Reposted from the National Archives

Hundreds of primary sources and teaching activities are available on the new DocsTeach National History Day page devoted to the 2020 NHD theme: Breaking Barriers in History.

DocsTeach is the online tool for teaching with documents from the National Archives. The NHD page is one of several Popular Topics pages.

You can use this special DocsTeach page to help your students prepare for this year’s National History Day contest. Choose teaching activities to get them thinking about breaking barriers. And share primary sources for possible NHD topics.

Primary Sources for Possible “Breaking Barriers” Topics

• Space Exploration
• Sports
• Technology
• Americans with Disabilities
• LGBTQ+ Rights
• Creating the Bill of Rights
• Free Speech
• The Spread of Slavery & Fugitive Slave Act
• Westward Expansion
• The Transcontinental Railroad
• Panama Canal
• Treaty of Versailles & League of Nations
• WWII Refugees
• NATO
• Cold War Detente
• The Berlin Wall
• Women’s Suffrage
• Women in the Workforce
• Women in WWI & WWII
• Women Who Pushed The Boundaries
• 1977 National Women’s Conference
• Interracial Marriage
• School Desegregation
• Civil Rights
• Selma to Montgomery Marches
• The Voting Rights Act of 1965
• President Barack Obama

Teaching Activities

Access online teaching activities related to Breaking Barriers in History:

• the space program
• women’s suffrage
• civil rights
• integration
• foreign relations
• westward expansion

Find these and other topics on the DocsTeach NHD page!

Access even more resources for National History Day from the National Archives at www.archives.gov/education/history-day.

Images, from top to bottom:

The White House Lit in Rainbow Colors, 6/26/2015; Records of the White House Photo Office; Barack Obama Presidential Library. 

“Open for Business” by Clifford Berryman, 8/15/1914; Records of the U.S. Senate.

Mission Concept Diagram of Project Gemini, ca. 1962; Records of the U.S. Senate.

A West German Chips Off a Piece of the Berlin Wall, 11/14/1989; Records of the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics, 1936; Records of the U.S. Information Agency.