This teacher's resource challenges students to think about the Lincoln-Keckley as an object that has multiple symbolic meanings. It includes a preliminary activity intended to introduce students to doing history with objects and 3 lesson plans focused on the multiple meanings of the dress, the evolving role of the first lady and the advent of mass media. Also included are annotated links to other online resources that are related to slavery, abolition, gender and consumption in the mid-nineteenth century.

This activity is included in The Object of History, a cooperative project between the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and George Mason University's Center for History and New Media.

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