National History Day
DPLA is proud to be a part of National History Day, a series of contests 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.
2018 Theme: Conflict and Compromise in History
The 2018 National History Day theme is “Conflict and Compromise 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 National History Topics from the 2018 Theme Book and corresponding sample search results, Primary Source Sets, and Exhibitions available via DPLA.
United States History Sample Topics
Fighting in World War I and Not Compromising Ideals: The Harlem Hellfighters
- Primary Source Set: African American Soldiers in World War I
Social Conflict During War: Japanese Internment
- Primary Source Set: Japanese American Internment During World War II
- Exhibition: Prisoners at Home: Everyday Life in Japanese Internment Camps
Conflicting Opinions, Compromised Values: The Vietnam Generation
- Primary Source Set: The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
Theodore Roosevelt and the Completion of the Panama Canal
- Primary Source Set: The Panama Canal
No Taxation Without Representation: The Failed Compromise That Led to a Revolution
- Primary Source Set: The Boston Tea Party
- Primary Source Set: Road to Revolution: 1763-1776
Preventing Conflict: The Compromise of 1850
- Primary Source Set: Henry Clay: The Great Compromiser
- Primary Source Set: The Underground Railroad and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
The New York City Draft Riot of 1863
- Primary Source Set: Northern Draft Riots During the Civil War
Indian Removal Act of 1830
- Primary Source Set: Cherokee Removal and the Trail of Tears
Reconstruction: Conflict and Compromise in the South
- Primary Source Set: Fifteenth Amendment
- Primary Source Set: The Freedmen’s Bureau
Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society
- Primary Source Set: Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society
European History Samples Topics
Selling Souls for Sugar: Slavery and the Sugar Islands
- Primary Source Set: Transatlantic Slave Trade
The Treaty of Versailles: Prelude to the Second World War
- Primary Source Set: Treaty of Versailles and the End of World War I
The Treaty of Paris: The Uneasy Peace of the Seven Years’ War
- Primary Source Set: Perspectives on the French and Indian War
Emmeline Pankhurst and her Militant Struggle for Suffrage in Great Britain
The Glorious Revolution: A Conflict that Led to the English Bill of Rights
World History Sample Topics
Nelson Mandela and the Fight for Equality in South Africa
Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan: Ending the Cold War Through Conflict and Compromise
Filipino Insurrection: Compromise with America to Win a Conflict Against Spain
- Exhibition: American Empire, specifically “The Philippine-American War“