The Massachusetts Historical Society has a great website that hosts collections of primary sources related to the American Revolution, founding families of the United States, abolition, and the Civil War. Additionally, on the MHS site you’ll find recordings of webinars about many of the topics related to the collections of primary sources. Music of the Plimoth Colony Settlers is an interesting webinar that was published last week.
Some of the highlights of the collections of primary sources found on the Massachusetts Historical Society’s website include:
- Perspectives on the Boston Massacre
- Adams Family Papers
- Presidential Papers of Thomas Jefferson
- Massachusetts Debates Suffrage
- Massachusetts in the Civil War
Applications for Education
In addition to the collections listed above, the Massachusetts Historical Society offers four collections of lesson plans that incorporate primary source documents. Those collections are Founding Fathers & Their Families, Era of the American Revolution, Slavery and Antislavery, and Civil War. The most lesson plans are in the first two collections. The vast majority of the lesson plans are for high school students, but there are a few for elementary and middle school use.
More than a decade ago I started using Google Documents to help students analyze primary source documents. I outlined that process in this blog post in 2015.
