489 items
The National Woman Suffrage and Educational Committee was formed in the spring of 1871. The Washington DC-based committee pledged to act as the “centre of all action upon Congress and the country.” The group was also dedicated to the...
Voting restrictions for African Americans, 1944
In 1944 a group of southern editors and writers documented cases of voter suppression in southern states. They took this step because, in the presidential election of 1944, only 28 percent of potential voters in the South participated...
Thomas Rowe and Joshua Hooper: Sedition charges, 1815
Even though the Sedition Act of 1798 had expired in 1801, individuals could still be charged with sedition. On January 20, 1815, Thomas Rowe and Joshua Hooper, publishers of the Massachusetts newspaper The Yankee , printed an article...
The Sedition Act, 1798
On August 14, 1798, the Columbian Centinel , a Boston newspaper aligned with the Federalist Party, printed this copy of the Sedition Act. It was the last in a series of legislation known as the Alien and Sedition Acts passed by the...
Margaret Corbin
Margaret Corbin Revolutionary War Margaret “Molly” Corbin was the first woman in the United States to earn a military pension, based on her service at the Battle of Fort Washington. Image Source: Herbert Knotel, Twentieth-century sketch representing...
Cuffee Saunders
Cuffee Saunders Revolutionary War Born into slavery, Cuffee Saunders secured his freedom by serving during the Revolutionary War. Image Source: Benjamin Huntington, Oath certifying Cuffee Saunders's purchase of freedom, 1821, Gilder Lehrman...
Henry Knox
Henry Knox Revolutionary War Henry Knox rose through the ranks during the American Revolution to become chief of artillery in George Washington’s army. Image Source: Gilbert Stuart, Oil painting of Henry Knox, 1806, The Museum of Fine Arts Boston
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Federico Fernández Cavada
Federico Fernández Cavada Civil War Cuban-born Federico Fernández Cavada served in the Union Army during the Civil War as an engineer and topographer with the Balloon Corps, sketching Confederate forces from the air. Image Source: Mathew B. Brady,...
Pauline Cushman
Pauline Cushman Civil War Pauline Cushman served as a spy for the Union Army and is buried at San Francisco National Cemetery. She was an actress who used her skills to gather intelligence for the Union Army. Image Source: Mathew Brady Studio,...
Edward Day Cohota
Edward Day Cohota Civil War Edward Day Cohota served in the Union Army for thirty years and was one of approximately 300 Asians and Pacific Islanders who fought in the Civil War. Image Source: Photograph of Edward Day Cohota, ca. 1880-1890, Cape Ann...
Louis Santop Loftin
Louis Santop Loftin World War I Louis Santop Loftin, Hall of Fame baseball player and WWI Veteran, is buried at the Philadelphia National Cemetery. Loftin played baseball in the Negro Leagues from 1909 to 1926 and was one of the league’s first star...
Ella Osborn
Ella Osborn World War I Ella Jane Osborn, a nurse deployed to France during World War I, is buried at Wainscott Cemetery in New York. She kept a remarkable diary in 1918 and 1919 that captured her experiences during the war. Image Source: Ella Jane...
Yeiichi “Kelly” Kuwayama
Yeiichi “Kelly” Kuwayama World War II Yeiichi Kuwayama served as a platoon medic in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, composed of Japanese Americans. His unit fought in some of the fiercest World War II battles in Italy and France. Image Source:...
Joe Morris Sr.
Joe Morris Sr. World War II Joe Morris Sr. was one of four hundred “code talkers” who memorized a code that substituted traditional Navajo words for military phrases. The contributions of the Navajo code talkers were classified until 1968. Image...
Annie Fox
Annie Fox World War II Annie Fox was Station Hospital’s chief nurse during the attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawai'i. On October 26, 1942, Fox became the first woman in America to be awarded the Purple Heart for her heroism during the attack. Image...
John W. Rogers Sr.
John W. Rogers Sr. World War II In World War II, John W. Rogers was one of the original twenty-eight Black airmen recruited to the 99th Pursuit Squadron, also known as the Tuskegee Airmen. Rogers flew more than 120 missions in Europe. Image Source:...
Walter Schirra Jr.
Walter Schirra Jr. Cold War After completing ninety combat missions during the Korean War, Walter Schirra Jr. was named one of seven test pilots for NASA’s Project Mercury. Image Source: Yvette Smith, Photograph of Walter Schirra emerging from the...
Perry Watkins
Perry Watkins Cold War Perry Watkins served fifteen years in the Army as an openly gay man. Despite this, in 1980, the Army revoked his security clearance and had him discharged because he was gay, a discharge he successfully fought in court. Image...
Grace Murray Hopper
Grace Murray Hopper Cold War Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper was a naval computer scientist who held the rank of rear admiral when she retired in 1985. Image Source: Lynn Gilbert, Photograph of Grace Murray Hopper in her office in Washington, DC,...
Alan G. Rogers
Alan G. Rogers Iraq & Afghanistan Alan G. Rogers served in the Army during the Gulf and Iraq Wars. For his master’s thesis in policy management from Georgetown, Rogers wrote about the effect of the US military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on...
Jose Angel Garibay
Jose Angel Garibay Iraq & Afghanistan In 1979, Simona Garibay and her youngest son, Jose Angel Garibay, came to the United States from Jalisco, Mexico. After his death in Iraq, the US government awarded Cpl. Jose Garibay posthumous citizenship....
