Constitution and Citizenship Day

In 2004, Constitution Day and Citizenship Day—previously established as two separate holidays—were combined into one. Through an act of Congress, the September 17 holiday commemorates the signing of the U.S. Constitution by the delegates to the federal convention in 1787 and recognizes all who “by coming of age or by naturalization have become citizens.”

To help mark Constitution and Citizenship Day, the Library’s education team will be supporting a free training seminar for educators and volunteers who lead adult citizenship programs. Led by the Citizenship Resource Center staff of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), the program will provide resources and training to support educators in teaching immigrant students about the naturalization process and preparing them for the citizenship test.

We are excited to contribute to the training by offering ideas for how adult citizenship educators might use some of the Library’s resources in their teaching practice. The Library’s digital collections offer a wide range of engaging primary sources related to the big ideas included on the citizenship test.

Many of these concepts are also relevant to a K-12 civics curriculum. They include: principles of American democracy; the U.S. system of government; rights and responsibilities of U.S. citizens; as well as select events in United States History.

Resources we will share include the following:

Primary Source Sets, each one featuring sources in a variety of media related to a specific topic.

• Alexander Hamilton
• The Civil Rights Movement
• The Constitution
• The Great Migration
• Jim Crow and Segregation
• LGBTQ Activism and Contributions
• The Louisiana Purchase and Lewis and Clark Expedition
• Political Cartoons and Public Debates
• Political Parties
• Symbols of the United States
• Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln: Three Great Presidents
• Westward Expansion: Encounters at a Cultural Crossroads
• Women’s Suffrage

Presentations that include historical content and primary sources for students and teachers to explore.

• Immigration and Relocation
• Presidential Elections and Voting in U.S. History
• United States History Primary Source Timeline

Teaching with the Library Blog. We will be sharing ways to filter for posts related to the Constitution, Government and Law, and Presidents.

Free to Use and Reuse Sets that include items from the Library’s digital collections that have no rights restrictions. We will recommend the following sets: Flags and Symbols, Presidential Papers, Independence Day, Presidential Portraits, Abraham Lincoln.

Chronicling America, the historic newspapers database.  We will recommend using the research guides to support searching and exploring the collection.

If these sets and collections spark ideas for how to commemorate Constitution and Citizenship Day with your students, tell us about it!

Do you enjoy these posts? Subscribe! You’ll receive free teaching ideas and primary sources from the Library of Congress.