Audio (back to top)

Jazz, 1920s The Music of Woody Guthrie, 1940 Country Joe and the Fish, "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin-To-Die Rag," 1968

Book Excerpts (back to top)

Cabeza de Vaca describes the Indians of the Gulf Coast, 1542 A Spanish Friar Indicts the Conquistadores for the Massacre of Indians, 1542 Battle and Aftermath at Tenochtitlan, 1568 England's Title to North America, by Richard Hakluyt, 1584 First Interactions and Mutual Impressions between English Settlers and Indians of North Carolina Coast, 1588 John Smith Describes the "Starving Time" at Jamestown, 1609-1610 Necessary Supplies for the Voyage to Virginia, 1622 Account of the Pequot War, 1637 Indentured Servitude in Maryland, 1666 Benjamin Franklin's Pursuit of Moral Perfection, ca. 1730s The Great Awakening in New Hampshire, ca. 1735 Description of African Slavery, 1738 A Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge among the British Plantations in America, 1743 From Olaudah Equiano's Narrative, ca. 1745-1797 The Albany Conference, 1754 The Administration of Justice and the Description of the Laws by Thomas Jefferson, 1781 Short Observations on Slavery by Anthony Benezet, 1785 The Federalist by Alexander Hamilton, 1788 Account of a Connecticut Camp Meeting, 1806 Excerpt from the Cotton Book of G.W. Lovelace, 1817 Observations on the Real Rights of Women, 1818 Improving Female Education by Emma Willard, 1819 Cotton Boom in Alabama and Mississippi, ca. 1820s A Biography Endorsing Presidential Candidate Andrew Jackson, 1828 Charles Finney Recalls his Days in Oneida County, New York, ca. 1830 Prophet Joseph Smith Relays God's Message, 1831 Tocqueville Witnesses American Religious Enthusiasm, 1831-1832 Tocqueville Appreciates American Political Participation, 1831-1832 William Sprague Describes Revivals, 1833 Ralph Waldo Emerson on the American Scholar, 1837 The Nation of the Future, 1839 Reverend M'Ilvaine Denounces Intemperance, 1839 Horace Mann Reports to the Massachusetts Board of Education, 1840 New Orleans Slave Auction, 1841 A Fugitive Slave Writes to His Former Master, 1844 Slave Life on a Cotton Plantation, 1845 The North Star on Seneca Falls, 1848 "The Women of Philadelphia", ca. 1848 Elizabeth Cady Stanton Responds to the Printed Challenges to the Woman's Rights Movement, 1848 Frances Gage Remembers Sojourner Truth Appearing At the Akron Convention, 1851 John Brown Addresses the Court, 1859 Lincoln's First Inaugural Address, 1861 President Abraham Lincoln Calls in the Troops, 1861 Mary Phinney Recalls her Experiences of August 1862 Description of the South Carolina Legislature by a "Liberal Republican," 1871 The Credit Mobilier Scandal Recounted, 1873 The Evils of Fashionable Dress, by J. H. Kellogg, M.D., 1876 Progress and Poverty, 1879 Preamble to the Constitution of the Knights of Labor, 1881 Advice on Working and Saving, 1887 Chinese Stereotyping, 1890 New York City Tenement Life, 1890 Henry Demarest Lloyd, Wealth Against the Commonwealth, 1894 Populist Party Platform, 1896 Our Forests and National Parks, by John Muir, 1901 W.E.B. DuBois, Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others, 1903 William Allen White, The Growth of Democracy in America, 1910 Jane Addams, "First Days at Hull-House," 1910 Woman and the New Race, 1921 Modernism in Architecture, 1922 Women on the Homefront During World War II, 1940s African American Fighter Pilots, 1941-1943 The View from the Enola Gay, 1945 Harry S. Truman on the Bombing of Hiroshima, 1945 The Novikov Telegram, 1946 Eisenhower on Guatemala, 1954 The Affluent Society, 1958 Lewis Mumford on Suburbs, 1961 Sitting-In In Mississippi, 1963 Malcolm X on the March on Washington, 1964 Black Power, 1967 El Plan de Santa Barbara, 1969 The Evacuation of Saigon, 1975 Rejecting Gender-Free Equality, 1977 The Black Woman and the Women's Movement, 1979 American Hostages in Iran, 1979 The Strategic Defense Initiative, 1983 The Failure of the Reagan Revolution, 1986 Second Thoughts on the Information Highway, 1995

