New Hampshire History Lesson Plans and Materials

In response to changes in New Hampshire State Administrative Rule ED 306, I have assembled free New Hampshire history lesson plans and classroom materials for Social Studies teachers. Whether your school teaches New Hampshire History as a standalone course or embeds it within existing U.S. History classes, these resources serve as a starting point. Materials are organized chronologically and include primary and secondary sources, PBS documentary resources, maps, and archival materials from institutions including the Library of Congress, the New Hampshire Historical Society, and Dartmouth Library.

General Book Recommendations

To This Day: The 300 Years of the New Hampshire Legislature (by Leon W. Anderson)
New Hampshire: A Bicentennial History (by Elting E. Morison and Elizabeth Forbes Morison) – W. W. Norton (American Association for State and Local History series)
Colonial New Hampshire: A History (by Jere R. Daniell) – University Press of New England / available on JSTOR
The History of New-Hampshire (by Jeremy Belknap, 1812) – fully digitized at the Library of Congress
The First Primary: New Hampshire’s Outsize Role in Presidential Nominations (by David W. Moore and Andrew E. Smith) – University of New Hampshire Press
Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge (by Erica Armstrong Dunbar)
Stand Firm and Fire Low: The Civil War Writings of Colonel Edward E. Cross (edited by Walter Holden, William E. Ross, and Elizabeth Slomba) – University Press of New England
Colonel Edward E. Cross, New Hampshire Fighting Fifth: A Civil War Biography (by Robert Grandchamp) – McFarland & Company
Corps of Granite: Glimpses of New Hampshire’s CCC Camps (by Robert Averill) – Bondcliff Books
Not a Catholic Nation: The Ku Klux Klan Confronts New England in the 1920s (by Mark Paul Richard) – University of Massachusetts Press
They Paved the Way: A History of N.H. Women (by Olive Tardiff)

General Primary Resources

African Americans Primary Sources – New Hampshire State Archives and Records Management Division
Nashua Telegraph Archive – Google News Archive
New Hampshire: Selected Primary Sources – Library of Congress
New Hampshire Maps – David Rumsey Map Collection Cartography Associates
New Hampshire Digital Newspaper Project – Dartmouth Library
U.S. and N.H. State Constitutions – New Hampshire State Archives and Records Management Division
New Hampshire Local History & Genealogy Resource Guide – Library of Congress
New Hampshire Historical Society Online Collections Catalog – New Hampshire Historical Society
Timeline of New Hampshire History – New Hampshire Historical Society
New Hampshire Archives – Early American Sources (a portal indexing major NH repositories)

General Secondary Resources

25 Stories for 250 Years – New Hampshire Heritage Museum Trail
“Moose on the Loose”: Social Studies for Granite State Kids – New Hampshire Historical Society
New Hampshire State Almanac: History – State of New Hampshire
New Hampshire History – Encyclopedia Britannica
Historical Exhibits at the Warren B. Rudman U.S. Courthouse – U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire
- 40+ short illustrated essays covering NH history from the Abenaki to the present, with a printable walking tour guide.
Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire – BHTNH
- Statewide nonprofit with markers, educational programs for grades 4–12, guided/self-guided tours, and a YouTube library including the 45-minute Concord Black Heritage Tour.
New Hampshire Public Radio – NHPR (long-form historical reporting; see The Exchange archive)
Concord Monitor – Pulitzer-winning daily covering NH history and current affairs

PBS Series (multi-topic):

Our New Hampshire – NHPBS
- Our New Hampshire Teacher’s Guide – NHPBS

NHPBS Specials
- New Hampshire-specific clips from PBS Documentaries (Ken Burns The Vietnam War, The Vote, The Black Church, etc.)
NHPBS Presents
- Special productions focused on New Hampshire (Nashua Dodgers, Mysteries of NH, Early Telephone Operators in NH, etc.)
NH Crossroads – NHPBS
- “New Hampshire Crossroads celebrates the people, places, character and ingenuity that makes New Hampshire – New Hampshire!”

NH State Standards and Guidelines

2006 K-12 Social Studies New Hampshire Curriculum Framework – Department of Education
A Call to Action: Guidelines for Social Studies Education in New Hampshire Schools – New Hampshire Historical Society

Pre-Columbian to Colonial America (before 1607–1775)

Native Americans

Native Americans Primary Sources – New Hampshire State Archives and Records Management Division
Interactive Indigenous Land Map – Native Land Digital
- Try both the constellation map and the classic map, depending on your purpose.

