Recognizing and celebrating historical holidays—from memorializations of monumental American figures such as Martin Luther King Jr. to remembrances of events like Juneteenth—offer entry points for a deeper exploration of the pivotal moments, key figures, and central conflicts in American history. For teachers, these holidays provide an excellent way to focus classroom study and activity.
The Gilder Lehrman Institute offers American historical holiday resources from its Collection of more than 86,000 primary source documents, essays published in its online journal History Now, videos of talks by eminent scholars, lesson plans by American history teachers, and more to help teachers guide discussion, create class projects, and gain content knowledge that can be directly applied to their curriculum.
We will begin by focusing on ten such historical holidays. Keep checking back as we continue to build these resources!