Broadsides (back to top)

Enlistment Papers, 1761 A Patriotic Advertisement, 1765 "The Sentiments of an AMERICAN WOMAN," 1780 The Grand Committee on the Subject of the Western Territory, 1786 New Haven Women Act On Behalf of the Sick and Wounded, 1861 Votes for Women a Practical Necessity, ca. 1912 Women and Public Housekeeping, 1913 Votes for Men, 1914 Call for a March Against the Vietnam War, 1965

Diaries (back to top)

From the Diary of John Adams, 1765 Excerpt from the Diary of Christiana Leach, of Kingsessing 1765-85 Excerpt from the Diary of Surgeon Albigence Waldo, of the Connecticut Line, 1777-1778 Excerpt from the Diary of Miss Anna Rawle, 1781 Mrs. Mary Dewees' Journal from Philadelphia to Kentucky, 1787-1788 Excerpts from the Journal of William Maclay, ca. 1790s Excerpt from the Journal of Lewis and Clark, 1805 John Quincy Adams and John Calhoun discuss the Compromise, 1820 From the Diary of a Young Northern Woman, 1861-1862 From the Diary of a Young Southern Woman, 1862 A Surgeon Participates in the War Effort, 1862

Government Documents (back to top)

Royal Description of Nathaniel Bacon, ca. 1676 The State of Virginia, 1676 Proclamation of Jonathan Belcher, 1756 The Governor of Massachusetts Bay issues a Proclamation against Rioters, 1765 Declaration of Rights, 1765 Articles of Confederation, 1777 Articles of Capitulation, Yorktown, 1781 Report on Government for Western Territory by Thomas Jefferson, 1784 Commonwealth of Massachusetts, A Proclamation by James Bowdoin, 1786 Debates in the Federal Convention, 1787 Constitution of the United States of America, 1787 The Federal Convention, Article VII, Section 4, 1787 Washington's Warning to the Insurgents in Pennsylvania, 1794 President John Adams to Congress, 1799 The Debate over War in Congress, 1811 James Madison to the Senate and House of Representatives, June 1, 1812 Tallmadge's Speech to Congress, 1819 Charles Pickney's Speech to Congress, 1820 Taylor Amendment, January 26, 1820 Thomas Amendment, February 17, 1820 Peleg Sprague Campaigns for William Henry Harrison, 1839 The President's War Message, 1846 David Wilmot Argues For a Free California, 1847 Calhoun's Speech on the Compromise of 1850 Address of Hon. Henry L. Benning, of Georgia, 1861 Virginia Leaves the Union, 1861 The Maryland Governor and Commander-in-Chief Orders up the Troop, 1861 Georgia Governor Joseph Brown Addresses the Mechanics, 1862 Thaddeus Stevens in Support of Black Suffrage, 1867 Republican Support for Black Suffrage, 1869 A Democratic View of the 15th Amendment Proposition, 1869 Klan Violence in Georgia, 1871 Race Relations in Georgia, ca. 1871 Grant's Farewell Address to Congress, 1876 An act to prohibit the coming of Chinese laborers to the United States, 1888 Mississippi Constitution of 1890 Theodore Roosevelt on Trusts, 1901 Theodore Roosevelt on Conservation, 1901 Disfranchisement Debate in the Virginia Legislature, 1902 Pure Food and Drug Act, 1906 A Brief for the Palmer-Owen Child Labor Bill, 1914 Sedition Act, 1918 Hoover Vetoes Muscle Shoals Bill, 1931 Special Message to the Congress on the Economic Recovery Program, 1932 The GI Bill, 1944 The Kennan Telegram, 1946 Truman Calls for Development of the Hydrogen Bomb, 1950 NSC-68, 1950 Senator Joseph McCarthy, Speech at Wheeling, West Virginia, 1950 Speech of Senator Margaret Chase Smith, 1950 Communist Aggression in Guatemala, 1954 Covert Action in Guatemala, 1954 Southern Manifesto, 1956 War on Poverty, 1964 The Economic Opportunity Act, 1964 The Voting Rights Act, 1965 Martin Luther King and Economic Justice, 1966 Tracking the President's Opponents, 1971-1973 Enemies Lists, 1973 Endangered Species Act, 1973 Independent Counsel Law, 1978 Jimmy Carter's Malaise Speech, 1979 The Evil Empire, 1983 Soviet Union-United States Summit in Washington, D.C., 1987 The New World Order, 1989 George Bush on the Persian Gulf War, 1991 The Clarence Thomas Confirmation Hearings, 1991 Newt Gingrich, "Where We Go From Here," 1995 "The Era of Big Government is Over," 1996 The Starr Report, 1998 The President's Representatives Respond, 1998 A Resignation in the House, 1998