Colonial Period (1607–1775)

Strawbery Banke Museum: Historic Houses – Strawbery Banke Museum
- 350+ years of Portsmouth’s Puddle Dock neighborhood, including the 1695 Sherburne House, the 1762 Chase House, and homes once occupied by enslaved people. Strawbery Banke is now a Smithsonian Affiliate.
Slavery and Resistance in New Hampshire: Primary Source Packet – Flow of History
A teacher-ready packet anchored on the 1779 Freedom Petition submitted by enslaved people to the NH Legislature.
Ona Judge – George Washington’s Mount Vernon Digital Encyclopedia
- See also Mount Vernon’s classroom resources on Ona Judge and the primary source
George Washington on Ona Judge (1796 letter to Burwell Bassett Jr.).
Ona Judge Staines – Women & the American Story (New-York Historical Society lesson)

Revolutionary Era (1765–1789)

Revolutionary War Primary Sources – New Hampshire State Archives and Records Management Division
New Hampshire in the American Revolution – Society of the Cincinnati
John Stark Primary Source Set – Moose on the Loose / NH Historical Society
Reaching for Truth: Exploring Slavery in the Era of the American Revolution – Moffatt-Ladd House
The Establishment of the Federal Judiciary – U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire
- Covers NH’s June 21, 1788 ratification of the U.S. Constitution as the deciding ninth state.

Early Republic and Expansion (1790–1848)

Industrial Revolution and the Mill Towns

Amoskeag Manufacturing Co. of Manchester, New Hampshire, a History – UNH

Daniel Webster

Daniel Webster Papers – Library of Congress (correspondence, speech drafts, legal papers)
Representative Daniel Webster of New Hampshire – U.S. House of Representatives History, Art & Archives
Daniel Webster – Supreme Court Historical Society (excellent for Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 1819)

Franklin Pierce

Franklin Pierce Primary Source Set – Moose on the Loose / NH Historical Society
Franklin Pierce: A Resource Guide – Library of Congress
- Includes the Franklin Pierce Papers (~2,350 items, 1820–1869).
The Pierce Manse – Concord, NH (the only home Pierce ever owned)
President Franklin Pierce – Library Guide – DiPietro Library, Franklin Pierce University

New Hampshire State Government

The NH State House Primary Source Set – Moose on the Loose / NH Historical Society
- Built 1816–1819, the oldest state house in continuous use in the United States.

Civil War and Reconstruction (1848–1877)

New Hampshire in the Civil War – American Battlefield Trust
The Civil War in Keene – Union Leader

The “Fighting Fifth” – New Hampshire’s Civil War Regiment

Col. Edward E. Cross Papers, 1860–1871 – University of New Hampshire Special Collections
- Cross’s wartime journal, letters, and a digitized collection at scholars.unh.edu/cross.
New Hampshire’s “Fighting Fifth” Civil War Regiment – U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire
- The 5th NH suffered the highest combat losses of any Union infantry or cavalry regiment.
A History of the Fifth Regiment, New Hampshire Volunteers, in the American Civil War, 1861–1865 (William Child, 1893) – Internet Archive

Harriet E. Wilson and Black Antebellum NH

Harriet Wilson Project – detailed life chronology and scholarship on the first African American novelist published in the U.S. (Milford, NH)
Early Novel Written by Free Black Woman Called Out Racism Among Abolitionists – NPR (with NHPR reporting)

Underground Railroad and Abolitionism in NH

Concord Black Heritage Tour – Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire (45-minute video covering enslavement, emancipation, the Underground Railroad, abolitionism, and Frederick Douglass’s NH visits)

Gilded Age and Progressive Era (1877–1920s)

Treaty of Portsmouth (1905)

Portsmouth Peace Treaty – Japan-America Society of New Hampshire
- The Russo-Japanese War, the negotiations at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and the Hotel Wentworth, exhibits, and lesson materials. NH State Legislature designated September 5 as Portsmouth Peace Treaty Day in perpetuity.
Treaty of Portsmouth and the Russo-Japanese War – U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian
Treaty of Portsmouth 1905 Historical Marker – Historical Marker Database

Women’s Suffrage

New Hampshire Suffrage Collection – New Hampshire Historical Society
- My favorite primary source from this collection(“Opinions of New Hampshire Men and Women, 1903“) could be combined with “A Word to the Wise: An Overwhelming Majority of the Women of the United States Oppose Woman Suffrage, circa 1913” to serve as the foundation of an inquiry activity
1919 NH Ratification of 19th Amendment – New Hampshire State Archives and Records Management Division
A Brief History of the New Hampshire Women Suffrage Association: A Report of the Annual Meeting Held in Manchester, October 25, 1907 – Internet Archive
New Hampshire and the 19th Amendment – National Park Service
First in the Nation: In 1919, UNH convened a women’s School for Citizenship that proved a model for the nation – University of New Hampshire Today
Lucy’s Legacy: A Review of Firsts for Women Students – University of New Hampshire

White Mountains, Tourism, and the Grand Hotels

Mount Washington Primary Source Set – Moose on the Loose / NH Historical Society
Old Man of the Mountain Primary Source Set – Moose on the Loose / NH Historical Society
White Mountain Art Primary Source Set – Moose on the Loose / NH Historical Society
Franklin Leavitt Maps Primary Source Set – Moose on the Loose / NH Historical Society

Civil War Veterans and the GAR Era

Weirs Beach Veterans Campground Primary Source Set – Moose on the Loose / NH Historical Society
- The Lakes Region site that became the national headquarters for veterans’ organizations.

