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SLAVERY AND THE MAKING OF AMERICA
"Slavery and the Making of America ... the most powerful and important television work on the subject since 'Roots'..."--4 STARS, DAILY NEWS
This site was originally created in support of the PBS series SLAVERY AND THE MAKING OF AMERICA, produced by Thirteen/WNET New York and sponsored by New York Life Insurance Company. The series premiered in February 2004.
Underwritten by New York Life Insurance Company, the series is part of a broader New York Life educational initiative that includes this Web site.
The series is produced by Thirteen/WNET New York, which also produced THE RISE AND FALL OF JIM CROW.
For more information on the four one-hour programs of this series, click here.
 DVD OF THE SERIES AND THE COMPANION VOLUME
DVD SETS: To order the DVD version of SLAVERY AND THE MAKING OF AMERICA, go to http://www.documentary-video.com/displayitem.cfm?vid=1161. The retail price for the four-DVD giftbox set is $79.99.
COMPANION VOLUME:
Click here to save over 30% on your copy of SLAVERY AND THE MAKING OF AMERICA, the companion volume to the series, by James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton. Published by Oxford University Press, the book offers a richly illustrated, vividly written history that illuminates the human side of this inhumane institution.
Click here to read four excerpts from SLAVERY AND THE MAKING OF AMERICA.
NOW ONLINE!
A new educator's site also sponsored by New York Life is now online. THE HISTORY OF THE SUPREME COURT site can be found at www.historyofsupremecourt.org. Created by a collaboration of classroom teachers, historians, and legal scholars, the site presents the history of America's highest court within a series of broad themes drawn from the social studies curriculum. Examples include 'The Court and Gender', 'The Court and Young People', and 'The Court Today', which tracks the present changing Court in real time and focuses on the issues now under consideration.
The series will air during the 2006-2007 broadcast season.
Explore the site at www.historyofsupremecourt.org.
NOW ONLINE!
MELROSE INTERACTIVE SLAVERY ENVIRONMENT TAKES STUDENTS INTO THE WORLD OF THE ENSLAVED.
Be sure to check out our newest resource. It's unlike anything anywhere else on the Internet, and it will give your students a vivid sense of the world of the enslaved.
The Melrose Interactive Slavery Environment, more than a year in the making, takes your students into Melrose, a pre-Civil War "suburban estate." Students will explore the estate from the perspective of the men, women, and children who were enslaved there.
The real-life Melrose, in Natchez Mississippi, was the home of the McMurran family, who owned all or part of five plantations in one of the wealthiest slave-based districts of the lower-South. Today, Melrose is part of the Natchez Historical Park administered by the United States Park Service.
Many pre-Civil War planters built suburban estates close to towns and urban communities, preferring to live there in luxury rather than on their working plantations surrounded by the dust and harsh conditions that came with growing cotton, rice, tobacco, or sugar with enslaved field labor. These great houses were the centers of the genteel southern life romanticized in so many books and films.
Life was not so genteel, however, for the 23 people who were enslaved at Melrose in 1850. As students will find when they enter the estate, the slaves' day usually began before sunrise and continued long after the McMurran family was asleep. As the visitor moves from room to room in the big house, and from structure to structure on the estate, he or she hears voices representing the African-American people who worked there, explaining the kind of work that consumed their entire lives as enslaved domestic servants. These voices are provided by a group of actors headed by Meschach Taylor ("Designing Women" and "Dave's World.")
We'll be doing frequent uploads that will include some of the most exciting and important material on the site--for example, the Interactive Slavery Environment set at Melrose, a grand suburban estate administered by the National Park Service just outside of Natchez, Mississippi. Your students will explore this remarkable estate online, seeing it not as a setting for a gracious "Gone With the Wind" lifestyle, but instead as an often-grueling workplace for enslaved men, women, and children.
We've also added a couple of approaches to use with the Melrose Interactive Slave Experience from teachers who have already used this interactive tool in their classrooms with great success. These lessons are entitled, Using Collage to Represent Themes of the Melrose House Experience, and A Mini-Unit: The Melrose House and Multigenre Writing. There are also many more first hand experiences on audio in the Narratives/biographies section, categorized by topics covered.
Today we have a major upload of new materials and the announcement of an innovative educational event that brings together classroom teachers and some of America's pre-eminent historians.
Most Recent Lesson Plans:
A Mini-Unit: The Melrose House and Multigenre Writing
In this unit, students will travel virtually through the Melrose house, one of the wealthiest homes of 19th-century Natchez, Mississippi. Students will have the opportunity to learn about the lives and conditions of slaves as they "travel" through the interactive online house and slave quarters. They will demonstrate what they have learned, thought, and felt by creating a multigenre project.
Target grade levels: Middle and high school, grades 7-12
For use with: Melrose Interactive Slavery Environment
Uncle Tom's Cabin Unit of Study
This unit contains examines one of the most influential pieces of American literature, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and its effects on American society and culture during and after the slave era. Through a series of seven lessons, individual students and groups will investigate primary and secondary sources to explore the life of Harriet Beecher Stowe, her relationships with her family and other celebrities of the time period, and the content and context of the novel. Thus unit contains nine lessons and one essay.
