Continuity and Change Over Time in the 1920s: Race, Gender, and Sexuality

This 3-in-1 DBQ requires students to analyze various primary and secondary sources associated with the race during the 1920s to evaluate whether the decade reflected continuity or change over time for women, Black Americans, and LGBTQIA+ Americans. Have students examine one group or expand into a comparison activity across 2 or all 3 groups!

Documents on race cover consumerism and the Black experience, lynching, race riots, the Great Migration, and the art and literature of the Harlem Renaissance.

Documents on gender cover the "flappers," changing trends in women's fashion, the specific experiences of Black women (to showcase the racial disparity in the experiences of women), the advent of the birth control pill, politically-active women, and women in the workplace. The summative assignment can range from an analytical paragraph to a complete DBQ response in essay format.

Documents on sexuality cover the Society for Human Rights (the first gay rights activist group in the U.S.), LGBTQIA+ representation in 1920s media, the Pansy Craze and drag balls, LGBTQIA+ themes in music, Alain Locke and the intersection of the Harlem Renaissance and the LGBTQIA+ community, and the targeting of LGBTQIA+ members of the U.S. military. The summative assignment can range from an analytical paragraph to a complete DBQ response in essay format.

The summative assignment can range from an analytical paragraph to a complete DBQ response in essay format or anything in between.

This activity includes an "evaluate the extent to which" prompt, an overview of the SPY document analysis tool, and graphic organizers for students to use in analyzing each document. While this can be modified for any level of student, this is aligned with Topic 7.8 in the APUSH Framework (1920s: Cultural and Political Controversies) and focuses on Continuity and Change Over Time (CCOT) as the Historical Thinking Skill (HST).