Ashley White-Stumpf
Ashley White-Stumpf Iraq & Afghanistan Ashley White-Stumpf served in the Army during the Afghanistan War. She was posthumously awarded a Bronze Star and the Purple Heart for her service. Image Source: Photograph of the unveiling ceremony for...
The Right to Vote, Part 1: The Early Republic through the Civil War
The Right to Vote: Part 1 The Early Republic through the Civil War
Who could vote in the founding and Jacksonian eras? Scroll through to view the exhibition (above). Recorded readings of select components in the exhibition...
The Right to Vote, Part 2: Reconstruction and the Jim Crow Era
The Right to Vote: Part 2 Reconstruction and the Jim Crow Era
How did access to the vote evolve during the Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras? Scroll through to view the exhibition (above). Recorded readings of select...
The Right to Vote, Part 3: Women's Suffrage
The Right to Vote: Part 3 Women's Suffrage
What was the path to the Nineteenth Amendment? Scroll through to view the exhibition (above). Recorded readings of select components in the exhibition are available by clicking ...
The Right to Vote, Part 4: The Civil Rights Era to the 2000s
The Right to Vote: Part 4 The Civil Rights Era to the 2000s
How has access to the vote expanded and contracted over the past sixty years? Scroll through to view the exhibition (above). Recorded readings of select components...
Voting Rights and Restrictions in Pre-Emancipation America
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> Access this essay as a PDF , including key vocabulary terms and discussion questions, or read the text of the essay below. The concept of “democracy” changed throughout early American history. In...
Pioneering New Methods to Expand Voting, 1865–1920
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> Access this essay as a PDF , including key vocabulary terms and discussion questions, or read the text of the essay below. A new chapter in voting rights began when the Civil War ended in 1865....
The Battle to Expand Access to the Ballot from 1920 to 2000
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> Access this essay as a PDF , including key vocabulary terms and discussion questions, or read the text of the essay below. State and local governments have primary responsibility for setting the...
James Reese Europe
James Reese Europe World War I James Reese Europe, a bandleader in New York City, was an advocate for uniquely Black music. Europe enlisted during World War I and became a lieutenant in the 369th Regiment, known as the Harlem Hellfighters. Image...
Using Works of Art in Teaching American History
The best teachers of Western Civilization courses have long made use of the European fine arts—painting, sculpture, architecture, the decorative arts—to bring the subject alive to their students. It is perhaps less well recognized...
What’s That Sound? Teaching the 1960s through Popular Music
There’s Something Happening Here . . . The 1960s was one of the most dramatic and controversial decades in American history. Opinions about its achievements and failures continue to be divided between those who condemn the decade as...
The Fight for LGBT Rights after World War II
The oppression of LGBT Americans did not begin in the post–World War II decades, but they faced increasingly systematic exclusion from public life, in part resulting from the Cold War political climate of fear and distrust of people...
The Disability Rights Movement in America
Disabled people have always fought for their rights. This is because they know that every policy issue, health crisis, inaccessible space, and fight for justice is a disability issue. Demanding access and advocacy for all people,...
America's Role in the World: World War I to World War II
Between World War I and World War II the United States emerged on the world stage as a superpower. This ascendancy had military, economic, humanitarian, and cultural dimensions. Some Americans expressed discomfort with this unwelcome...
The United States and the Space Race
On July 20, 1969, 650 million people witnessed an astounding event. They tuned in to live broadcasts of the first lunar landing and heard American astronaut Neil Armstrong’s famous words, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap...
Sally Hemings
Exploring extraordinary Black lives of the Founding Era, such as that of Sally Hemings, can transform our understanding of American history. Born in Virginia in 1773, Sally Hemings was an enslaved woman in the household of Thomas...
Teddy Roosevelt campaigns for a third term, 1912
In February 1912, former president Theodore Roosevelt stunned the country by challenging President William Howard Taft for the Republican nomination. The move was not only a rejection of his friend Taft, it also violated an unwritten...
Theodore Roosevelt supports women’s suffrage, 1912
In this letter written in July 1912, during his campaign for a thrid term as president, Theodore Roosevelt informs the state and county chairmen of the Progressive Party of his plan to support women’s suffrage. The document shows the...
The Declaration of Independence and the Long Struggle for Equality in America: An Introduction
Whatever else the Declaration of Independence encompassed—a proclamation of political sovereignty, an indictment against the King of England, an appeal for allies—its assertion that “all men are created equal” shines as the polestar...
An Introduction to Juneteenth
Juneteenth is the most widely recognized, long-lived Black commemoration of slavery’s demise. Juneteenth marks June 19, 1865, when federal troops commanded by General George Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, to proclaim freedom to...
US Treaties with American Indian Nations
After the American Revolution, the United States and Indian tribal nations governed their diplomatic relations through formal treaties. States could not be signatories to these treaties because the US Constitution required that only...
"Your Late Lamented Husband": A Letter from Frederick Douglass to Mary Todd Lincoln
On March 4, 1865, Frederick Douglass attended President Abraham Lincoln’s second inauguration. Standing in the crowd, Douglass heard Lincoln declare slavery the "cause" and emancipation the "result" of the Civil War. Over the crisp...
Imperial Rivalries
When Christopher Columbus made his plans to sail westward across the Atlantic, he first set off across Europe to find sponsors. His brother Bartholomew went to the court of the English King Henry VII (who turned him down, much to the...
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