Women’s history is American history. Too often, though, it is the left-out part, appearing only occasionally in familiar profiles and at predictable high points. But women, despite legal and cultural barriers, have been actively engaged in every phase of the nation’s history. Some were firebrands, some were intellectuals, and some were ordinary people just going about their lives.
Women & the American Story (WAMS) is the flagship education initiative of the New-York Historical Society’s Center for Women’s History. This free curriculum project provides teachers and students with information about the myriad and often critical roles women played in shaping American history. The primary sources, life stories, essays, and learning activities included in each of the ten units were designed for middle school students, but they are easily scalable for elementary and high school classrooms. Visit the “Curriculum” page for an at-a-glance look at the ten units.
The heart of each WAMS unit is a collection of Resources and Life Stories. The Resources are the “stuff” of history—images, documents, artifacts, maps, and more. They are accompanied by background information providing historical context, information about the primary source(s), discussion questions, vocabulary lists, and suggested activities. Wherever possible, the resources include a high-resolution image of the source. For primary documents, a transcription and paragraph-by-paragraph summary of the texts are also included to help students at all levels access the content.
The Life Stories are brief biographies of individuals, both well-known and unfamiliar, whose experiences illuminate important topics, themes, or ideas in a particular era. Life Stories contain biographical text, discussion questions, vocabulary lists, and suggested activities.
Each unit also contains key ideas, an introduction, and essential questions that hone in on important takeaways about the experiences of women in the era and can serve as a starting point for exploring unit materials.
A series of themes span across the units to help track big ideas over time and discover new angles on traditional histories. Currently there are ten themes, which teachers can explore in detail on the “Curriculum” page.
WAMS is designed so that teachers can choose the materials they wish to include in their lessons. Each Resource and Life Story page is split into three sections that teachers can print individually or together. They can also print the primary source images and texts individually or together. In addition, the materials are mobile friendly for smartphones and tablets.
If teachers want to dig deeper into ways that WAMS materials can be folded into lessons, they can explore the Lesson Plans that incorporate WAMS into several topics. If they are interested in interdisciplinary activities for their students, they can try the Art Activities that promote investigative discovery, creative thinking, and hands-on learning. And if they are looking for educational videos based on inspiring women’s stories and key themes, they may want to check out the Video Library.