Palace Originals
                      

YOUNG AMERICAN HEROES
Young American Heroes takes a break-the-mold approach to telling the story of America’s past to middle school students. It does so by using ordinary kids doing extraordinary things during seminal moments in American history.  The enthralling, true-life stories of young American heroes and heroines are told through cutting-edge media
 and multiple content platforms--TV films, an interactive website, www.youngamericanheroes.com, DVDs, and graphic novels. The stories include all of the dramatic elements of good and evil, right and wrong, and life and death as these teens and young adults take on and triumph over adversity. 

​All of the stories in this series are based on primary sources, written by the “heroes” themselves or someone close to them. The website contains primary and secondary sources covering each historical time period, and also allows users to create their own graphic novels or videos using assets from the YAH-produced films and graphic novels. Young American Heroes uses cutting-edge media and multiple content platforms—television, DVD, interactive website, graphic novels, and middle school social studies classroom curricula.
​The first in the series, Frederick Douglass: Pathway From Slavery to Freedom, is an Emmy Award-winning half-hour historical drama about the life of the young Frederick Douglass, based on his autobiography. The original script uses Douglass’s own words to convey his story. 
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​A second story covers the Civil War experiences of a young teen from Wisconsin, who ran away from home to join the Union Army. The Elisha Stockwell Story follows his autobiography, written when he was an old man, and covers his battle experiences at Shiloh, Vicksburg and Atlanta.
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A third episode in the series is based on a young 16-year-old girl’s efforts in 1777 to warn the New York militia that the British were attacking Danbury, Conn., during the Revolutionary War. Sybil Ludington’s midnight-ride as the “female Paul Revere” allowed the colonists to confront the British at the Battle of Ridgefield (Conn.) and drive them back to their ships. In recognition of her brave deed, Gen. George Washington visited to thank her personally. ​
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