Twentieth Century

A select group of material highlights the major events of the twentieth century including World War I, World War II, women’s suffrage, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Cold War.

Selected searches:

• Progressive Era to New Era
• The US Navy and the Boxer Rebellion in China
• Women’s suffrage
• World War I documents
• NAACP
• Great Depression
• New Deal
• Communism
• World War II
• Letters from First Lieutenant Sidney Diamond written from Pacific theater during World War II
• Major General John Hilldring’s archive of materials relating to his military service and his position as assistant secretary of state for the occupied areas
• A collection of items related to the Manhattan Project
• 1945–present
• ​The Civil Rights Movement

Educational Resources:

Educational materials including essays, timelines, multimedia, interactives, featured primary sources, and other teaching resources can be found in the History by Era section of our website. Our Featured Primary Sources include introductions, transcriptions, and images of documents, available to all educators, with additional content of questions for discussion and  printable hand-outs for Affiliate School members.

Progressive Era to New Era, 1900–1929

• Jim Crow and the Great Migration
• The Politics of Reform
• World War I
• The Roaring Twenties

Great Depression & WWII, 1929–1945

• The Great Depression
• The New Deal
• World War II

1945 to the Present

• Postwar Politics and the Cold War
• The Fifties
• The Civil Rights Movement
• The Sixties
• The Seventies
• The Age of Reagan
• Facing the New Millennium

Common Core Units for this Era 

• Franklin D. Roosevelt’s First Inaugural Address
• Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” Speech