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"America the Beautiful," 1893

In a brief essay that appeared ca. 1925, poet Katharine Lee Bates described her inspiration for writing "America the Beautiful," the poem that would evolve into one of the nation’s best-loved patriotic songs, during a trip to Pike’s...

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"Bleeding Kansas" and the Pottawatomie Massacre, 1856

In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act overturned the Missouri Compromise, which stated that slavery would not be allowed north of latitude 36°30′. Instead, settlers would use the principle of popular sovereignty and vote to determine...

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"Citizen 13660" by Miné Okubo, an illustrated memoir of Japanese incarceration during World War II, 1946

9, 10, 11, 12

Click the images to enlarge them. On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, resulting in the incarceration of all people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast. The order was issued in...

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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...

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"I love you but hate slavery": Frederick Douglass to his former owner, Hugh Auld, ca. 1860

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Following his escape from slavery in Maryland to freedom in New York City in 1838, Frederick Douglass became a leader of the abolition movement and its best-known orator. His book Autobiography of an American Slave became a best...

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"Jefferson is in every view less dangerous than Burr": Hamilton on the election of 1800

Government and Civics

The presidential election of 1800 had resulted in a tie between the two Democratic Republicans, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. The founders had not foreseen the rise of political parties and the effects that development would have...

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"Men of Color, To Arms! To Arms," 1863

After the Emancipation Proclamation was enacted on January 1, 1863, Black leaders including Frederick Douglass swiftly moved to recruit African Americans as soldiers. “A war undertaken and brazenly carried on for the perpetual...

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"Reelect Roosevelt—Friend of Labor," 1936

Economics, Government and Civics

This Democratic Party campaign poster from 1936 outlines some of the agencies and regulations Franklin Roosevelt put in place to try to solve the most urgent problems of the Great Depression. While it reminds laborers of how they have...

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"The President is murdered," 1865

At 10:13 p.m. on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, while attending a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington DC, President Abraham Lincoln was shot in the back of the head by John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln, unconscious and bleeding, was rushed...

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"The whole land is full of blood," 1851

"The whole land is full of blood." These ominous words were uttered by James W. C. Pennington, a former slave and noted abolitionist, in the wake of Thomas Sims’s infamous trial. Sims had escaped from slavery in Georgia before being...

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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....

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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...

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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...

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A bond for the manumission of a slave, 1757

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In 1757, New York tavern keeper Eve Scurlock freed five slaves in her will, citing their fidelity, service, and good behavior. Among them was a woman named Ann, to whom Scurlock also willed money, clothing, and household items. Though...

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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....

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A British view of rebellious Boston, 1774

Art, Government and Civics, World History

In the years leading up to the American Revolution, both the British and the colonists used broadsides to influence public opinion. This broadside, “The Bostonian’s Paying the Excise-man, or Tarring & Feathering,” printed in...

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A Civil War soldier’s satirical take on the news, 1863

Art, Government and Civics

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

Between battles, marches, and military exercises, Civil War soldiers spent their free time in camp playing music, writing and reading letters, and, for those with the skill, sketching scenes from the day. This unknown soldier’s...

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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...

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A former Confederate officer on slavery and the Civil War, 1907

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

How can a soldier be proud of the country he defends while at the same time opposed to the cause he is fighting for? John S. Mosby, the renowned Confederate partisan leader, dealt with this moral dilemma years after the Civil War...

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A Founding Father on the Missouri Compromise, 1819

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

In 1819 a courageous group of Northern congressmen and senators opened debate on the most divisive of antebellum political issues—slavery. Since the Quaker petitions of 1790, Congress had been silent on slavery. That silence was...

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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...

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A Jamestown settler describes life in Virginia, 1622

Economics, Geography

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

The first English settlers in Jamestown, Virginia, who arrived in 1607, were eager to find gold and silver. Instead they found sickness and disease. Eventually, these colonists learned how to survive in their new environment, and by...

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A Ku Klux Klan threat, 1868

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

This page contains language that may be offensive or inappropriate for some viewers. Reconstruction politics was a catalyst for widespread racism and hatred that freed people experienced throughout the South. The Ku Klux Klan, founded...

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A map of the Louisiana Territory, 1806

Geography, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

6, 7, 8

The 1803 Louisiana Purchase from France during Thomas Jefferson’s first term as president more than doubled the size of the United States. Jefferson’s next step was to learn all about this new territory of the United States. He chose...

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A Mirror for the Intemperate, ca. 1830

Government and Civics

The temperance crusade against liquor consumption was a central element of reform movements of the antebellum period. It drew support from middle-class Protestants, skilled artisans, clerks, shopkeepers, free blacks, and Mormons, as...

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