Start by looking through the official National History Day 2019 Triumph and Tragedy Theme Book.

Then begin exploring the many historical resources available at the Massachusetts Historical Society.  You can begin searching for inspiration anywhere in our collections: by exploring our library catalogues, our online resources, our collection guides, or by visiting us in person.

Topics and Themes

The following are a sample of the many potential topics for a 2019 Triumph and Tragedy National History Day project based on MHS Collections.  Please note that these ideas are just to get you started, and many of these subjects will have to be narrowed down to produce a high quality project.  We highly recommend browsing our Online Collections for ideas as well--just a few of those collections are linked to topics listed below.

Early New England

• The Salem Witch Trials
• Smallpox and Inoculation
• American Settlers Versus Native Americans
• Metacom's Rebellion: The Triumph and Tragedy of the King Phillip's War
• The Diary of Michael Wigglesworth: Homosexuality and Religion in the Early Colonies

The Revolutionary War

• The Winter of Valley Forge: Triumph and Tragedy in the Continental Army
• Perspectives on the Boston Massacre
• The Battle of Bunker Hill: Triumph or Tragedy?
• The Bucks of America: African American Soldiers in the Revolutionary War
• Loyalists and the American Revolution

The Early Republic

• The Three-Fifths Compromise
• Elizabeth Freeman and the Case for Ending Slavery in MA
• Phillis Wheatley: Poet and Pioneer
• Prince Hall: African American Abolitionist and Activist
• Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson: Slavery and the Founders
• The US Constitution Ratification Debates

The 19th Century

• Boston Abolitionists
• Anthony Burns: Boston and the Fugitive Slave Act
• Sarah C. Roberts vs. the City of Boston: The Prequel to "Separate but Equal"
• The Missouri Compromise: Unable to Hold Off the Tragedy of the Civil War
• Massachusetts and the Battle of Antietam
• The Massachusetts 54th Regiment: The Fight For Equal Rights and Equal Pay
• Reconstruction: Tragedy Follows Triumph

The 20th Century

• The Creation of the Atomic Bomb: Scientific Triumph or Human Tragedy?
• The Tragedy of McCarthyism
• Alice Paul and the Woman Suffrage Movement
• Nora Saltonstall and Margaret Hall: Women in WWI

• Sarah Orne Jewett and Annie Adams Fields: Boston Marriages and the LGBTQ+ Community

Highlighted MHS Collections

Here are just a few of the numerous collection guides at MHS with manuscripts and artifacts related to National History Day themes:

• American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts Records 1920-2005: Documents the administrative, legal, legislative, and educational activities of ACLUM, the ACLU , and its other affiliates from ACLUM's founding as the Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts in 1920 to 2005. The records include legal, legislative, and subject files, ACLUM administrative records, correspondence, printed material, and other records related to the organization's attempts to protect civil rights in Massachusetts and the United States.
• Collections Relevant to African American History at the Massachusetts Historical Society: Within the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS) reside manuscripts, books, printed materials, photographs, and artifacts by and about African Americans. This overview is intended to guide historians, researchers, genealogists, teachers, and others to the type and depth of information available for the study of African American lives, institutions, and history at the Society.
• Civil War Correspondence, Diaries, and Journals at the Massachusetts Historical Society: This microfilm edition consists of Civil War correspondence, diaries, and journals from several collections of personal or family papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society.
• Presidential Letters at the Massachusetts Historical Society--An Overview : This subject guide is an overview of the Massachusetts Historical Society's U.S. presidents holdings of all known letters written by presidents found in the Society's manuscript and autograph collections.
• Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women Records, 1894-1920: This Massachusetts Association  was founded in May 1895, and its primary function was to obtain signatures for "remonstrances" against "the imposition of any further political duties upon women." These "remonstrances" were circulated to offset the petitions of the suffragists.

• Pre-Revolutionary Diaries at the Massachusetts Historical Society: This microfilm edition of pre-Revolutionary era diaries consists of 276 diaries written by 112 individuals from 1635 to 1790 and provides a rich and authentic portrait of incidents, manners, customs, and details of life in pre-Revolutionary America. The collection contains the diaries of a broad range of individuals, from farmers and businessmen to clergymen, soldiers, students, and physicians.

