Resources for Students and Teachers

In 2003, the U.S. State Department produced an excellent 18-page pamphlet on the history the Great Seal (3 Mb PDF).

In 2007, the United States Diplomacy Center created a comprehensive Exhibition Celebrating the 225th Anniversary of the Great Seal. On their (archived) website, you can download any of the exhibit's ten panels and reproduce them for classroom use. (Shown below are Panels 4 and 5.)

A trifold brochure of the exhibit is also available.

Primary Reference for GreatSeal.com

The Eagle and the Shield:
A History of the Great Seal of the United States

This is by far the best source of accurate information about the Great Seal.

This extremely well-documented book by Richard S. Patterson and Richardson Dougall was published in 1976 by the Office of the Historian, Bureau of Public Affairs, Department of State, under the auspices of the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration. (681 pages, 92 illustrations)

Now freely available in several file formats:
https://archive.org/details/TheEagleAndTheShield


This excellent 15-minute video was created for the
1982 bicentennial of America's symbolic masterpiece.