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Women are like water to Western history. Both have flowed through the terrain we have come to call the West, long before the inhabitants conceived of themselves as part of an expanding United States. Both have been represented as...

History Now Essay

Women of the West

Virginia Scharff

Geography, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Appears in:

9 | The American West Fall 2006

History Now Essay

FDR and Hitler: A Study in Contrasts

David M. Kennedy

Government and Civics, World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The Great Depression and World War II were events in world history, but they touched different countries in sometimes dramatically different ways. To paraphrase Tolstoy, many peoples suffered, but every unhappy people was unhappy in...

Appears in:

14 | World War II Winter 2007

History Now Essay

The Marshall and Taney Courts: Continuities and Changes

R. B. Bernstein

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Though the first holders of the job thought it more a burden than a position of honor or power, the office of chief justice of the United States has a pivotal role in the American constitutional system, thanks mainly to John Marshall ...

Appears in:

15 | The Supreme Court Spring 2008

History Now Essay

Indian Removal

Theda Perdue

Geography, Government and Civics

In 1828 pressure was building among white Americans for the relocation of American Indians from the eastern United States to lands west of the Mississippi River. A student at a mission school in the Cherokee Nation, which lay within...

Appears in:

28 | American Indians Summer 2011

History Now Essay

Andrew Jackson’s Shifting Legacy

Daniel Feller

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Of all presidential reputations, Andrew Jackson’s is perhaps the most difficult to summarize or explain. Most Americans recognize his name, though most probably know him (in the words of a famous song) as the general who "fought the...

Appears in:

22 | Andrew Jackson and His World Winter 2009

History Now Essay

The Civil Rights Movement: Major Events and Legacies

James T. Patterson

Art, Government and Civics, Literature

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

From the earliest years of European settlement in North America, whites enslaved and oppressed black people. Although the Civil War finally brought about the abolition of slavery, a harsh system of white supremacy persisted thereafter...

Appears in:

8 | The Civil Rights Movement Summer 2006

History Now Essay

The World War II Home Front

Allan M. Winkler

Economics, Government and Civics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

World War II had a profound impact on the United States. Although no battles occurred on the American mainland, the war affected all phases of American life. It required unprecedented efforts to coordinate strategy and tactics with...

Appears in:

14 | World War II Winter 2007

History Now Essay

Ordinary Americans and the Constitution

Gary B. Nash

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The Constitution is so honored today, at home and abroad, that it may seem irreverent to suggest that for a great many ordinary Americans, it was not what they wished as a capstone of their revolutionary experience. This is not to say...

Appears in:

13 | The Constitution Fall 2007

History Now Essay

Women and Wagoners: Camp Followers in the American War for Independence

Holly A. Mayer

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

An old tune called "The Girl I Left Behind Me" tells of a lovelorn soldier yearning to return home to his waiting fair maid. Although there is a good chance that this song was fifed during the Revolutionary War, the earliest...

Appears in:

21 | The American Revolution Fall 2009

History Now Essay

England on the Eve of Colonization

Paul E. J. Hammer

World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

When James VI of Scotland and his entourage began his journey south to take up the crown of England in April of 1603, it looked as if the ancient enmity between the two realms had finally been swept away. With England’s aristocratic...

Appears in:

The publication of Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel The Jungle produced an immediate and powerful effect on Americans and on federal policy, but Sinclair had hoped to achieve a very different result. At the time he began working on the...

History Now Essay

The Jungle and the Progressive Era

Robert W. Cherny

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Appears in:

16 | Books That Changed History Summer 2008

History Now Essay

John Brown: Villain or Hero?

Steven Mintz

Economics, Literature, Religion and Philosophy

9, 10, 11, 12

In 1856, three years before his celebrated raid on Harpers Ferry, John Brown, with four of his sons and three others, dragged five unarmed men and boys from their homes along Kansas’s Pottawatomie Creek and hacked and dismembered...

Appears in:

5 | Abolition Fall 2005

History Now Essay

The US Banking System: Origin, Development, and Regulation

Richard Sylla

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Banks are among the oldest businesses in American history—the Bank of New York, for example, was founded in 1784, and as the recently renamed Bank of New York Mellon it had its 225th anniversary in 2009. The banking system is one of...

Appears in:

Almost a thousand years ago, American Indians built a city along the Mississippi River in the middle of North America. Located opposite modern-day St. Louis, Missouri, this city is called Cahokia by archaeologists, and it was as large...

History Now Essay

Cahokia: A Pre-Columbian American City

Timothy R. Pauketat

Appears in:

28 | American Indians Summer 2011

History Now Essay

Amateurism and Jim Thorpe at the Fifth Olympiad

Kate Buford

7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Thorpe’s deception and subsequent confession deals amateur sport in America the hardest blow it has ever had to take and disarranges the scheme of amateur athletics the world over. New York Times , January 28, 1913 The early years of...

