This collection includes artifacts, stamps, political cartoons, portraits, and videos representing various long-term and short-term causes of the Civil War. Students could use the collection as the basis for a sorting activity:

Which causes are long-term and which are short?

Which represent economic, social, or political differences between the North and South?

Can they be put in chronological order?

Which show attempts at compromise and which show that violence was difficult to avoid?

Additional teaching ideas are listed in the Notes to Other Users section.