National History Day

DPLA is proud to be a part of National History Day, a series of contests celebrating its 50th year of operation in which students present research projects related to a historical theme that they’ve developed using primary and secondary sources. Containing millions of primary and secondary sources, DPLA is the perfect complement to National History Day. The page below contains information and resources related to our efforts to increase access to DPLA resources for National History Day students. Questions? Email us at education@dp.la.

2024 Theme: Turning Points in History

The 2024 National History Day theme is “Turning Points in History.” Students should begin their research with secondary sources to gain a broader context, then progress to finding primary sources, and finally make an argument about the effects of a topic in history. Below are selected free Primary Source Sets that would be useful for exploring this year’s theme.

The Arts

Primary Source Set: Frank Lloyd Wright and Modern American Architecture

Primary Source Set: Truth, Justice, and the Birth of the Superhero Comic Book

Primary Source Set: Pop Art in the US

Primary Source Set: Rock n Roll: Beginnings to Woodstock

Law, Politics, and Philosophy

Primary Source Set: Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

Primary Source Set: Creating the US Constitution

Primary Source Set: The Fifteenth Amendment

Primary Source Set: The New Deal

Primary Source Set: The Rise of Italian Fascism and its Influence on Europe

Primary Source Set: Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society

Primary Source Set: Voting Rights Act of 1965

Primary Source Set: The United Farm Works and the Delano Grape Strike

Major Events

Primary Source Set: The Columbian Exchange

Primary Source Set: The Lewis and Clark Expedition

Primary Source Set: Cotton Gin and the Expansion of Slavery

Exhibition: The Gold Rush in Nineteenth Century America

Primary Source Set: California Gold Rush

Primary Source Set: Commodore Perry’s Expedition to Japan

Migration and Immigration

Primary Source Set: Exploration of the Americas

Primary Source Set: Mormon Migration

Primary Source Set: Exodusters: African American Migration to the Great Plains

Primary Source Set: Immigration and Americanization: 1880-1930

Primary Source Set: The Great Migration

Primary Source Set: Puerto Rican Migration to the US

Primary Source Set: Postwar Rise of the SuburbsPrimary Source Set: Cuban Immigration After the Revolution

Science, Technology, and Transportation

Primary Source Set: Full Steam Ahead: The Steam Engine and Transportation in the Nineteenth Century

Exhibition: Two Hundred Years on the Erie Canal

Exhibition: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad

Primary Source Set: Electrifying America

Primary Source Set: The Invention of the Telephone

Primary Source Set: The Panama Canal

Primary Source Set: Shrinking the World: Pan American Airways in the Post-War Era

Primary Source Set: The Impact of Television on News Media

Primary Source Set: Space Race

Exhibition: Race to the Moon

Social Change, Protest, and Education

Primary Source Set: Nineteenth Century Schools for the Deaf and Blind

Primary Source Set: Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Primary Source Set: Fannie Lou Hamer and the Civil Rights Movement in Rural Mississippi

Primary Source Set: The United Farm Works and the Delano Grape Strike

Primary Source Set: Stonewall and Its Impact on the Gay Liberation Movement

Primary Source Set: Settlement Houses in the Progressive Era

Primary Source Set: Women’s Suffrage: Campaign for the Nineteenth Amendment

Primary Source Set: The New Woman

War, Revolution, and Conflict

Primary Source Set: Revolutionary War Turning Points: Saratoga and Valley Forge

Primary Source Set: Latin American Revolutionaries

Primary Source Set: Texas Revolution

Primary Source Set: Secession of the Southern States

Primary Source Set: Battle of Gettysburg

Primary Source Set: African American Soldiers in World War I

Primary Source Set: The Atomic Bomb and the Nuclear Age

 

About National History Day