Images (back to top)

Song of the Maiden's Leap Detail from the Maguey Plan, depicting a Mexican city, 16th century Amerigo Vespucci's Exploration of the New World, woodcut, 1506 Frontspiece of Thomas Hariot's Brief and True Report... [illustrated by Theodore de Bry], 1588 Images of Native Americans by German Illustrator Theodore de Bry, 1588 Depictions of Native American Women and British Tribal Woman, 1588 The Arrival of the Englishmen in Virginia, 1607 The Mayflower Compact, 1620 Images from John Smith's Generall Historie, 1624 James Island Fort, West Coast of Africa, ca. 1738 Washington Crossing the Delaware, 1776 Abigail Adams, n.d. Portrait of Benjamin Franklin, ca. 1794-1802 The Cotton Gin, ca. 1800 Portrait of Absalom Jones, 1810 The Shakers of New Lebanon, Religious Exercises in the Dining Room, n.d. "Huzzah for Jackson!," 1830s "Bostonians Break up Abolition Meetings," n.d. The Effects of Intemperancy, 1839 Virginia Electoral Ticket, 1840 Now Showing in New York, 1841 Charles Sumner, Senator from Massachusetts, 1850s Stephen A. Douglas, ca. 1850s John Brown, ca. 1850 Judgment in the Dred Scott Case, 1857 Storming of the Engine House by the U.S. Marines, 1859 Ringgold, Ga., Battery at Drill, 1860s Refugees Fleeing their Homes Near the War Front, 1860s Care for those Wounded at the Front, 1860s Members of the 21st Pennsylvania Cavalry, ca. 1862 "Pray, Maiden, Pray," ca. 1863 Martin Delaney, Major, 104th U.S.C.T. Illustrations of the United States Colored Troops, 1863-1864 Wounded Men at a Fredericksburg Hospital, May 1864 Joseph Trimble's Oath of Amnesty, 1865 The Townsend Bishop House, ca. 1866 Sixty-Five Members of the South Carolina Legislature, 1868-1872 Joining Tracks of the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific Railroads, 1869 "Smartly dressed couple seated on an 1866-model bicycle for two." Buffalo Hide Yard in Dodge City, Kansas, 1878 Mormon Emigrants Moving to Utah, ca. 1879 Ebenezer Bryce's Cabin in Utah, ca. 1881 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 1881 The Albuquerque Indian School in 1885 "Which? Sunday in the Grog Shop or Museum?" 1885 Imagined Uses of the Telephone, 1885 Gardiner Park County, Montana, 1887 Crow Indian Chiefs and Crow Prisoners, 1887 General Executive Board, Knights of Labor, ca. 1888 Banners of the Woman's Christian Temperence Union, ca. 1890 "A Typical East-Side Block," 1890 and 1902 Banner of the People's Party Paper, December 9, 1892 Lynching of Henry Smith, 1893 A Summary of Lynchings in 1897 The New York World reports the battleship Maine explosion, 1898 "Save Me From My Friends!" 