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“The war ruined me”: The aftermath of the Civil War in the South, 1867

In the aftermath of the Civil War, former slaveholders struggled to adjust to the economic conditions resulting from the end of slavery as well as the destruction of plantations and markets and the population loss. Many southern landowners fell into poverty as they faced depreciated land values and mounting debts. In 1867, farmer and preacher A. C. Ramsey of Alabama wrote to his brother-in-law, Dr. J. J. Wardlaw in South Carolina, describing his family’s economic struggle after the Civil War. He forcefully declares that “the war ruined me” and left his children with “nothing...
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A family torn apart by war, 1777

The Revolutionary War divided families. In 1774, eighteen-year-old Lucy Flucker married twenty-four-year-old Henry Knox. Lucy’s parents were powerful, wealthy Tories, and they were not happy with the match. Henry Knox was the son of an Irish immigrant. At the age of nine, he quit school to go to work when his father abandoned the family. Henry was also rumored to be a patriot. Lucy and Henry left Boston in 1775. Henry joined Washington’s army, and Lucy was left on her own for the first time in her life. When the British evacuated Boston after the siege in 1776, many loyalists...
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“Columbia’s Noblest Sons”: George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, 1865

Art

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

Abraham Lincoln’s death on April 14, 1865, stunned the nation. He was the first US president to be assassinated and the third to die in office. As Americans mourned, they also began to see him as a martyr and the savior of the Union. In eulogies and engravings, Lincoln was compared to George Washington. Printed in 1865, Columbia’s Noblest Sons features imagery that draws parallels between Washington and Lincoln. Columbia is crowning Washington and Lincoln with laurel wreaths, which were traditionally given to people who had won victories. Columbia was considered the female...
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A brawl between Federalists and anti-Federalists, 1788

Government and Civics

4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In 1787 and 1788, debates over the ratification of the Constitution took place in towns and villages across the country. To gain support, both Federalists and anti-Federalists held meetings and marches that sometimes became violent. In July 1788, Federalists marched through Albany, New York, and were stopped at Green Street by a group of anti-Federalists. According to this newspaper report, “a general battle took place, with swords, bayonets, clubs, stones, &c. which lasted for some time, both parties fighting with the greatest rage, and determined obstinacy, till at last...
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Map of the Foreign-Born Population of the United States, 1900

6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

According to the 1900 census, the population of the United States was then 76.3 million. Nearly 14 percent of the population—approximately 10.4 million people—was born outside of the United States. Drawn by America’s labor opportunities, immigrants came predominantly from Canada and Europe, migrating from countries such as Germany, Britain, Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. The statistics gathered by the 1900 census were published in 1903 in an atlas that converted the census data into maps and charts. This map uses color gradation to indicate the population density of...
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A frightening mission over Iwo Jima, 1945

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

Lieutenant Bob Stone served as a bombardier in the 431st Bomb Squadron (Heavy), 7th United States Army Air Force in the Pacific. This Spotlight is part of a series of documents detailing the experience of airmen in World War II. Click here for more information about Bob and to read more in this series. Soldiers rarely describe the details of battles in letters. During World War II, the discussion of events was prohibited by the military and censors were quick to remove anything they considered a risk to the safety and security of the troops. In addition, putting frightening...
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A soldier’s reaction to the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1945

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

Lieutenant Bob Stone served as a bombardier in the 431st Bomb Squadron (Heavy), 7th United States Army Air Force in the Pacific. This Spotlight is part of a series of documents detailing the experience of airmen in World War II. Click here for more information about Bob and to read more in this series. On April 12, 1945, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died from a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Spring, Georgia. He was sixty-three years old, had been elected to four terms, and served as president for twelve years. For many American servicemen, Roosevelt had been in office for...
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The World War II experience of Robert L. Stone, 1942–1945

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

Lieutenant Robert “Bob” Stone served as a bombardier in the 431st Bomb Squadron (Heavy), 7th United States Army Air Force in the Pacific during World War II. Born on December 19, 1921 in New York City, Bob was a nineteen-year-old sophomore at Williams College in Massachusetts when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. In a 2006 oral history, Bob recalled listening to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Day of Infamy speech. “I was a sophomore at Williams College studying in my room with the radio on (there was no TV in those days) and I heard President...
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The Battle of Iwo Jima: A family waits for news, 1945