Target grade levels: Middle and high school, grades 6-12
For use with: Uncle Tom's Cabin, studies on slavery
Using Collage to Represent Themes of the Melrose House Experience Lesson Plan
Using the Melrose Interactive Slave Environment, students will explore the home and slave quarters of a wealthy pre-Civil War family from the perspective of the slaves who lived and worked there. Students will create a collage to represent one theme that they feel represents an aspect of the Melrose House slave experience.
Target grade levels: Middle and high school, grades 7-12
For use with: Melrose Interactive Slavery Environment
Slavery and Native Americans Lesson Plan: 1600-1865
Native American tribes, on a small scale, practiced some form of slavery. Using the essay, Slavery and Native Americans in British North America and the United States: 1600 to 1865, students will investigate this lesser known area of history. Students will be actively engaged in reading and processing the historical essay and will develop an electronic presentation related to the topic.
Target grade levels: Middle and high school, grades 7-12
For use with: Slavery and Native Americans in British North America and the United States: 1600 to 1865
A Gathering of Old Men Unit of Study
This unit of study on Ernest Gaines' A Gathering of Old Men fully integrates history into the literature curriculum. Lessons range from literary technique to classical study of literature to the history of slavery in Louisiana, where the story is set, and the role of the African-American Church, offering students insight into the lives of the enslaved of America's past.
Target grade levels: High school, grades 11-12
For use with: Essay: Historical Overview
Investigation into Local Slave Rebellions
This lesson challenges students to investigate a slave rebellion that happened in close proximity to where they live so they can use resources found at their local library, historical society, or state archives as sources for their search. Students then will compile any information they have found in a graphic organizer that explores plantation life, causes of the rebellion, and individuals involved..
Target grade levels: High school, grades 11-12
For use with: Essay: Historical Overview
The Great Awakening Lesson Plan: African-American Churches and Abolition
The Great Awakening of the late 1700s changed many things in American Society. It pulled communities that were drifting apart back together and introduced new concepts that, up until then, were not common. In this lesson, students study the Great Awakening through the study of slave narratives and biographies. This lesson was created as a direct result of the George Washington University teacher symposium, held in January 2005.
Target grade levels: High school, grades 9-12
The Constitution and the Hydra of Slavery
In this lesson, students will examine the interconnection between slavery, the constitutional clauses involving the three-fifths compromise and the composition of the Electoral College, and the 1800 presidential election between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.
Target grade levels: High school, grades 9-12
For use with: Essay: Historical Overview
New Image Collection!
Photographer Henry P. Moore, of Concord, New Hampshire, captures a brief moment of tranquility in the life of enslaved refugees on the Sea Islands along the South Carolina Coast shortly after Yankee soldiers occupied the islands. See these remarkable images in the Contraband Slaves and the Civil War: The Photographs of Henry P. Moore collection.
New Map!
Slave Insurrections
Although there were many incidents of organized slave rebellion, only several hundred are documented with reliable evidence. This map shows where some 313 rebellions, or alleged revolts by groups of ten or more slaves, took place as reported in official records and newspaper accounts.
Here are some new materials dealing with the labor-intensive crops that perpetuated the institution of slavery in the South.
The Changing Interpretations of History
These new materials have one thing in common: they all deal with the processing of information of historical events, and how those interpretations are challenged and revised, illuminating as much about the climate of the current era as the era in which the events originally took place.
The Black Press in Antebellum America:
In antebellum America, black-owned and -edited newspapers served as a medium for discussions on racism, abolition, African-American culture, morality, literature, education, and much more within the African-American communities across the nation. Targeting both the black reading population and the opinion of whites in the United States and beyond, the antebellum black press presented a black perspective on current events, including topics such as civil rights for blacks, integration vs. segregation or separatism, women's rights, and temperance. The black press of that time focused on the abolishment of slavery, but the editors and contributors did not always agree on the means for achieving that goal.
The Press and the Hemings-Jefferson Story from 1802 to 2001:
Newspapers have always shaped and reflected public opinion, and looking at the scandal surrounding Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings tells us much about the public's view of slavery and its legacy over time.
Sally Hemings Biography
The enslaved woman Sally Hemings was the half-sister of Martha Wayles, the white woman who married Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States. Read about her life and her relationship with President Thomas Jefferson.
The Bondwoman's Narrative Lesson Plan Unit
The focus is on The Bondwoman's Narrative as a primary source, with secondary emphasis, research, and discussion on the factors/influences surrounding the novel as a historical text--the discovery of the original manuscript; the person credited with its discovery, purchase, and publication; the controversy surrounding the authenticity of the text; and the genre of historical fiction.
Target grade levels: High School, Grades 9-12
For Use With: The Bondswoman's Narrative
Interactive Exhibition:
 Roads to Freedom is an interactive exhibition that will allow students to explore the six routes most frequently taken by enslaved men and women who were seeking their liberty. Combining primary-source documents, images, slave narratives, spoken narration, and original music, the exhibition conveys the enormity of the challenges slaves faced and the intelligence, courage, and persistence with which they attempted to surmount them.
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