1898 Portrait of Theodore Roosevelt, ca. 1901 The Evolution of the Tenement, 1902 The Riverside Tenements in Brooklyn, 1902 "Dens of Death," 1902 Portrait of Lee Chew, 1903 "'Jim Crow' Street-Car Law Set to Catch Negroes," 1904 A Grim Warning against Patent Medicines, 1905 Prohibition Cartoon, 1908 Children in the Cotton Mills, 1908 Night Scene at Indiana Glass Works, 1908 Theodore Roosevelt's African Game Trails, 1910 Tenement Room, 1913 Tenement Street Scene, 1913 "Keep 'em going!" Anti-German poster, 1917 "Remember! The Flag of Liberty! Support It!" 1917 Photographs from the Front, ca. 1918 "They'll be mighty proud in Dixie of their old black Joe," ca. 1918 Socialist Cartoon and Poem, 1919 Race Riots in Chicago, 1919 Virgil Bates and Family, 1919 Threats to Christian Civilization, 1922 "Dirty Work at the Crossroads," 1923 Automobile Advertising, 1923 Prohibition Raid, ca. 1928 Black Thursday at the New York Stock Exchange, 1929 "Hooverville," New York City, 1930 Christmas Day Breadlines in New York City, 1931 Family in El Paso, Arkansas, 1931 Soldiers-in-Training, 1940s Women in the Defense Industry, 1941-1942 Relocation Order, 1942 A Veteran Employee in an Eastern Navy Yard Instructs a Machinist Apprentice, 1942 "Woman-Power!", 1943 Japanese Relocation, ca. 1943 Japan Surrenders Aboard the U.S.S. Missouri, 1945 Levittown, 1948 Brooklyn Dodgers' infielder Jackie Robinson, 1948 Black Baseball Players, 1950 Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, 1951 Mary Markward Testifying Before the House Un-American Activities Committee, 1951 George E.C. Hayes, Thurgood Marshall, and James M. Nabrit, 1954 "Another Torch for Freedom!", 1955 Allen Ginsberg's "Howl," Front Cover, 1956 Communist Penetration into Guatemala, 1957 Lyndon B. Johnson, 1966 Special Purpose Telegram Blank No. 74/AG, 1966 Stokely Carmichael Speaks at Florida A&M University, 1967 Equal Rights Demonstration, 1970 The American Evacuation of Saigon, 1975 (photo) Jimmy Carter signs House of Representative Resolution for Equal Rights Amendment, 1978 Three Mile Island, 1979 Official Portrait of President Reagan, 1981 President Reagan and Premier Gorbachev in Red Square, Moscow, 1988 Macintosh Computers, 1990s President Bush Speaks with Top Officials, 1991 Anti-Abortion Protesters, 1992 The President and Vice President on the South Lawn of the White House, 1993 President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky in the White House, 1995

Legal Documents (back to top)

Laws Pertaining to Slaves and Servants, Virginia 1629-1672 "The forme of a binding servant," 1635 Will of Edward Garfield from Watertown, Massachusetts, 1668 Oath and Warrant, 1692 Indictment of Bridget Bishop, 1692 Oral Examination of Bridget Bishop, 1692 Physical Examination of Bridget Bishop, 1692 Testimony Against Bridget Bishop, 1692 Death Warrant of Bridget Bishop, 1692 The Dred Scott Decision, 1857 Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896 Fighting to Death for the Bible, 1925 Last Statement of Bartolomeo Vanzetti, 1929 Korematsu v. United States, 1944

Letters (back to top)