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

Lieutenant Bob Stone served as a bombardier in the 431st Bomb Squadron (Heavy), 7th United States Army Air Force in the Pacific. This Spotlight is part of a series of documents detailing the experience of airmen in World War II. Click here for more information about Bob and to read more in this series. As part of the effort to secure land close enough to Japan to launch attacks against the mainland, the US Army and Navy began bombing the Bonin Islands of Iwo Jima, Hajajima, and Chichijima, in June 1944. Army and Navy bombers hit Iwo Jima for over eight months, culminating in...
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Bob Stone joins the US Army Air Forces, 1943–1944

Lieutenant Bob Stone served as a bombardier in the 431st Bomb Squadron (Heavy), 7th US Army Air Force in the Pacific. This Spotlight is part of a series of documents detailing the experience of airmen in World War II. Click here for more information about Bob and to read more in this series. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, life changed dramatically for twenty-year-old Robert Stone and his family, as it did for all Americans. Bob finished his sophomore year at Williams College before enlisting in the USAAF Aviation Cadets in July 1942. Due to the number of...
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“Defence of Fort McHenry” or “The Star-Spangled Banner,” 1814

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

In September 1814, Francis Scott Key, an attorney and DC insider, watched the American flag rise over Baltimore, Maryland’s Fort McHenry from a British ship in the harbor. Key had been negotiating the release of an American captive during the War of 1812 when the British attacked the fort. After twenty-five hours of heavy bombardment, Key was sure that, come dawn, the British flag would be flying over Baltimore. Upon seeing the American flag still aloft, he wrote, on the back of a letter, the first verse of what would eventually become the national anthem of the United States....
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Bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, 1963

7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

On the morning of September 15, 1963, Denise McNair (age 11), Addie Mae Collins (age 14), Cynthia Wesley (age 14), and Carole Robertson (age 14) were killed when nineteen sticks of dynamite exploded at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Fourteen others were injured in the bombing. Just five days after the bombing of the church, the Reverend C. Herbert Oliver wrote a “Report on Birmingham,” making an appeal on behalf of the Inter-Citizens Committee to prospective supporters and documenting the violence that was consuming the city. The Inter-Citizens...
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Anti-Communist Trading Cards, 1951

Government and Civics

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

On June 25, 1950, war broke out on the Korean peninsula when the Soviet-backed Communist forces in North Korea invaded the recently founded democratic republic of South Korea. Following a unanimous UN resolution condemning the invasion, President Harry S. Truman committed US troops to the conflict. The United States took the lead in fighting North Korea to combat the spread of Communism. The events in Korea contributed to the escalation of the Cold War, a decades-long rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. Active combat ended in a cease-fire in 1953 , but no...
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Teddy Roosevelt campaigns for a third term, 1912

6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

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 rule of American politics. Roosevelt had already had two terms in office, and no president had ever had a third. Roosevelt insisted that he was running out of duty, not personal ambition. As president, he had charted a politically progressive course, but under Taft, his chosen successor, the country had been becoming more conservative. In 1912...
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Theodore Roosevelt supports women’s suffrage, 1912

Government and Civics

6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

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 many edits Roosevelt made as he refined his message. Roosevelt wrote this letter supporting women’s suffrage in 1912, but he had fought for equality for women much earlier in his life. As a senior at Harvard University in 1880, he had written about marriage equality and urged women not to change their last name upon marriage. As a New York State...
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Spain authorizes Coronado's conquest in the Southwest, 1540

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

This letter, written on behalf of the king of Spain by Francisco Garcia de Loaysa, the president of the Council of the Indies, acknowledges Francisco Coronado’s report of the famous Niza expedition of the previous year and authorizes Coronado to explore the northern lands, in the search for wealth and resources, and in the hope that “through your excellent efforts you will bring the natives of that province under our sway and dominion and will bring them into the knowledge of the holy catholic faith.” This letter is possibly the earliest surviving official authorization by any...
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A report from Spanish California, 1776

Foreign Languages, Government and Civics

Fernando de Rivera y Moncada, military commander of Alta California, wrote this letter from Mission San Gabriel. Rivera y Moncada was instrumental in the development of missions in California and was in a sometimes-contentious relationship with Father Junipero Serra, the Father President mentioned in the letter. When Rivera y Moncada wrote this letter, he was returning to his headquarters at the Presidio of Monterey after a nine-month stay at the Presidio of San Diego. There he had supervised the hunt for the leaders of an Indian uprising that had destroyed Mission San Diego in...
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The Monroe Doctrine, 1823

