Women & the American Story (WAMS) is a free curriculum website from the New-York Historical Society. WAMS connects educators with classroom resources that illuminate diverse women’s contributions to the American past. 

WAMS is organized in ten chronological units. We will launch two units per year until the project is complete in 2022. Examine the current units below, learn more about the full curriculum, or explore resources thematically.

Explore the Current Units

1492 - 1734


Early Encounters


Discover the lives and experiences of Native American, African, and European women who encountered one another on America’s shores.

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1692 - 1783


Settler Colonialism and the American Revolution


Trace the development of colonial society and identity up through the crucible of the American Revolution.

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1889 - 1920


Modernizing America


Consider how women experienced and shaped immigration, industrialization, progressivism, and suffrage at the turn of the 20th century.

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1920 - 1948


Confidence and Crises


Explore dramatic shifts in American society and culture from the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the dawn of the post-war era.

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Discover More!

18TH C.

Free & Equal?

Elizabeth Freeman’s court case set the legal precedent to abolish slavery in Massachusetts.

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20TH C.


Empowered Fashion


Short skirts and short hair were a direct rebellion against traditional ideals of womanhood in the 1920s.

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18TH C.

BROADSIDE

A printed piece of paper; often used as a flyer or poster. Broadsides were a popular way to circulate information during the American Revolution. 

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19TH C.


Arts integration in the social studies classroom.

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20TH C.


A Hollywood Starlet


Anna May Wong achieved international fame as a film actor despite racism and stereotyping against Chinese Americans.

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18TH C.


Cultivating
silk worms
in colonial
Pennsylvania. 

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17TH C.


The court is in session!


A group of native market women, the gateras, took Spanish colonists to court over disputed rights to sell goods in the streets of colonial Quito.

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