• Leverett Saltonstall Papers: This collection consists of the papers of Leverett Saltonstall, Republican representative to the Massachusetts General Court, Speaker of the House, 1929-1936, governor of Massachusetts, 1939-1945, and U.S. senator, 1945-1967.

NHD Collection Highlights

Here are examples of interesting documents and artifacts which could inspire your NHD project:

"Mess Hall, Bathroom, Barracks. Japanese Relocation Center. Heart Mt. Wyoming." by Estelle IshigoThis watercolor painting by Estelle Ishigo depicts the Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming, one of ten internment camps established for Japanese Americans during World War II. Ishigo was recruited as a “Documentary Reporter” for the War Relocation Authority and recorded the internment experience in illustrations, line drawings, oil, and watercolors.

 

 

U.S. Constitution (first printing) with annotations by Elbridge Gerry

 

This copy of the first printed draft of the U.S. Constitution shows the evolution of the text as it was amended during the debates at the Philadelphia Convention of 1787. Massachusetts delegate Elbridge Gerry, who refused to sign because it lacked a Bill of Rights, annotated the draft with his handwritten notes.

 

"Cheyenne Medicine Pow-Wow" by Bear's Heart, from book of sketches made at Fort Marion, St. Augustine, Florida, 1877

This colorful scene was drawn by Bear's Heart, a young Cheyenne warrior, during his captivity at Fort Marion in Florida after the Red River War of 1874-1875. While held by the U.S. military, Bear's Heart and other Native American prisoners depicted their lives in ledger art like this.

Samuel Sewell and the Salem Witch Trials: Diary Entry 19 September 1692

 

Samuel Sewall served as one of the judges at the infamous Salem witch trials in 1692 and, on 19 September, described in his diary the gruesome torture and death of Giles Corey. Corey was pressed to death "for standing mute," that is, refusing to answer his indictment for witchcraft.

 

Portrait of Elizabeth Freeman ("Mumbet"), 1811

 

This watercolor-on-ivory miniature portrait was painted by Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick in 1811. Its subject is Elizabeth Freeman, known as "Mumbet," a slave who sued for her freedom in 1783 and set the legal precedent for the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts.

 

Photographs from the WWI Memoir of Margaret Hall, 1918-1919

 

As a member of the American Red Cross in France during World War I, Massachusetts-born Margaret Hall worked at a canteen at a railroad junction in the town of Châlons. On her return home she compiled a typescript narrative from the letters and diary passages that she wrote while overseas. Her words offer a first-hand account of life on the Western Front in the last months of the war. She also copiously illustrated the text with her own photographs, which depict soldiers, canteens, and the extensive destruction and ruin following the war.

 

Frederick DouglassAfter escaping from slavery in 1838, twenty-year-old Frederick Bailey took the name Douglass and became an active abolitionist and antislavery lecturer. The publication of his autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass in 1845 and a subsequent tour of Europe brought him international celebrity. In 1847 Douglass moved to Rochester, New York, where he published the abolitionist journal, the North Star. During the Civil War, he served as a recruiting agent for Massachusetts when it became the first state to enlist African-American soldiers in the North. After the Civil War, Douglass served in high ranking federal positions under five presidents and continued to write, lecture, and advocate in many other ways for the rights of African Americans.

                                Massachusetts Civil War Letters from Antietam

Letter from Wilder Dwight
to Elizabeth A. Dwight,
17 September 1862Account of Rupert Sadler
(copy), 24 September 1862On 17 September 1862, along a rambling creek in western Maryland, Americans fought the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day of combat in United States history: there were almost 23,000 casualties before nightfall when mutual exhaustion ended the fighting. Of the long list of killed and wounded, it was the death of Col. Wilder Dwight, the 29 year-old commander of the 2nd Mass. Infantry who seemed bound for greater things, that most shocked Massachusetts.

 

Wilder Dwight wrote the letter on the left to his mother Elizabeth A. Dwight while he lay mortally wounded on the Antietam battlefield.

 

In the letter on the right, Rupert Sadler recounts coming to the aid of his injured commander, Wilder Dwight, during the Battle of Antietam.