Monthly Highlights – June 2022

Throughout the month, you can look forward to seeing how to integrate the voices and experiences of people within the LGBT+ community into your history-social science classroom. We will feature framework-aligned classroom materials and teaching resources to support your work to create an inclusive and equity-minded learning experience.

Featured Teaching Resources

UC Davis History Project has created LGBTQ History Through Primary Sources, which are new collections of primary sources that also include context, focus questions, and supplementary readings to infuse LGBTQ voices into curriculum.

UC Berkeley History-Social Science Project compiled an extensive, though not exhaustive, list of resources to support teaching the FAIR Act. 

Additionally, here are a few selected classroom-ready resources that you can implement quickly into your current content:

 Elementary:

 “Remembering Charley Parkhurst: Opportunities in Gold Rush Era California”

• This inquiry-based lesson explores the life of Charley Parkhurst, who was born female but lived, and gained fame, as a stagecoach driver in late nineteenth century California. The lesson is envisioned as one, among several, that would explore the consequences of the Gold Rush and statehood in California. This lesson centers around gender expression, within a broader conversation about opportunities available to migrants to California during the Gold Rush Era.
• HSS Standard 4.3 Students explain the economic, social, and political life in California from the establishment of the Bear Flag Republic through the Mexican-American War, the Gold Rush, and the granting of statehood. 
  • 4.3.2. Compare how and why people traveled to California and the routes they traveled (e.g., James Beckwourth, John Bidwell, John C. Fremont, Pio Pico).
  • 4.3.3. Analyze the effects of the Gold Rush on settlements, daily life, politics, and the physical environment (e.g., using biographies of John Sutter, Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, Louise Clapp).

Middle School

 The Historical Significance of Baron Von Steuben

• This lesson plan introduces students to Baron Von Steuben’s significant and historical contributions to US and military history. Benjamin Franklin sent for Baron Von Steuben, a Prussian military genius, to help the Continental Army defeat the British during the American Revolutionary War.  While at Valley Forge in the winter of 1777-1778 under the command of Gen George Washington, Baron Von Steuben put the Continental Army through drills aod other military practices in order to teach them how to be a formidable fighting force.  Not only did this help the Continental Army win the Revolutionary War, his drill style and teaching were used for many years to train soldiers throughout the Armed Services.  Additionally, Baron Von Steuben reveals the enduring issue of gays in the military. 
• HSS Standard 
  • 5.6 Students understand the course and consequences of the American Revolution. 
    • 1. Identify and map the major military battles, campaigns, and turning points of the Revolutionary War, the roles of the American and British leaders, and the Indian leaders’ alliances on both sides. 
    • 2. Describe the contributions of France and other nations and of individuals to the outcome of the Revolution (e.g., Benjamin Franklin’s negotiations with the French, the French navy, the Treaty of Paris, The Netherlands, Russia, the Marquis Marie Joseph de Lafayette, Tadeusz Kościuszko, Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben).
  • 8.1 Students understand the major events preceding the founding of the nation and relate their significance to the development of American constitutional democracy. 
    • 3. Analyze how the American Revolution affected other nations, especially France.

High School

 Political Activism in LGBTQ Communities 

• In this inquiry set, students consider the ways that individuals in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) community collectivize in order to fight for greater  equality  and  recognition. 
• Students  grapple  with  the  issues  of  identity  and  the multiple and intersecting ways that identity affects efforts to engage politically. For those in the LGBTQ community  also  identifying  as  black,  Latinx,  or  Asian  meant  navigating  norms  in many  communities.
• HSS Standards 
  • 11.10:  Students analyze the development of federal civil rights and voting rights.
  • Grades 9-12 Historical Interpretation Skill 3: Students interpret past events and issues within the context in which an event unfolded rather than solely in terms of present-day norms and values.

History of Disco

• This Google Slide presentation offers teachers a student workbook. The workbook consists of 3 sections: The HIstory of Disco, Major 1970s Historical Events, and a Summative Assessment. Interactive and fun way to learn about music as an expression of social transformation.
• HSS Standard 11.8: Students analyze the economic boom and social transformation of post-WWII America

The Lavender Scare

• This inquiry set and lesson plan asks students to investigate the central Lesson Focus Question: “How did the conditions of the Cold War lead to the criminalization of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Americans?”
• HSS Standards
  • 11.8 Students analyze the economic boom and social transformation of post–World War II America. 
  • 11.8.1. Trace the growth of the service sector, white collar, and professional sector jobs in business and government.
  • 11.8.5. Describe the increased powers of the presidency in response to the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War.
  • 11.9 Students analyze U.S. foreign policy since World War II.
  • 11.9.3. Trace the origins and geopolitical consequences (foreign and domestic) of the Cold War and containment policy, including the following: The era of McCarthyism, instances of domestic Communism (e.g., Alger Hiss) and blacklisting

Blog Post

Teach the History of LGBTQ+ Joy, by Dr. Wendy Rouse

Picture Books

Educator Spotlight

**Coming Soon**

Recent Scholarship

Wendy Rouse, Public Faces, Secret Lives: A Queer History of the Women's Suffrage Movement (2022) In Public Faces, Secret Lives

Wendy L. Rouse reveals that, contrary to popular belief, the suffrage movement included a variety of individuals who represented a range of genders and sexualities. However, owing to the constant pressure to present a “respectable” public image, suffrage leaders publicly conformed to gendered views of ideal womanhood in order to make women’s suffrage more palatable to the public. Rouse argues that queer suffragists did take meaningful action to assert their identities and legacies by challenging traditional concepts of domesticity, family, space, and death in both subtly subversive and radically transformative ways. [Adapted from publisher]