In the movies, scrappy urban newsboys hawk papers with screaming headlines, shouting, "Extra! Extra! Read all about it!" Real late nineteenth and early twentieth century newsboys were very different than the Hollywood image of lovable street urchins singing and dancing in the streets. Newsboys first appeared on city streets in the mid-nineteenth century with the rise of mass circulation newspapers. They were often wretchedly poor homeless children who often shrieked the headlines well into the night and often slept on the street. In 1866, a reformer named Charles Loring Brace...

In 1690, one out of every nine families in Boston owned a slave. In New York City, in 1703, two out of every five families owned a slave. From Newport, Rhode Island to Buenos Aires, black slaves could be found in virtually every New World area colonized by Europeans.Black slaves arrived in the New World at least as early as 1502. Over the next three centuries, slave traders brought at least fifteen million Africans to the New World (another twenty percent or more Africans died during the march to the West African coast and an additional twenty percent perished during the "middle...

The Bill of RightsFirst Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.Ensures: Freedom of religion, speech, the press, peaceable assembly, and petitionSecond Amendment: A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.Ensures: The right to keep and bear...

Checks and BalancesExecutive Branchcan veto lawscan call special sessions of Congresscontrols enforcement of lawsnominates judgescan pardon people convicted of federal crimesLegislative Branchcan impeach president and other high officialsSenate approves Presidential appointmentsSenate approves treatiescan override presidential vetoesexercises power of the purseJudicial Branch can declare laws or presidential actions unconstitutionallifetime appointments

Sid Lapidus Collection: Liberty and the American Revolution Introduction The campaign to end slavery was a prolonged struggle. In England and in America in the eighteenth century, some authors such as Daniel Defoe and Samuel Johnson in England depicted slavery as ugly and immoral. In the 1750s, Quaker groups in the colonies began taking public positions against slavery, yet they remained a minority as few colonists spoke out against slavery on religious grounds. In 1776 most white Americans either accepted slavery or actually owned slaves, while others participated in the slave...

Sid Lapidus Collection: Liberty and the American RevolutionBy 1776, Thomas Paine had become the most influential writer defending the break from Great Britain. Born in England, Paine arrived in the colonies in 1774, at age 34. His pamphlet Common Sense was published January 1776 and sold more than 150,000 copies. Paine summarized the case for separating from Great Britain, attacking hereditary privilege, and his direct argument and plain language resonated with ordinary people. This excerpt from Paine’s The American Crisis is the first of a series of articles printed in the...

The following charts are presented in the book The Ku Klux Klan in the City, 1915–1930 by Kenneth T. Jackson. The first chart represents the states with the highest recorded membership in the Klan during this time period. The approximate numbers are based on the estimates of former members, media reporters, and Klan documents. The second two charts provide a comparison between Klan members’ occupations in Winchester, IL, and Chicago, IL, during the years 1922–1923. This information comes from publication of Klan membership in an anti-Klan newspaper in Chicago called Tolerance....