Montezuma Greets Fernando Cortez, ca. 1520 King's Letter to the Duke of York, 1676 Nathaniel Bacon's Father Petitions the King, 1676 Extract of a letter from Will's Creek, July 10, 1755 Account of Col.George Mercer's Arrival in Virginia, and his Resignation of the Office of Stamp Distributor, 1765 An Account of the Battle of Princeton, 1777 John McKinly Writes to his Wife Jenny, 1777 Letter from James Madison to General Washington, 1787 Letter from Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787 Alexander Hamilton to George Washington, 1792 Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 1793 Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1794 Alexander Hamilton Writes to Angelica Schuyler Church, 1794 Tully on the Insurrection in the Western Country, 1794 "Horatius" to the People of the United States, 1795 Thomas Jefferson to To Phillip Mazzei, 1796 Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1798 The President to Governor Claiborne, 1804 Excerpt from the Memoirs of Susan Mansfield Huntington, 1815 Daniel Webster Anticipates Jackson's Arrival in Washington, D.C., 1829 Margaret Bayard Smith Describes the Inaugural Celebration, 1829 Appealing to Racism in Arguing for Female Suffrage, 1867 Letters of Black Migrants in the Chicago Defender, 1916-1918

Literature (back to top)

Poems for Soldiers, 1756 A Poem on Election Day, Author Unknown, Ca. 1760 An Emetic for aristocrats! Or, a Chapter Respecting Governor Jay, and his Treaty, 1795 An Anonymous Poet Satirizes "Exempts," ca. 1862 The White Man's Burden, 1899 "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" and "I Too" by Langston Hughes, 1920s "The Crowd at the Ball Game" by William Carlos Williams, 1923 "White Houses" by Claude McKay, 1925 Allen Ginsberg, "Howl," 1956

Magazine Articles (back to top)

Israel Green, The Capture of John Brown, 1859 Elizabeth Cady Stanton on Black Suffrage, 1869 E.L. Godkin Asesses Reconstruction, 1871 Description of Sharecropping Tenants on a Georgia Plantation, 1881 "The Factory System as an Element in Civilization," 1882 The Frontier Prospector, 1883 Richard Croker on Tammany Hall, 1892 Ray Stannard Baker, "Hull House and the Ward Boss," 1898 Lee Chew, "The Biography of a Chinaman," 1903 The Threat of Food and Drug Adulteration, 1905 The Great American Fraud by Samuel Hopkins Adams, 1905 The Condemned-Meat Industry, 1906 President Roosevelt's Popularity, 1909 Lyman Abbott on President Roosevelt, 1909 Socialist Cartoon and Poem, 1919 "The Klan's Fight for Americanism," 1926 The Return of Barter, 1933 A. Philip Randolph, "Why Should We March?," 1942 G.I. Japyank, 1944 Ernie Pyle, "Captain Waskow's Men Say Good-Bye," 1944 The Six Thousand Houses That Levitt Built, 1948 Polio Hysteria, 1953 The Polio Vaccine, 1955 Richard Nixon, "What Has Happened to America?", 1967 Lester Thurow, "How to Wreck the Economy," 1981 The Creation of the Cyberghetto, 1998

Maps (back to top)

Exploration in the New World, 1492-1542 Map of Virginia, 1607 Southern Campaigns, 1778-1781 Map of the West, ca. 1802 The War of 1812 The Removal of the American Indians The Mexican War, 1846-1848 The Election of 1860 The Course of Secession 1860-1861 The Advancing Union Army, 1861-1865 The Railroad Network, 1880 Presidential Election Results, 1876-1896 The Spanish American War, 1898 Forest Reserves & National Parks in the Western United States, 1901 Woman Suffrage in States, 1912 American Participation on the Western Front, 1918 Presidential Elections, 1956-1968 The War in the Persian Gulf, 1990-1991

Newspaper Articles (back to top)

