Ellen Noonan, Leah Potter, Josh Brown

Created by the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning at The Graduate Center, City University of New York, HERB is “a database of primary documents, classroom activities, and other teaching tools in U.S. history. Named in honor of ASHP/CML’s co-founder, labor historian Herbert Gutman, HERB reflects ASHP/CML’s mission of making the past, and the working people and ordinary Americans who shaped it, vivid and meaningful.

“Since 1989, educators at ASHP/CML have worked with K-12 and college instructors in professional development seminars in New York City and around the country. Over the years, we have developed an extensive archive of primary documents, teaching strategies, and other resources that look at how ordinary people both influenced and were influenced by the nation’s economic and political transformations. Until now, only teachers who participated in our seminars had access to these materials. We created HERB to share these resources with a wider public. We hope teachers, students, and those who love to learn about the past will use HERB to improve their understanding and teaching of United States history.

“HERB’s resources engage students with deep historical questions and are designed to support learning at every level. Our teaching collection is especially strong in topics like the ongoing struggle for full equality and civil rights; emancipation, the Civil War, and Reconstruction; the social, political, and economic changes wrought by immigration and migration; and the causes and consequences of U.S. expansion around the world.”

View the HERB Informational Flyer.