During the summer of 2009 the Hoover Presidential Library held a week long workshop for educators emphasizing the use of primary sources with students, grades 6-12th. The grant was made possible through The Library of Congress Midwest Center for Teaching with Primary Sources administered by the Illinois State University. Educators from across Iowa researched topics at the Hoover Presidential Library or online in the holdings of the Library of Congress. The following lesson plans were created and are presented as Word documents; allowing educators to download and edit the lessons to meet the needs of your students.

• Bonus Expeditionary Force: How Should it Be Handled? - Gas masks, MacArthur, World War I veterans: What do they all have in common in July of 1932? The answer is the Bonus Expeditionary Force. The Great Depression was in full swing and Herbert Hoover was in the White House. Thousands of World War I veterans converge on Washington, D.C., in July of 1932 demanding the government bonuses that were promised in 1919 to be paid out in 1945. What happened next is one of the most controversial actions in American History.
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• Communities and the WPA - The WPA was an ambitious public works project undertaken during the “Second New Deal.” Many communities owe infrastructure and public works to the program. By examining the WPA and New Deal, the learner can begin to comprehend the consequences and issues that resulted from creation and implementation of this program.
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• Consumer Choice in the 1920s: Women, Local Merchants and the Development of Retail Chain Stores - The period from 1900 to 1930 saw major transitions in the U.S. economy. Mass production, with its emphasis on efficiency, began to bring about changes in the ways products were made available to consumers. Mail-order catalogs and the development of chain stores, coupled with changes in transportation, put increasing pressure on local merchants. This lesson will help students explore these changes in consumerism and at the same time offer students a glimpse into the life of families in the early part of the 20th century.
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• Echoes of Dissent: A Comparison of Wartime Opposition - This lesson plan looks at several different student protests that occurred on the University of Iowa campus in 1967 and compares that opposition to the Vietnam War and subsequent draft to the Draft Riots that occurred in New York in 1863.
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• Hoover vs. Roosevelt: Great Depression Politics - The transition from Hoover to Roosevelt was a turning point in U.S. History where governmental involvement in people’s everyday lives dramatically increased. In this lesson students will explore the differing policies of Hoover and Roosevelt to see how governmental involvement increased and also the public’s reaction to those policies during the Great Depression.
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• Imperialism—A Blessing or a Curse? - "To robbery, slaughter, plunder they gave the lying name of empire; they make a desert and call it peace." Cornelius Tacitus, a great Roman Senator, uttered these words 2,000 years ago, and they have been ringing true ever since. Using primary sources, students examine what impact empire-building had on nations throughout the world during the Age of Imperialism.
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• Spanish-American War Propaganda Lesson - After an official investigation, the U.S. Navy reported that the USS Maine had been blown up by a mine. The Navy did not blame any person or country for the explosion. Spain controlled Cuba at the time. The relationship between Spain and the U.S. became so strained that they could no longer discuss the situation. By the end of April, the Spanish-American War had begun. Why did the United States take this extreme position after only a few short months? To find out, examine some of the records from that era to decide for yourself the answer to the question.
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• The Cuban Missile Crisis: How close were we to nuclear war? - The world has never been closer to nuclear war than it did during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. The Cuban government led by Fidel Castro and the Soviet government led by Nikita Khrushchev placed nuclear missiles in Cuba. The United States led by John F. Kennedy discovered the weapons by the use of U-2 planes, which then created thirteen very tense days for Americans, Cubans and Soviets. In the end, the Soviets pulled back from Cuba and the world avoided a nuclear war. This lesson is to be used after the study of Korean War and during the study of John F. Kennedy and his presidency.
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• The "Dirty Thirties" (otherwise known as the Dust Bowl) - The calamity of the 1930 Dust Bowl has been lost to most students of American history. The chairman of the American National Red Cross told a national radio audience, “In all its experience of more than a thousand emergencies the Red Cross has never been confronted by a disaster of larger proportions. As part of this unit, students will critically examine, respond to, and report on photographs and documents as historical evidence of the widespread effects of the 1930s Dust Bowl.
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• The Quest for the Eight-Hour Workday: Chicago "Anarchists" on Trial - A major conflict in U.S. labor history is the pursuit by many workmen for an eight-hour workday. This goal was seriously jeopardized by the events that occurred in Chicago’s Haymarket in 1886. In analyzing primary documents for the trial of the murders of Chicago police officers, students will be able to gain a sense of the conflicting viewpoints in America during the time period.
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• Understanding the ERA - This lesson plan is designed to be a part of a unit on Women’s Suffrage or Civil Rights. Students should have some background on Women’s Suffrage. Once suffrage was achieved, some women felt that the Constitution was lacking an amendment showing equality between the sexes. In 1923, Alice Paul proposed the first Equal Rights Amendment. Although this amendment has not been fully ratified, it has been on the Congressional schedule every year since 1923. The purpose of this lesson is to allow students the opportunity to read the ERA, listen to the opposing sides, and demonstrate for or against the ERA depending on their own rationale.
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• Walt Whitman - Walt Whitman is one of the most important and influential American poets. Whitman’s writing underwent extensive revision over the years. In this lesson, those revisions and his creative process will be explored through the use of primary sources: the notebooks and journals he kept over the course of his life.
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