Economics, Geography, Government and Civics, World History

President James Monroe’s 1823 annual message to Congress included a warning to European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere. This portion of the address is known as the Monroe Doctrine. The United States was wary of European intervention in Florida, the Pacific Northwest, and Latin America. In 1821, Russia claimed control of the entire Pacific coast from Alaska to Oregon and closed the area to foreign shipping. This development coincided with rumors that Spain, with the help of European allies, was planning to reconquer its former Latin American...
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Official photograph from the "Golden Spike" Ceremony, 1869

Economics, Geography, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

This iconic photograph records the celebration marking the completion of the first transcontinental railroad lines at Promontory Summit, Utah, on May 10, 1869, when Leland Stanford, co-founder of the Central Pacific Railroad, connected the eastern and western sections of the railroad with a golden spike. This “joining of the rails” was the culmination of work commenced in 1863 when the Central Pacific began laying track eastward from Sacramento, California, and the Union Pacific started laying track westward from Omaha, Nebraska, in July of 1865. To meet its manpower needs, the...
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Japanese announcement of the attack at Pearl Harbor, 1941

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

In January 1941, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto began developing a plan to attack the American base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. For eleven months, the Japanese continued to refine their plans while at the same time working diplomatically to relieve tensions with the United States. On November 26, 1941, the main body of the attack force began moving toward Hawaii. Shortly before 8 a.m. on Sunday, December 7, 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack against US armed forces in Hawaii . Japanese pilots targeted Army, Navy, and Marine airfields, and then naval ships at Pearl Harbor, with the...
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Japanese internment, 1942

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Responding to fears of Japanese spies within the United States, President Roosevelt signed an order authorizing the forced relocation and confinement of more than 110,000 Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans living in the West. This broadside, distributed in Los Angeles, ordered “all persons of Japanese ancestry” to assemble for transport to detention camps. The document gives specific directions to families about what they could take with them—household and personal items limited to “that which can be carried by the individual or family group.” Although some Japanese...
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John Philip Sousa critiques modern music, 1930

4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

John Philip Sousa (1854–1932), an American composer of classical music, served as the director of the United States Marine Band from 1880 to 1892. During Sousa’s time as leader of "The President’s Own," as the band was called, he composed some of the best- known pieces of music closely associated with official functions of the United States government and military. These include the famous march "The Washington Post" as well as the equally well-known official march of the United States Marine Corps, "Semper Fidelis," and the official march of the United States, "The Stars and...
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A report on the reaction to the Stamp Act, 1765

Government and Civics, World History

On March 22, 1765, the British Parliament passed the “Stamp Act” to help pay for British troops stationed in the colonies during the Seven Years’ War. It required the colonists to pay a tax, represented by a stamp, on various papers, documents, and playing cards. It was a direct tax imposed by the British government without the approval of the colonial legislatures and was payable in hard-to-obtain British sterling, rather than colonial currency. Further, those accused of violating the Stamp Act could be prosecuted in Vice-Admiralty Courts, which had no juries and could be held...
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The Stamp Act, 1765

Economics, Government and Civics

On March 22, 1765, the British Parliament passed the “Stamp Act” to help pay for British troops stationed in the colonies during the Seven Years’ War. The act required the colonists to pay a tax, represented by a stamp, on various forms of papers, documents, and playing cards. It was a direct tax imposed by the British government without the approval of the colonial legislatures and was payable in hard-to-obtain British sterling, rather than colonial currency. Further, those accused of violating the Stamp Act could be prosecuted in Vice-Admiralty Courts, which had no juries and...
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Jefferson on the French and Haitian Revolutions, 1792

Geography, Government and Civics, World History

When Thomas Jefferson wrote this letter to the Marquis de Lafayette, three revolutions—the American, French, and Haitian—occupied the minds of these two renowned leaders. While the American Revolution had been won nearly a decade earlier, the US Constitution had been in effect for only three years and the survival of the United States as a republic remained in doubt. The French Revolution had been in progress for three years and Jefferson congratulated Lafayette on "exterminating the monster aristocracy, & pulling out the teeth & fangs of it’s associate monarchy." But...
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Texas Declaration of Independence, 1836

