The Jackson Era

The Jackson Era

Challenges & Opportunities

Available to teachers only as part of the Teaching The Jacksonian Era Teacher Pass


Teaching The Jacksonian Era Teacher Pass includes:

  • Assignments & Activities
  • Reading Quizzes
  • Current Events & Pop Culture articles
  • Discussion & Essay Questions
  • Challenges & Opportunities
  • Related Readings in Literature & History

Sample of Challenges & Opportunities


Andrew Jackson is perhaps the only president of the antebellum period whose name (and face) your students may recognize. In fact they could, at this very moment, be in possession of his portrait. That's because for about 80 years a likeness of Jackson and his spectacular eyebrows graced the U.S. $20 bill. It's an ironic legacy for a man who spent most of his presidency fighting to destroy banks.

Of course, in April 2016, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew announced that Harriet Tubman would take over Jackson's prime real estate on the front of the twenty. Jackson would remain, but he'd be smaller...and on the back of the bill. His prominent eyebrows will no longer have such prominence, but the fact that the U.S. Treasury decided to keep him on the twenty at all—despite the objections of many people dismayed by his role in Indian removal in the U.S.—is a testament to the fact that Jackson's presidency remains significant, even if his legacy is complicated.