Education Mission
The Education Department at the New-York Historical Society offers a wealth of resources and learning opportunities designed to make history come alive!
Education programs are made possible through endowments established by the National Endowment for the Humanities and The Hearst Foundations. Programs are supported, in part, by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council and by a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency. Additional support is provided by The Barker Welfare Foundation, The Hyde and Watson Foundation, the May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation and Verizon.
Support the New-York Historical Society
Help us present groundbreaking exhibitions and develop educational programs about our nation's history for more than 100,000 schoolchildren annually.
Explore all the New-York Historical Society-created curriculum materials, which align with New York State Learning Standards and contain lesson plans and primary sources (documents, photos, maps and more). Materials are available digitally and/or for purchase in hard copy, as indicated in the list below.
Alexander Hamilton: The Man Who Made Modern America
Get to know New York’s favorite Founding Father Alexander Hamilton: a statesman and visionary whose life inspired discussion and controversy and shaped the America we live in today. This site offers teacher materials and links to exhibition highlights.
Click here to view online exhibition.
Big Apple Journal: New York Then and Now
In this newspaper-style classroom resource, students are introduced to New York as it was in 1901 and the ways in which immigrants living in New York shaped the city. Activities in this resource encourage students to compare New York then and now and explore their own neighborhoods while thinking about how they looked in times past.
Hard copy for purchase: $2 for one copy, $30 for class set (30 guides)
Click here to purchase
Cultures, Commerce and Community: A Teacher's Resource Guide for the Study of the 17th Century City of New Amsterdam
This guide is intended to enrich teaching and learning about the 17th century city of New Amsterdam. The guide includes activities and primary sources and tracks four themes: the relationship between Native American populations and European settlers; the role of New Amsterdam as a trade center in the 1600s; the experiences of Jews and enslaved Africans and their petitions to the West India Company for their rights; and the role of education and Dutch culinary traditions that influenced daily life.
Hard copy for purchase: $10
Click here to purchase
Examination Days: The New York African Free School Collection
In 1787, at a time when slavery was crucial to the prosperity and expansion of New York, the New York African Free School was created by the New York Manumission Society, a group dedicated to advocating for the rights of African Americans. What began as a single-room schoolhouse with forty students expanded to educate thousand of children in New York City’s public school system. The New-York Historical Society’s New York African Free School Collection preserves a rich selection of student work and community commentary about the school from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and includes lesson plans for the classroom.
Click here to view online exhibition.
Grant and Lee in War and Peace
Classroom materials explore key moments in Grant’s and Lee’s lives and in American history: cadetship at West Point; the Mexican American War; the Appomattox campaign and the end of the Civil War; and Reconstruction and the Lost Cause. These materials include a teachers’ guide, primary sources, Life Stories, and a timeline.
Hard copy for purchase: $15
Click here to purchase
Heroes and Patriotism: Exploring Lafayette’s Return to Washington’s America
These classroom materials explore the places, people, and events that marked Lafayette’s return to the United States and grand tour of the new nation in 1824–1825. These materials include a teachers’ guide, primary sources, Life Stories, and maps.
Hard copy for purchase: $15
Click here to purchase
Lincoln and New York
Trace the life and legacy of Abraham Lincoln and his turbulent relationship with New York City, investigating Lincoln the man, the candidate, the president, and the martyr. These materials include a teachers’ guide, primary sources, Life Stories, a Lincoln chronology poster, and a facsimile of an 1865 issue of Harper’s Weekly.
Hard copy for purchase: $15
Click here to purchase
Nation at the Crossroads: The Great New York Debate Over the Constitution
This exhibition of letters, newspapers, pamphlets, and portraits documents the lively and dramatic debate over the ratification of the Constitution in New York State. Embedded in the debate was the persistent question of slavery, as well as critical issues of government and rights that are still relevant today. This site includes primary documents and images, as well as interviews with contemporary scholars and lesson plans.
Click here to view online exhibition.
New York Divided: Slavery and the Civil War
Slavery ended in New York State in 1827, yet this victory did not sever the city's connections to enslaved labor. New York City capitalized on the expanding trade in southern cotton and sugar to become the leading American port, a global financial center, and a hotbed of pro-slavery politics. At the same time, it nurtured a determined anti-slavery movement. New York Divided explores the turbulent half-century of the city's history with southern slavery. These materials include a teachers’ guide, primary sources and Life Stories.
Click here to view online exhibition.
Nueva York: 1613–1945
Discover the vital role the Spanish-speaking world played and continues to play in New York City’s trade, politics and culture through investigating artifacts and artwork from the exhibition Nueva York: 1613–1945, organized in collaboration with El Museo del Barrio. These materials include a teachers’ guide, primary sources, Life Stories, and a visual arts unit.
Objects Tell Stories: Learning History through Object Study
This teachers’ guide is designed to be used in conjunction with a class visit—either staff-guided or self-guided—to the Luce Center. By studying objects people left behind, we can find clues that tell us about the past, and about the people who made, owned, and used these things in their everyday lives. Includes museum activities, classroom extensions, and primary sources.
Hard copy for purchase: $10
Click here to add to purchase
Revolution! The Atlantic World Reborn
Trace the Age of Revolution (1763-1815) in a global narrative, including the American struggle against British rule, the British struggle toward the abolition of slavery, the French attack on aristocracy, and the Haitian slave revolt-turned revolution. The classroom materials include a teachers’ guide with background information, lesson plans and extension activities; primary sources; Life Stories; and a multi-layered timeline.
Hard copy for purchase: $15
Click here to purchase.
Seneca Village
This guide teaches students how to work with a variety of primary sources from images to newspapers to historical records and more. Through exploration of these documents, students learn the fascinating history of a multicultural 19th-century community that was razed for the construction of Central Park.
Hard copy for purchase: $10
Click here to purchase
Slavery in New York
New York was the capital of American slavery for more than two centuries. These materials explore slavery in New York from the 1600s to 1827, when slavery was legally abolished in New York State. They focus on the rediscovery of the collective and personal experiences of Africans and African Americans in New York City. These curriculum materials include a teachers’ guide, charts and graphs, primary sources, maps, and Life Stories.
Click here to view online exhibition.