Government and Civics

On March 2, 1836, Texas formally declared its independence from Mexico. The Texas Declaration of Independence was signed at Washington-on-the-Brazos, now commonly referred to as the “birthplace of Texas.” Similar to the United States Declaration of Independence, this document focused on the rights of citizens to “life” and “liberty” but with an emphasis on the “property of the citizen.” The Texas Declaration of Independence was issued during a revolution against the Mexican government that began in October 1835 following a series of government edicts including the dissolution...
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Abraham Lincoln, Inventor, 1849

Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

On March 10, 1849, Abraham Lincoln filed a patent for a device for "buoying vessels over shoals" with the US Patent Office. Patent No. 6,469 was approved two months later, giving Abraham Lincoln the honor of being the only US president to hold a patent. During his brief experience as a ferryman on the Mississippi River, Lincoln was stranded twice on riverboats that had run aground. His invention, "adjustable buoyant air chambers," would be attached to the sides of a boat. They could be lowered into the water and inflated to lift the boat over obstructions in the water. Lincoln...
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The New York Conspiracy of 1741

Economics, Government and Civics

In New York City in 1741 an economic decline exacerbated conflict between enslaved men and women engaged in commercial activity and working-class White colonists who felt their jobs were threatened. This tension boiled over in the spring when a series of fires led White New Yorkers to fear an uprising of enslaved people. Even Fort George in lower Manhattan was burned to the ground. The events became popularly known as the New York Conspiracy of 1741 (also called the Negro Plot or the Slave Insurrection). Nearly 200 people were arrested, including at least twenty Whites, some of...
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Martha Washington on life after the Revolution, 1784

The Revolutionary War disrupted the home life of Americans for eight years. Battles between the British and American armies, as well as tensions between loyalists and patriots, created difficulties that people met with strength and perseverance. As men went into battle, women endured the strains of maintaining households in their absence, traveling long distances to join them at various winter camps, and worrying about them constantly. This letter from Martha Washington to Hannah Boudinot (whose husband, Elias, had been president under the Articles of Confederation from 1782 to...
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Loyalists and the British evacuation of Philadelphia, 1778

On September 26, 1777, the British began an eight-month occupation of the city of Philadelphia during the American Revolution. This allowed British troops to spend the winter billeted in comfortable quarters, while Washington’s troops suffered at Valley Forge. When France recognized the United States and declared war on Great Britain in February 1778 British war strategy changed to meet the new threat, and the army evacuated Philadelphia on June 18, 1778. This letter of June 7, 1778, from newly promoted British army lieutenant Sam Mostyn to his patron in Wales describes some of...
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Sir Francis Drake’s attack on St. Augustine, 1586

Economics, World History

Five years after leading the first English circumnavigation of the globe in 1577–1580, Sir Francis Drake led a raid against Spanish settlements in the Caribbean including Santiago, Santo Domingo, and Cartagena, as well as St. Augustine (in present-day Florida). This engraving, by Baptista Boazio, was made to accompany a book describing Drake’s 1586 expedition, A Summarie and True Discourse of Sir Francis Drake’s West Indian Voyage (published in 1588–1589). The illustration depicts the attack of Drake’s fleet of twenty-three ships on St. Augustine, which was captured and...
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Slave revolt in the West Indies, 1733

Economics, Geography, World History

The prevalence of slavery in pre-Revolutionary America made actual and threatened uprisings of enslaved people of intense interest throughout the British colonies in North America. The West Indies, or Caribbean islands, where slavery predominated, were vitally important to commerce and trade in the colonies, and revolts there were particularly newsworthy. In this issue of the New-York Weekly Journal , dated March 11, 1733[/4],* editor John Peter Zenger printed a sloop captain’s report on a takeover by enslaved people of the Danish island of St. John in November 1733. A group of...
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"Food Will Win the War," 1917

Economics, World History

When most people think of wartime food rationing, they often think of World War II. However, civilians were encouraged to do their part for the war effort during World War I as well. This colorful poster by artist Charles E. Chambers was issued by the United States Food Administration to encourage voluntary food conservation. "Food Will Win the War" was the name of the campaign initiated by the newly appointed head of the agency, Herbert Hoover. Food was necessary not only to feed America’s growing Army, but to help relieve famine in Europe, in part to prevent the overthrow of...
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Eleanor Roosevelt’s four basic rights, 1944

