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We are adding inquiry-based lessons every week and constantly seeking those that are already out there by others. If you have one to contribute, email us at remedialherstory@gmail.com.
Inquiries are provided in chronological order. Click here for How to Teach with Remedial Herstory Lessons. |
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The Antebellum Era: Abolition is Women's Ticket
Eaton, Mrs. Margaret Peggy O'Neill, old lady. , None. [Between 1870 and 1880] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2017893306/.
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Was Andrew Jackson a president for the common folk?
Despite his reputation as such, Jackson's reputation as a president for common people is disputed. Some of the greatest primary accounts and historian perspectives on him are written by women. In this inquiry, students will examine the whole of Jackson: his elections, his bank veto, the Indian Removal Act, the Peggy Eaton Affair, and the Trail of Tears. Students will decide if he deserves that status. Because this lesson tackles so many topics, it would be best taught over several days. Teachers could take documents related to one piece of Jackson to supplement lessons on him they already teach and add in a women's perspective. Possible Extension: in 2020 one of the male historians cited in this lesson, a leading scholar on Andrew Jackson's history, gave a talk that resulted in scandal in that he first refused to name Jackson's Indian policies as genocidal, and proceeded to tear down the scholarship of female historians. This was part of a larger scandal in how non-diverse the panelists were. After teaching this lesson, consider reading this New York Times article with the class and discussing the controversies over historical scholarship, diversity, and the 
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Susanna Hargreaves, "The Harriet E. Wilson Memorial in Milford," last modified June 3, 2020, https://www.nhmagazine.com.
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Was indentured servitude different from slavery?
To answer this question, students compare the lives of two women: Harriet E. Wilson an indentured servant woman born to a black father and white mother in New Hampshire and Harriet Jacobs, a well known escaped slave who settled in Pennsylvania and became very active in the abolition movement. Both women were published writers, unique for women of their time and position. More on Harriet E. Wilson and access to her full book is linked here. Harriet Jacobs' book is linked here. This lesson would follow the Stanford History Education Group lesson, "Colonial Settlers," provided below, well.
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Lessons from Others
- Women and Slavery:
- Stanford History Education Group: In 1937, the Federal Writers' Project began collecting what would become the largest archive of interviews with former slaves. Few firsthand accounts exist from those who suffered in slavery, making this an exceptional resource for students of history. However, as with all historical documents, there are important considerations for students to bear in mind when reading these sources. In this lesson, students examine three of these accounts to answer the question: What can we learn about slavery from interviews with former slaves?
- Gilder Lehrman: Women always played a significant role in the struggle against slavery and discrimination. White and black Quaker women and female slaves took a strong moral stand against slavery. As abolitionists, they circulated petitions, wrote letters and poems, and published articles in the leading anti-slavery periodicals such as the Liberator. Some of these women educated blacks, both free and enslaved, and some of them joined the American Anti-Slavery Society and founded their own biracial organization, the Philadelphia Women’s Anti-Slavery Society. The little-known history of most of these women is a fragmented one. While several of the most well-known activists are mentioned in accounts of the abolitionist movement, there is scant reference to most other female abolitionists. Some brief biographies make reference to the births and deaths of the lesser-known women but offer only limited mention of their work. Through research and analysis in the classroom, students will learn about the diversity of women who participated in anti-slavery activities, the variety of activities and goals they pursued, and the barriers they faced as women.
- National History Day: Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, the daughter of Lyman and Roxanna Beecher. Harriet grew up in a household that held equality and service to others in the highest regard. Her father and all seven of her brothers became ministers, while her sisters, Catherine and Isabella, were champions of women’s education and suffrage. Harriet received a formal education at Sarah Pierce’s Academy, one of the first institutions focused on educating young women. There she discovered her talent for writing. Harriet became a teacher and author, proving to be an outspoken woman in a time when female voices often went unheard. Following in her family’s tradition of service, she became a passionate abolitionist. She published more than thirty works in her lifetime, the most famous of which was Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a novel that exposed the evils of slavery. Through her writings and speaking engagements, Harriet Beecher Stowe effectively helped to open the eyes of the world to the urgent problem of slavery in the United States. Did Stowe misrepresent slavery?
