Chronicling America is one of many digital collection gems that the Library has to offer teachers and students. The collection gives users access to selected digitized national newspapers published through 1963. Newspapers, as a type of primary source, help students imagine what it might have been like to live in a particular time or place: consuming media of different historical eras can help to slow down the big events of history and see how they were experienced in real time.
A key aspect of information literacy is evaluating the relationship between claims and evidence: Do claims follow clearly and logically from evidence? Can the evidence also support alternate claims? Guide students to apply information literacy skills to a 1912 article “Mars Peopled by One Giant Thinking Vegetable.”
Analyzing an excerpt of a newspaper article from the late 19th century provides an opportunity for students to think about the uncertainty inherent in paleontology, a discipline that often relies on incomplete specimens and bone fragments to construct understandings of extinct species.
In the September 2025 issue of Social Education, the journal of the National Council for the Social Studies, our “Sources and Strategies” article features Franklin Delano Roosevelt's speech to both chambers of Congress and the Supreme Court on December 8, 1941. The article asks: How did the U.S. Constitution, signed on September 17, 1787, influence the nation’s reaction to an event more than 150 years later?
Revisit a series of posts from Teaching with the Library that dug a bit deeper into resources that can be helpful for teachers and their students, including the Library's digital collections pages and research guides, Today in History, and updates to a teacher-favorite resource, Chronicling America.
Whether students are interested in examining a historic revolution, exploring social reactions to a particular event or idea, research the origins of a reform movement, or identify a topic that includes elements of all three Rs, the Library of Congress has online resources to support their 2025 National History Day project.
In the March/April 2025 issue of Social Education, the journal of the National Council for the Social Studies, our “Sources and Strategies” article highlighted a political cartoon that appeared in the September 22, 1909, issue of Puck Magazine. The image, “Lights and Shadows”, contains a wealth of opportunities for students to explore connections between the environment, politics, economics, and public health.