Government and Civics

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, a lifelong advocate of equal rights, used her position as First Lady to advocate against discrimination in the United States. However, Mrs. Roosevelt’s ideas were not embraced by everyone in the pre-civil rights era when segregation and racism were institutionalized in American economics, politics, and society. In this letter from 1944 Mrs. Roosevelt responded to one of her critics, Addie Frizielle, who worried about the desegregation of restrooms and forced social interaction between the races in the government’s movement toward racial equality in...
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Arguments for educating women, 1735

On May 19, 1735, John Peter Zenger republished this essay in the New-York Weekly Journal. Originally printed in the Guardian , a British periodical, the two-page essay supports the education of women “of Quality or Fortune.” The author, probably Joseph Addison, one of the founders of the Guardian , argued that women should be educated because they had more spare time than men, they had a natural gift for speech, they were responsible for educating their children, and they needed to keep busy. In addition, the article suggests that educated women were seen to be more suitable as...
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Cadet Nurse Corps, 1943

The Cadet Nurse Corps, established by the Nurse Training Act of 1943, recruited women between the ages of seventeen and thirty-five to be trained as nurses. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt insisted the act be amended to prevent racial discrimination. As a result, more than 3,000 minorities served as cadet nurses, including Japanese women recruited from relocation camps. Those accepted into the program received subsidized and expedited education and, in return, agreed to serve under the US Public Health Service for the duration of the war. These student nurses served on the home...
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The end of the Vietnam War: conscience, resistance, and reconciliation, 1973

Vietnam was "America’s longest war." While US operations tended to be very limited between 1945 and 1964, escalation in the early months of 1965 eventually led to the deployment of more than 2.5 million military personnel to South Vietnam through 1973. While the literature on the Vietnam War is voluminous, the issue of draft resistance has either been overlooked or misunderstood by historians. Most people in fact do make a distinction between draft evasion and draft resistance. The virtual omission of draft resistance from the historical accounts of the Vietnam War is a...
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A revival of religious fervor, 1744

Religion and Philosophy

The Christian History was a revivalist periodical founded by the Boston clergyman Thomas Prince in 1743 to report on the religious revivals sweeping across Europe and the United States. It was the first Christian periodical published in the United States, but lasted only two years. The revivals of that period were ignited by Jonathan Edwards, whose theology sparked renewed enthusiasm and emphasized human depravity, divine omnipotence, and a personal relationship with God. This period is often referred to as the “First Great Awakening,” although the term “Great Awakening” wasn’t...
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Lydia Maria Child on women’s rights, 1843

The best-known work of the poet and novelist Lydia Maria Child may be her poem "Over the River and through the Woods," but she is also remembered for her compelling objections to slavery and her support for underrepresented groups. She was a tireless activist and her prolific and candid writing on non-violence and equality was well ahead of its time. Originally from Massachusetts, Child moved to New York in 1841 to edit the National Anti-Slavery Standard . After leaving that post in 1843, she published many of her popular editorials and commentaries in the two-volume Letters...
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The Cold War in the classroom, 1952

Government and Civics, World History

As the Cold War pervaded domestic as well as international spheres, Duck and Cover , an educational film produced by the Federal Civil Defense Administration and Archer Productions Inc., showed children how to react in case of a nuclear attack. The Soviet Union had tested its first nuclear bomb in 1949 and fear of an attack in the United States was high. As a result, Congress created the Federal Civil Defense Administration in 1950 to prepare America for emergencies. Two of the organization’s more visible contributions were public fallout shelters and the Emergency Broadcast...
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Robert F. Kennedy on Vietnam, 1967

Government and Civics, World History

On May 15, 1967, CBS broadcast Town Meeting of the World , a program in which Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York and Governor Ronald Reagan of California answered questions posed by the moderator, Charles Collingwood; students from the United States; and international students in Great Britain (via satellite). Although the subject of the program was "The Image of America and the Youth of the World," questions focused primarily on America’s involvement in Vietnam. After the broadcast, John F. Bayliss, a member of the English Department at Indiana State University and founder...
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Franklin D. Roosevelt’s First Inauguration, 1933