World War I and the Roaring Twenties (1914–1929)

World War I

New Hampshire Gold Star Veterans – HonorStates

Roaring Twenties – Birth of the First-in-the-Nation Primary

The Year New Hampshire Became First in the Nation: 1920 – New Hampshire Secretary of State (PDF)

First in the Nation: New Hampshire Presidential Primaries – 1920 to 2020 – Portsmouth Athenaeum exhib

Great Depression and World War II (1929–1945)

The Great Depression and the New Deal in NH

Civilian Conservation Corps – U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire
- Over 37,000 young men served in NH CCC camps, building Bear Brook State Park, Cannon Mountain, Wildcat Trail at Pinkham Notch, and more.
Civilian Conservation Corps blog – New Hampshire State Parks
The Civilian Conservation Corps, A Young Man’s Adventure – New England Historical Society

The 1936 Flood and the 1938 Hurricane

Flooding in New Hampshire – National Weather Service (covers both the 1936 flood and the 1938 hurricane)
The Hurricane of 1938 Was a Disaster – Would It Be More of a Disaster Today? – Concord Monitor / Dartmouth Department of Geography
The Path of the Hurricane of ’38 – PBS American Experience

World War II

New Hampshire Gold Star Veterans – HonorStates

World War II – The Bretton Woods Conference

The 1944 Bretton Woods Conference – The National WWII Museum
Bretton Woods Conference & the Birth of the IMF and World Bank – Library of Congress Research Guide
Creation of the Bretton Woods System – Federal Reserve History
Proceedings and Documents of the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, July 1–22, 1944 – FRASER (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis)
75 Years Ago: N.H.’s Bretton Woods Conference Reshaped World Economic Policy – New Hampshire Public Radio (audio + transcript)

Early Cold War (1945–1960)

Korean War

New Hampshire Gold Star Veterans – HonorStates

Pease Air Force Base and the Cold War in NH

Pease Air National Guard Base – Wikipedia (well-sourced; covers SAC bomber years, the 509th Bomb Wing, BRAC closure, and PFAS contamination)
157th Air Refueling Wing – Wikipedia (NH Air National Guard history through the present)

Alan Shepard and the Mercury Program

McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center – Concord, NH
- Dedicated to NH space pioneers Alan Shepard (Derry, NH; first American in space, 1961; Apollo 14 commander) and Christa McAuliffe. Educational programs, planetarium, and outreach for K–12.

Civil Rights, Vietnam, and Social Change (1960–1975)

Civil Rights and Black New Hampshire

Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire – Statewide Markers – BHTNH
“I was a slave, even here in New Hampshire”: The Concord Black Heritage Tour – BHTNH (45-minute video; runs from Concord’s founding through Sen. Melanie Levesque)

JFK

JFK Trip to New Hampshire Primary Sources (January 25th, 1960) – John F. Kennedy Library
New Hampshire Radio Coverage of JFK Assassination – WGIR

Vietnam

NH Vietnam War Primary Sources – New Hampshire State Archives and Records Management Division

New Hampshire Gold Star Veterans – HonorStates

Contemporary America (1976–Present)

New Hampshire in Space – NHPBS
New Hampshire’s Political Legacy – NHPBS
- (click through seasons 1-5 to view all episodes)
Christa – NHPBS
Roads to Recovery – NHPBS
The State We’re In – NHPBS
Our Hometown – NHPBS

The New Hampshire Presidential Primary

New Hampshire: A Proven Primary Tradition – New Hampshire Historical Society online exhibition
Learn It! The New Hampshire Primary – Moose on the Loose / NH Historical Society
- Includes a teacher-ready unit, video, and “primary” vocabulary work.
The First Primary: Why New Hampshire? – Carsey School of Public Policy, University of New Hampshire (David Moore and Andrew Smith)
Why is New Hampshire the first primary in the nation? – Brookings Institution

Christa McAuliffe and Alan Shepard

McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center – Concord, NH (also relevant to the Cold War / Space Race section above)
Christa McAuliffe Sabbatical – NH Charitable Foundation
- Established 1986; awards a year-long sabbatical to an exceptional NH public school teacher in McAuliffe’s memory.

Have a resource to suggest? Contact me at lukesantiquesuniques@gmail.com.

For more free Social Studies lesson plans, visit the main Lesson Plans page →.