- Gilder Lehrman: The accounts of African American slavery in textbooks routinely conflate the story of male and female slaves into one history. Textbooks rarely enable students to grapple with the lives and challenges of women constrained by the institution of slavery. The collections of letters and autobiographies of slave women in the nineteenth century now available on the Internet open a window onto the lives of these women and allow teachers and students to explore this history. Using the classroom as a historical laboratory, students can use these primary sources to research, read, evaluate, and interpret the words of African American slave women. The students can be historians; they can discover the history of African American slave women and write their history.
- Gilder Lehrman: Children’s Attitudes about Slavery and Women’s Abolitionism as Seen through Anti-slavery Fairs: Over two days, students will examine the attitudes that children from northern states had about slavery during the 1830s to 1860s and how abolitionists tried to change their way of thinking. They will also explore how woman abolitionists used anti-slavery fairs to generate support for the anti-slavery cause.
- Edcitement: Elizabeth Keckly was born into slavery in 1818 near Petersburg, Virginia. She learned to sew from her mother, an expert seamstress enslaved in the Burwell family. After thirty years as a Burwell slave, Keckly purchased her and her only son's freedom. Later, when Keckly moved to Washington, D. C., she became an exclusive dress designer whose most famous client was First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln. Keckly’s enduring fame results from her close relationship with Mrs. Lincoln, documented in her memoir, Behind the Scenes, or Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House (1868). In this lesson, students learn firsthand about the childhoods of Jacobs and Keckly from reading excerpts from their autobiographies. They practice reading for both factual information and making inferences from these two primary sources. They will also learn from a secondary source about commonalities among those who experienced their childhood in slavery. By putting all this information together and evaluating it, students get the chance to "be" historians and experience what goes into making sound judgments about a certain problem—in this case, how did child slaves live?
- Stanford History Education Group: In 1937, the Federal Writers' Project began collecting what would become the largest archive of interviews with former slaves. Few firsthand accounts exist from those who suffered in slavery, making this an exceptional resource for students of history. However, as with all historical documents, there are important considerations for students to bear in mind when reading these sources. In this lesson, students examine three of these accounts to answer the question: What can we learn about slavery from interviews with former slaves?
- Seneca Falls:
- Stanford History Education Group: When the 19th Amendment was passed in 1920, the fight for women’s suffrage had already gone on for decades. Many women had hoped that women would win suffrage at the same time as African Americans. However, the Fifteenth Amendment only extended suffrage to African-American men. In this lesson, students explore the broad context of the women’s suffrage movement through reading selections from Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
- Gilder Lehrman: Under the leadership of Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a convention for the rights of women was held in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. It was attended by between 200 and 300 people, both women and men. Its primary goal was to discuss the rights of women—how to gain these rights for all, particularly in the political arena. The conclusion of this convention was that the effort to secure equal rights across the board would start by focusing on suffrage for women. The participants wrote the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions, patterned after the Declaration of Independence. It specifically asked for voting rights and for reforms in laws governing marital status. Reactions to the convention and the new Declaration were mixed. Many people felt that the women and their sympathizers were ridiculous, and newspapers denounced the women as unfeminine and immoral. Little substantive change resulted from the Declaration in 1848, but from that time through 1920, when the goal of women’s suffrage was attained with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, the Declaration served as a written reminder of the goals of the movement.
- Edcitement: In the spirit of Abigail Adams's challenge to her husband (and his colleagues), this lesson looks at the women's suffrage movement that grew out of debates following the Declaration of Independence and the conclusion of the Continental Congress by "remembering the ladies" who are too often overlooked when teaching about the "foremothers" of the movements for suffrage and women's equality in U.S. history. Grounded in the critical inquiry question "Who's missing?" and in the interest of bringing more perspectives to who the suffrage movement included, this resource will help to ensure that students learn about some of the lesser-known activists who, like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and Susan B. Anthony, participated in the formative years of the women's rights movement.
- Stanford History Education Group: When the 19th Amendment was passed in 1920, the fight for women’s suffrage had already gone on for decades. Many women had hoped that women would win suffrage at the same time as African Americans. However, the Fifteenth Amendment only extended suffrage to African-American men. In this lesson, students explore the broad context of the women’s suffrage movement through reading selections from Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.