Economics, Government and Civics, Literature

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave his first inaugural address on March 4, 1933, the nation was reeling from the Great Depression and was dissatisfied with the previous administration’s reluctance to fight it. Roosevelt declared that, by electing him, the American people had "registered a mandate that they want direct, vigorous action." The address is most remembered for FDR’s statement that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself," but it is also a declaration of war against economic hardship, a call to Americans to work together to face "the dark hour," and a notice...
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George Washington’s First Inaugural Address, 1789

Government and Civics, Literature

After officially enacting the newly ratified US Constitution in September 1788, the Confederation Congress scheduled the first inauguration for March 1789. However, bad weather delayed many congressmen from arriving in the national capital, New York. It wasn’t until April 6, 1789, that a quorum had reached New York to tally the electoral ballots and declare George Washington the winner. On April 30, 1789, Robert R. Livingston, the chancellor of New York, administered the oath of office to George Washington on a second floor balcony of Federal Hall. Washington and members of...
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John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address, 1961

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

On January 20, 1961, John F. Kennedy was sworn in as the thirty-fifth President of the United States. His short, fourteen-minute inaugural address is best remembered for a single line: "My fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country." This call to public service resonated with what JFK called the "new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage." It is virtually the only part of the speech to address solely domestic matters and initiatives...
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Civilian describes pillaging near Gettysburg, 1863

On July 5, 1863, Dr. William H. Boyle wrote to a fellow member of the local Columbus Lodge of the International Organization of Odd Fellows, Isaac McCauley, describing the devastation the Confederates had caused in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, twenty-five miles west of Gettysburg. Confederate forces had been in Chambersburg as early as June 16 and had taken food, clothing, and other supplies, some of which was paid for with Confederate money. The pillaging this letter describes was what General Robert E. Lee had hoped to avoid when he issued General Orders No. 73 on June 27: The...
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The Supreme Court upholds national prohibition, 1920

Economics, Government and Civics

After more than a century of activism, the temperance movement achieved its signal victory with the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment to the US Constitution in 1919. The amendment abolished "the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors," and provided for "concurrent" federal and state authority to enforce the ban. It was controversial from its inception: it did not define "intoxicating liquors," it did not specifically forbid the purchase of alcohol, it established "concurrent" state and federal enforcement but did not provide any means for...
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Civil War condolence letter for General Paul Semmes, 1863

By 1863, thousands of Northern and Southern women had volunteered in hospitals to help care for sick and wounded soldiers. In cities and towns near battlefields, wounded soldiers were often placed in private homes and other buildings when hospitals were overcrowded. Whether in hospitals or in private homes, women provided a measure of comfort to the injured and often corresponded with soldiers’ families when the men were not able to do so themselves. Mary Oden, of Martinsburg, West Virginia, sent this letter to Emily J. Semmes the day Emily’s husband, Confederate General Paul...
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The origins of FDR’s New Deal, 1932

Economics, Government and Civics

When the nation fell into the Great Depression following the stock market crash of 1929, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was serving as New York’s governor and was responsible for shaping the state’s response to the crisis. The origins of the Roosevelt’s New Deal can be seen in this letter of July 28, 1932, addressed to New York’s superintendent of public works, Frederick S. Greene. Roosevelt describes his plan to appropriate federal emergency relief to highway projects that would both benefit the state’s infrastructure and combat unemployment. Since the funds were given with an...
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Lowell Mill Girls and the factory system, 1840

Economics

Lowell, Massachusetts, named in honor of Francis Cabot Lowell, was founded in the early 1820s as a planned town for the manufacture of textiles. It introduced a new system of integrated manufacturing to the United States and established new patterns of employment and urban development that were soon replicated around New England and elsewhere. By 1840, the factories in Lowell employed at some estimates more than 8,000 textile workers, commonly known as mill girls or factory girls. These "operatives"—so-called because they operated the looms and other machinery—were primarily...
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Remember the Maine, 1898

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

On February 15, 1898, the battleship USS Maine exploded in Havana’s harbor in Cuba, killing nearly two-thirds of her crew. The tragedy occurred after years of escalating tensions between the United States and Spain, and the “yellow press” and public opinion were quick to blame Spain. While the sinking of the Maine was not a direct cause of the Spanish-American War, it did accelerate the breakdown in diplomatic relations between the US and Spain. “Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain!” became a rallying cry. The Harper’s Weekly article featured here represents a more balanced...

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