Appears in:

It’s hard to explain, if you weren’t there at the time, why the "Battle of the Sexes"—the 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs—was so important. The most enduring image from the event was the picture of Billie...

History Now Essay

The Battle of the Sexes

Gail Collins

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Appears in:

New Orleans is a city built in a location that was by any measure a mistake. North American settlers needed a way to import and export goods via the Mississippi River, so a city was created atop swamps. By virtue of its location and...

History Now Essay

New Orleans and the History of Jazz

Loren Schoenberg

Art, Geography

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Appears in:

11 | American Cities Spring 2007

History Now Essay

Women and the Great Depression

Susan Ware

Economics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In 1933 Eleanor Roosevelt’s It’s Up to the Women exhorted American women to help pull the country through its current economic crisis, the gravest it had ever faced: "The women know that life must go on and that the needs of life must...

Appears in:

19 | The Great Depression Spring 2009

History Now Essay

Economic Policy through the Lens of History

Roger E. A. Farmer

Economics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be...

Appears in:

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson clearly described the role of American Indians in the American Revolution. In addition to his other oppressive acts, King George III had "endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of...

History Now Essay

The Indians’ War of Independence

Colin G. Calloway

Geography, Government and Civics, World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Appears in:

21 | The American Revolution Fall 2009

History Now Essay

James Madison and the Constitution

Jack Rakove

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

James Madison had just turned twenty-five when he took up his first public office as a delegate to the Virginia provincial convention that endorsed American independence and then adopted a new constitution and an accompanying...

Appears in:

13 | The Constitution Fall 2007

History Now Essay

The Square Deal: Theodore Roosevelt and the Themes of Progressive Reform

Kirsten Swinth

Economics, Government and Civics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Progressivism arrived at a moment of crisis for the United States. As the nineteenth century came to a close, just decades after the Civil War, many feared the nation faced another explosive and violent conflict, this time between the...

Appears in:

17 | Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Era Fall 2008

History Now Essay

Early America’s Jewish Settlers

Eli Faber

Religion and Philosophy

If you had the opportunity to create a new society from scratch, to build its institutions and establish its social structure from the ground up, how would you go about doing it? This is one of the most fruitful ways for teachers and...

Appears in:

29 | Religion in the Colonial World Fall 2011

History Now Essay

Natural Rights, Citizenship Rights, State Rights, and Black Rights: Another Look at Lincoln and Race

James Oakes

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Stephen Douglas was the first in a long line of observers frustrated by the inconsistent things Abraham Lincoln had to say about racial equality. In their fifth debate, at Galesburg, Illinois, on October 7, 1858, Douglas complained...

Appears in:

18 | Abraham Lincoln in His Time and Ours Winter 2008

History Now Essay

Technology of the 1800s

Brent D. Glass

Government and Civics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In his classic study, Democracy in America (1835–1840), Alexis de Tocqueville titled one of his chapters "Why the Americans are more Addicted to Practical rather than Theoretical Science." He observed that the political and social...

Appears in:

10 | Nineteenth Century Technology Winter 2006

History Now Essay

Conflict and Commerce: The Rise and Fall of New Netherland

Simon Middleton

Economics, World History

8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In September 1609, when Henry Hudson guided his ship, De Halve Maen , through the narrows dividing present-day Staten and Long Islands, he was not the first European navigator to sail into what we know today as New York Bay. The...

Appears in:

12 | The Age Of Exploration Summer 2007

History Now Essay

The Importance of Muhammad Ali

Thomas Hauser

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., as Muhammad Ali was once known, was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on January 17, 1942—a time when blacks were the servant class in Louisville. They held jobs such as tending the backstretch at Churchill...

Appears in:

Voting Rights on the Eve of the Revolution The basic principle that governed voting in colonial America was that voters should have a "stake in society." Leading colonists associated democracy with disorder and mob rule, and believed...

History Now Essay

Winning the Vote: A History of Voting Rights

Steven Mintz

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Appears in:

1 | Elections Fall 2004

History Now Essay

Indian Slavery in the Americas

Alan Gallay

Economics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The story of European colonialism in the Americas and its victimization of Africans and Indians follows a central paradigm in most textbooks. The African "role" encompasses the transportation, exploitation, and suffering of many...

Appears in:

The autobiographies of ex-slaves in America are the foundation of an African American literary tradition, as well as unique glimpses into the souls of slaves themselves. The roughly sixty-five to seventy slave narratives published in...

