The Lest We Forget Project

“I have been asking online learners to record and share their Lest We Forget presentations for twelve years… I need to see and hear them knowledgeably and responsibly discuss the American past as a capstone of their learning. I also want to empower them to share that new knowledge with the rest of the world…”

Select a controversial or lesser-known American figure from our era of study, then prepare and record a 5-6 minute YouTube presentation that explores that person’s life and reconsiders his or her historical legacy here in the 21st century…

Four topics will guide your research

  • your figure’s personal backstory and life circumstances

  • the decisions and events that catapulted your figure into the historical record 

  • the shortcomings that made your figure supremely human

  • your case for how we should continue to remember this figure in the 21st century 

“In assuming the role of the historian, your effort – available for all the world to see — will promote academic knowledge in an era in which historical understanding is not just dismissed, but is often criticized or outright rejected…”

Lest We Forget… U.S. History I (Prehistory - 1877)

Thinkers & Political Leaders: Samuel Adams, Edmund Randolph, John Jay, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Thomas Paine, Patrick Henry, George Clinton, James Madison, John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, Jefferson Davis, John Brown, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Abraham Lincoln, Dorthea Dix

Battlefield Leaders: John Paul Jones, Stonewall Jackson, William Tecumseh Sherman, Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Marquis de Lafayette, Robert E. Lee

Native Leaders: Red Jacket, Neolin, King Philip, Tecumseh, Sacagawea, Black Hawk 

Outlaws: Wild Bill Hickok, Benedict Arnold, Aaron Burr, Boss Tweed, Deborah Sampson, Mary Ludwig Hays

Religious Leaders & Philosophers: Jonathan Edwards, Joseph Smith Jr., William Penn, Brigham Young, Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson, Antoinette Louisa Brown, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Artists & Entertainers: Asher Brown Durand, George Catlin, John J. Audubon, Annie Oakley, Buffalo Bill Cody, Edward Bailey, Edgar Allen Poe, Louisa May Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Washington Irving, Mark Twain, Herman Melville (other suggestions welcome

Sample Student Projects

Frances La Jeau.
Susan B Anthony
Daniel Boone
Sacajawea
Joseph Smith
Peggy Shippin
Eliza Hamilton.
John Brown
General William T. Sherman

Lest We Forget… U.S. History II (1877 - Present)

Thinkers & Writers: Mary Ware Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, Milton Friedman, Noam Chomsky, Joseph Campbell, Stephen Hawking, Ayn Rand, bell hooks, Betty Friedan

Presidents & Candidates: Teddy Roosevelt, Barry Goldwater, Eugene V. Debs, William Jennings Bryan, JFK, Ross Perot, Ralph Nader, Geraldine Ferraro, Jimmy Carter

Politics: George Jackson, J. Edgar Hoover, Jimmy Hoffa, Malcolm X, Sen. Joseph McCarthy, Phyllis Schlafly, Carrie Nation, Huey P. Long, John Lewis, Laura Cornelius Kellogg, Tipper Gore, Monica Lewinsky, Rush Limbaugh

Sports: Pete Rose, Tommy Smith, Ty Cobb, Jim Brown, Yogi Bera, Walter Payton, Mike Tyson, Billie Jean King, Mia Hamm, Colin Kapernick, Ronda Rousey, Vince McMahon

Celebrity & Media: Orson Wells, William Randolph Hearst Sr., Jane Fonda, Bob Hope, Hattie McDaniel, Katherine Hepburn, Charles Lindbergh, Hunter S. Thompson, Oprah Winfrey

Science & Religion: Oral Roberts, L. Ron Hubbard, Henry Madison Morris, Margaret Sanger, Jonas Salk, Jane Roe (Norma McCorvey), Anthony Fauci

Artists & Entertainers: Gutzon Borglum, Toni Morrison, Richard Pryor, Aretha Franklin, Tupac Shakur, Cat Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Woody Guthrie, Buffalo Bill Cody, Jack Kerouac, Chuck Berry, Loretta Lynn, Bob Dylan, Lucille Ball, Madonna, Marshall Mathers, Frank Lloyd Wright, Andy Warhol, Keith Herring, David Lynch, Pamela Anderson, Kathryn Bigelow, Arnold Schwarzenegger

Helen Keller
Ceasar Chavez
Rose Wilder Lane
Virginia Agpar
John D. Rockefeller
Johny Cash
Gloria Richardson
Sylvia Plath
Grace Hopper
Oprah Winfrey