On Saturday, January 3, 1863, Assistant Secretary of State Frederick W. Seward sent a letter to John D. Defrees, superintendent of Public Printing, asking that 500 copies of a "circular and proclamation" be printed. The letter also gave specific instructions as to what type of paper was to be used, the layout, and when the department wanted the…

"Difficult" or "challenging" topics to teach include racism, violence, genocide, bullying, gangs, abuse (physical, emotional, and substance), slavery, suffering, hatred, terrorism, war, disease, loss, addiction, and more. But by confronting them with students, in the safety of a classroom through thoughtfully constructed lessons (ones that take…

In this article, the author describes the experiences middle school students on a field trip to the new Constitution in Action Learning Lab in the Boeing Learning Center at the National Archives can expect. There, middle school students take on the roles of archivists and researchers collecting and analyzing primary sources from the holdings of…

President Ronald Reagan nominated a woman to serve on the United States Supreme Court. He did so through a single-page form letter, completed in part by hand and in part by typewriter, announcing Sandra Day O'Connor as his nominee. While the document serves as evidence of a historic event, it is also a tangible illustration of abstract concepts…

All of the documents featured in this article come from the holdings of the National Archives and Records Administration. Primary source documents illustrate what is meant by responsible citizenship. The people who create documents as well as those who are featured in them can serve as models of civic behavior--both appropriate and…