Instructions of the Town of Braintree to Their Representative, 1765 An Account of a Naval Engagement, 1778 Morality of Manufactures, 1823 Notices and Advertisements from the New York Evening Post, 1824 Elias Boudimott Proposes a Cherokee Newspaper, 1827 The First African American Newspaper Appears, 1827 The Georgia Gold Rush, 1830 Garrison Writes his His First Editorial for the The Liberator, 1831 African Americans Convene for Their Second National Convention, 1832 Tabitha Dreams of a Better Society, 1841 The New York Herald Supports the Compromise of 1850 "Let the People Speak Out," 1854 Scenes in the Kansas Election, 1855 "The Reign of Terror," 1856 A Southern Response to the Caning of Sumner, 1856 Northern Outrage over Scott v. Sandford, 1857 Democratic Paper Endorses the Scott Decision, 1857 "Citizenship," 1857 A Fight at the Polls, 1860 Charleston, South Carolina, Reacts to Lincoln's Election, 1860 "The Southern Confederacy - What Secession Means," 1861 Secession Sentiment in Virginia, 1861 "Lincoln's 150,000 Negro Soldiers," 1863 The Fate of Black Troops in Confederate Prisons, 1863 News of the Rebel Army Approaching Chambersburg, 1864 The Capture of Fort Pillow, 1864 The Aftermath of Destruction at a Town Near Washington, D.C., 1864 Reactions to Emancipation in Virginia, 1865 "What Shall Become of the Freedmen?" 1865 The Postwar Political Climate and Election of 1868, 1869 Colored Alliance Demands, 1889 Black Farmers Strike, 1891 Tom Watson and Anthony Wilson at Sparta, Georgia, 1892 The Lynching of Bob Harper, 1892 Gold Democrats Demand New Ticket, 1896 Richmond African Americans Boycott Streetcars, 1904 The Niagara Movement's Address to the Country by W.E.B. Du Bois, 1906 Roosevelt, Congress, and the Panama Canal, 1911 "I'm a Bolshevist from the Bottom of My Feet to the Top of My Head," Mother Jones, 1919 The Crash Worsens, 1929 Social Upheaval in 1931 "Strike Against Jackie Spiked," 1947 Traveling with the Dodgers, 1947 The Decline of the Negro Leagues, 1948 Russian Development of the Atomic Bomb, 1949 Undercover in the Communist Party, 1951 The Right of Interposition, 1955 Prince Edward County Protests Integration with Private Institutions, 1959 Rally Against the Vietnam War at the Pentagon, 1967 George Wallace at Madison Square Garden, 1968 Earth Day, 1970 Gas Fever, 1979 Three Mile Island, 1979 An Interview with President Reagan, 1982 Rally for Gay Rights, 1984 Windows 95 Is Unveiled to the Public, 1995

Speeches (back to top)

Powhatan to John Smith, 1608 A Modell of Christian Charity, by John Winthrop, 1630 Bacon's Oath of Fidelity, ca. 1676 The Danger of an Unconverted Ministry, 1740 Patrick Henry's Speech, June 14, 1788 George Washington's Farewell Address, 1796 George Washington on Foreign Affairs, 1796 Sagu-yu-what-hah (Red Jacket) Addresses Christian Missionaries, 1805 A Thanksgiving Sermon, 1808 Jackson Announces his Policy of Rotation in Office, 1829 President Jackson Reports on Indian Removal, 1830 Peter Osborne Speaks to a Crowd Celebrating American Independence, 5 July 1832 Dorothea Dix Speaks on Behalf of Insane Persons, 1843 August Spies Defends the Eight-Hour Movement, 1886 Eugene Debs addresses the American Railway Union, 1894 Carl Schurz against American Imperialism, 1899 Eugene V. Deb's Canton Speech, 1918 New York Campaign Speech by Herbert Hoover, 1928

Video (back to top)

The Bombing of Nagasaki, 1945 HUAC, Communism, and Hollywood, 1948 Duck and Cover, 1960

Other (back to top)

The Oral Tradition of the Foundation of the Iroquois Confederacy Oral Tradition of the Origin of the Mide' Religion The Betrayed Maiden, 17th century Passengers to Virginia, 1635 Emigrants to New England from Sandwich, England 1635 Nathaniel Bacon's Declaration of the People, 1676 The Lynchburg Hospital Association, ca. 1863 Nixon puppet, by Larry N. Frost, Denver, Colorado, ca. 1973 A Brief History of the Internet, 1999