$20: I'm in Honors American History class and I really don't have time to do this NHD project, please help & don't keep asking me questions because i will put everything in details.

This year’s theme, Rights and Responsibilities in History, is broad. This

means you can choose a topic that allows you to explore your own

interests, whether it’s science, politics, the arts, education—you name it.

Inspiration can come from most any place: local history, your textbooks,

or perhaps recent headlines, TV shows or even the latest Twitter feed. As

a student, it’s your right to find a topic that you want to find out more

about, but you also have responsibilities: to choose carefully and develop

your NHD project in ways that best use your talents and abilities. Listed

below are some examples of different kinds of projects that address this

year’s theme.

Let’s think about this year’s theme. What are rights? Are responsibilities

always attached to rights? Are there times when rights protect some

while disenfranchising others—and is that

fair? Do we have economic rights? Are civil

rights upheld at the same level for everyone

in the United States? What are our rights

as global citizens? And what about animal

rights—do humans bear responsibility for

non-humans? These are just a few questions

you might ask as you begin your research.

Rights have taken many different forms.

America’s founders believed that individuals had certain fundamental

rights, simply by virtue of being human, but slaves did not share those

“unalienable” rights. In other societies, rights depended on being

a member of a group or class. The castes of Brahmin India and the

aristocracy in England are examples of societies where birthright

predetermined an individual’s role. Human institutions—governments,

churches, corporations and other entities—have also enjoyed rights,

sometimes bestowed on them by their constituents, and sometimes

self-bestowed.

With rights come responsibilities, whether they involve exercising rights

within specified limits or ensuring the rights of others. You might find it

tempting to focus mostly on rights in your project, but remember that

this year’s theme also encompasses responsibilities. Learning about

and explaining the correlation between rights and responsibilities might

in fact help you become a better researcher and writer, in addition to

deepening your understanding of your topic.

To explore a topic’s historical importance, you have to answer the

question, “So what?” You must address questions about time and place,

cause and effect, change over time, and impact and significance. Always

try to do more than just describe what happened. Draw conclusions

about how the topic affected individuals, communities, other nations

and the world as a whole. This helps give your research historical context.

Science and technology provide abundant topics. The conflict between

the rights and responsibilities of scientists could be illustrated by a

performance of Galileo’s experience with the Roman Inquisition in 1633

or a documentary about J. Robert Oppenheimer and other Manhattan

Project scientists who worried about the

future of atomic and nuclear weapons.

How has technology such as the printing

press and television changed our views on

our rights and responsibilities?

If you find politics intriguing, you might

choose to explore the origins and impact

of key documents related to rights. You

could write a paper investigating England’s Bill of Rights in 1689—or

the American version, written a century later. Students interested in local

history might create an exhibit examining the development of their state

constitutions or town charters, to discover the rights and responsibilities

of people and governments and how they have changed over time.

Great thinkers have often deliberated the rights and responsibilities of

individuals and society. A performance might analyze the origins and

impact of Mary Wollstonecraft’s feminism, while a documentary could

explore the relationship between the Industrial Revolution and Karl

Marx’s views of the rights and responsibilities of workers and owners.

What other thinkers or philosophers have influenced rights in history?

Specific rights can make excellent topics. A performance might probe the

evolution of freedom of the press in America and the ethical obligations

National History Day 2014 Theme

RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES IN HISTORY

For more information, contact: National History Day, Inc.

4511 Knox Road, Suite 102, College Park, MD 20740 301.314.9739 info@nhd.org www.nhd.org

Refer to web site for local contest dates and information. National Contest: June 15-19, 2014

required of journalists. A documentary could

analyze the origins of the right to receive a

free elementary education, found in the

UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights

of 1948, which implies a governmental

responsibility to provide free education.

How did the legal right of slaves to buy their

freedom affect Latin American societies?

You might choose to research the rights and responsibilities conferred by

citizenship. A website could compare the meaning of citizenship in the

ancient Greek City states of Athens and Sparta. The evolution of income

tax in America would make an excellent exhibit, while a documentary

could explore the duty of military service in a society such as Meiji Japan

(1868-1912) or 20th-century Israel.

Perhaps you’re interested in the rights and responsibilities of family

members. A paper could analyze the practice of suttee, a custom

formerly practiced in India in which widows were burned along with

their husband’s bodies, while an exhibit might discuss the development

of married women’s property rights in 19th-century America. How have

the rights and obligations of parents and children changed over time in

America and China?

Students can also examine the experience of different groups. A performance

might analyze how economic and political changes affected the obligations

and rights of lords and vassals in medieval Europe, while a documentary

might explore the development of affirmative action in the United States. An

exhibit could evaluate the consequences for Sri Lanka of the different rights

of the Sinhalese and Tamil people while it was a British colony.

Many powerful projects could come from studying the denial of rights

and the struggle to gain rights. An exhibit might analyze the role of

different women’s organizations such as the National Woman’s Party in

winning female suffrage, while a documentary could explore the impact

of a key individual such as Mohandas Gandhi in earning India’s political

freedom. What events in the American Civil Rights Movement could be

dramatized in performances?

Nations and governments also have

rights and responsibilities. How did the

extraterritoriality rights of Europeans

affect 19th-century China? A paper might

examine how the idea of the “White

Man’s Burden” affected American

foreign policy early in the 19th century.

The changing views of the American

government’s responsibilities for the poor

in the 20th century might make a good website.

You might choose to research topics related to religion. An exhibit could

investigate the relationship between the Mexican Revolution and the

privileges the Catholic Church enjoyed in Mexico. What impact did the

notions of religious duty have on the Crusades? A dramatic performance

could recount the conflict between Ann Hutchinson’s idea of religious

freedom and governmental responsibility to enforce orthodoxy in 17th-

century Massachusetts.

The economy provides excellent topics. Compelling documentaries

or performances could focus on events such as the Homestead or the

Pullman Strikes of the 1890s, in which workers and owners struggled

over rights. A paper could look at the development of corporate rights

in America, perhaps focusing on court cases such as the Charles River

Bridge case of 1837 or the conflict between corporate rights and

government responsibility in the antimonopoly struggles of the late 19th

and the early 20th centuries. A website might analyze the battle for land

reform in a Latin American country such as Nicaragua, which pitted the

rights of peasants against the rights of wealthy landowners.

Whether you’re focusing on a well-known event in world history or a

little-known individual from a small community, you should place your

project into historical perspective, examine its significance in history, and

show development over time. All studies should include an investigation

into available primary and secondary sources, analysis of the evidence,

and a clear explanation of the relationship of the topic to the theme.