Hoaxes... have a different intent, as they are engineered to deceive over the long term, and often on a large scale. Invite your students to consider the difference as they analyze primary sources connected to the Great Moon Hoax of 1825.
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe was widely influential when it was published in 1852. The Library's “Sources and Strategies” article in the May 2014 issue of Social Education, the journal of NCSS, discusses the influence of the novel. Perhaps just as important as its effect, however, was Stowe’s original impetus for writing it.
Currently 12 Years a Slave, the film version of the true story of Solomon Northup, is showing in theaters. His account is a powerful one: A free African American, Northup was kidnapped in 1841 and taken from New York to Washington, D.C., then to New Orleans, where he was sold into twelve years of slavery. A study of primary sources from the Library of Congress indicates that Northrup's experience was far from unique.