History Now Essay

The Slave Narratives: A Genre and a Source

David W. Blight

Economics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Appears in:

2 | Primary Sources on Slavery Winter 2004

History Now Essay

The Origins and Legacy of the Pennsylvania Quakers

Barry Levy

Government and Civics, Religion and Philosophy

Enthusiastic religious conviction among rustic Quakers contributed much to what seems civilized and refined about American culture and society. Although the movement later attracted intellectual and genteel members, Quakerism began as...

Appears in:

29 | Religion in the Colonial World Fall 2011

History Now Essay

Abraham Lincoln and Jacksonian Democracy

Sean Wilentz

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Abraham Lincoln was, for most of his political career, a highly partisan Whig. As long as the Whig Party existed, he never supported the candidate of another party. Until the late 1850s, his chief political heroes were Whigs, above...

Appears in:

18 | Abraham Lincoln in His Time and Ours Winter 2008

History Now Essay

Motor City: The Story of Detroit

Thomas J. Sugrue

Economics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

"You can see here, as it is impossible to do in a more varied and complex city, the whole structure of an industrial society." So wrote essayist Edmund Wilson, reporting on a visit to the Motor City in the 1930s. As the capital of...

Appears in:

11 | American Cities Spring 2007

History Now Essay

Sandra Day O’Connor: A Life of Action

Meryl Justin Chertoff

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Sandra Day O’Connor still has a lot of work to do. The first woman on the United States Supreme Court who recently described herself as "a retired cowgirl" continues to break new ground as an advocate for judicial independence and...

Appears in:

15 | The Supreme Court Spring 2008

History Now Essay

Change and Crisis: North America on the Eve of the European Invasion

Christopher L. Miller

Geography, Government and Civics, Religion and Philosophy

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

It was around the year 1450. A young man was living alone in the dense forest somewhere southeast of Lake Ontario because there was not enough food in his home village. Many like him were doing the same and some, perhaps even this...

Appears in:

There wasn’t anybody in that entire Brains Trust apparently that had given any thought—they had absolutely no plans—or any real study to the problem created by this banking situation. —Walter Wyatt, Federal Reserve official, amazed at...

History Now Essay

The Hundred Days and Beyond: What Did the New Deal Accomplish?

Anthony J. Badger

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Appears in:

19 | The Great Depression Spring 2009

History Now Essay

Why Sports History Is American History

Mark Naison

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In the classroom, examples from sports can explain key events in American history and help explore how people in American society have grappled with racial, ethnic, and regional differences in our very diverse nation. Whether it is...

Appears in:

In the 1920s, Teapot Dome became synonymous with government corruption and the scandals arising out of the administration of President Warren G. Harding. Since then, it has sometimes been used to symbolize the power and influence of...

History Now Essay

Graft and Oil: How Teapot Dome Became the Greatest Political Scandal of Its Time

Robert W. Cherny

Economics, Government and Civics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Appears in:

20 | High Crimes and Misdemeanors Summer 2009

History Now Essay

Ronald Reagan and the End of the Cold War: The Debate Continues

Michael Cox

World History

For a British professor with more than a passing interest in US foreign policy and the role of the United States in ending the Cold War, it is indeed fascinating to observe how deeply divided opinion still remains over the part played...

Appears in:

27 | The Cold War Spring 2011

History Now Essay

Abolition and Antebellum Reform

Ronald G. Walters

Government and Civics, Religion and Philosophy

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

When the Boston abolitionist Thomas Wentworth Higginson looked back on the years before the Civil War, he wrote, "there prevailed then a phrase, ‘the Sisterhood of Reforms.’" He had in mind "a variety of social and psychological...

Appears in:

5 | Abolition Fall 2005

History Now Essay

The Rise of an American Institution: The Stock Market

Brian Murphy

Economics, Government and Civics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

On nearly every workday in the United States, if you watch cable news or browse an Internet news site at 9:30 in the morning and 4:00 in the afternoon (Eastern Time), you’ll probably see two utterly unremarkable events covered live....

Appears in:

Ferdinand Magellan, celebrated as the first circumnavigator, has long been the orphan of history. Although he did not survive his famous voyage, Magellan became both an icon of exploration and an outcast—disowned by his native...

History Now Essay

Magellan: Missing in Action

Laurence Bergreen

Geography, Literature, World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Appears in:

12 | The Age Of Exploration Summer 2007

History Now Essay

Robber Barons or Captains of Industry?

T. J. Stiles

Economics, Geography, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

On February 9, 1859, Henry J. Raymond, editor of the New York Times , said something strange about Cornelius Vanderbilt. Raymond didn’t like Vanderbilt, a steamship tycoon with such a vast fleet that he was known as the Commodore,...

Appears in: