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Insights for teachers to continue the conversation.

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ByEllen Tucker

Primary documents give us unexpected perspectives on history. Landen Schmeichel sees this often when using documents in his Advanced Placement US History course at Legacy High School in Bismarck, North Dakota. During a unit on the Progressive movement, he asked students to read an excerpt of Justice David Brewer’s 1908 ruling in Muller v. Oregon. It upheld an Oregon State law prohibiting women from working more than 10 hours in a day. After they read the excerpt, Schmeichel showed students a textbook summary of the ruling that called it a win for women. But in the opinion, Brandeis referred to women as a class of persons needing protection because they were physically weaker than men. He also argued that their energies needed to be conserved for service in the home. “Wait a minute,” a female student said. “What if I want to work more than 10 hours? Wouldn't this ruling do the opposite of what the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment intends?”

From the Blog
ByTAH Staff

Applications open soon for our Fall 2024 Multi Day seminars! We are hosting seminars on a variety of topics in American history and politics. The application will be open April 8-April 30. Some of our topics include: The Underground Railroad at The Underground Railroad Heritage Center in Niagara Falls, NY West Coast Immigration at the Angel Island Immigration Station on Angel Island, CA Contested Elections: 1800, 1824, 1874, 1960 & 2000 at the JFK Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, MA The World Wars and the American State at the Indiana War Memorial Museum in Indianapolis, IN The American Founding at Valley Forge National Historical Park in Valley Forge, PA Reconstruction at Natchez National Historical Park in Natchez, MS From Brown v. Board to Little Rock and Beyond: School Desegregation and the Civil Rights Movement at Little Rock Central High School Historic Site in Little Rock, AR Abraham Lincoln and the New Birth of Freedom at the Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, IL Westward Expansion: Conflict, Conservation, and the Environment at the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles, CA

From the Blog

Thomas Jefferson is most famous for eloquently articulating three natural rights that belong to “all men”—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But Jefferson held that humans had more than just those three rights; in 1803, he was particularly worried about “the natural right we have always insisted on with Spain; to wit that of a nation holding the upper part of streams, having a right of innocent passage thro’ them to the ocean”

From the Blog
ByTAH Staff

In our Documents and Debates series, we’ve selected the documents to recreate the debate over a particular issue that highlights one of the enduring themes of American life: balancing freedom, equality, liberty and order; the struggle of groups for full inclusion in American life; the role of the government in overseeing the economic life of American citizens; and the ongoing argument over the role America should play in world affairs.