, Public Law 221, Sixty-fifth Congress, Session II, 1918. 

• Step by Step, political cartoon by Sid Greene, New York Evening Telegram, 1919. 

• Trench Warfare, photograph, Keystone View Company. 

• The Cloud, political cartoon, Atlanta Constitution, January 19, 1919.

• Abrams v. United States, dissenting opinion, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, U.S. Supreme Court, 1919. 

• Palmer Raids,The Evening World, 1919.

• Emma Goldman Statement, federal deportation hearing, 1919. 

• The Case Against the Reds, Attorney General Mitchell Palmer, 1920.

• Bolshevism Kill It Now, political cartoon by F.T. Richards, Life Magazine,1920. 

• Uncle Sam and the Reds, political cartoon by W. A. Rogers, 1918, Library of Congress.

• Reds Raided, front page, New York Times, 1920. 

• Address to the Jury, Clarence Darrow, Gitlow v. The People of New York, 1925. 

• Report on the Illegal Practices of the U.S. Department of Justice, Felix Frankfurter, National Popular Government League, May, 1920.

• Appeal for Support of the League of Nations, Woodrow Wilson, 1924.

• Justice the Issue, flyer, Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee, July, 1927. 

• Long-Lasting Legacy of the Great Migration, article from the Smithsonian Magazine.

• Interview: Journalist Isabel Wilkerson - Exploring The Great African-American Migration, author of The Warmth of Other Suns, NPR.

• Red Scare, article from International Encyclopedia of the First World War. 

• Red Scare | The First Amendment Encyclopedia for student and teacher reference.

• History Brief: The Red Scare in the 1920s, 4-minute video synopsis about the First Red Scare from Reading Through History.

• Post War Red Scare, synopsis for student reference from Digital History.

•  World War I from Digital History provides students with an overview of the war, documents, events, people, music of the era, and multimedia.

• The Case of Sacco and Vanzetti, Atlantic Magazine, March, 1927; Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter's recollections.

• Sacco and Vanzetti Case 90 Years Later: What to Know, Time magazine, reviews the historic case and why it is still import a century after the act.