Essay Pioneering New Methods to Expand Voting, 1865–1920 Lisa Tetrault Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12 Paragraphs > 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....
Essay World War I Jennifer D. Keene Economics, Government and Civics, World History 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ War swept across Europe in the summer of 1914, igniting a global struggle that would eventually take nine million lives. World War I pitted the Allies (initially composed of Britain, France, Belgium, Serbia, and Russia, and eventually...
Essay "Hidden Practices": Frederick Douglass on Segregation and Black Achievement, 1887 Edward L. Ayers Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Frederick Douglass recalled his feelings when slavery came to an end, after so much work and so many sacrifices. "I felt that I had reached the end of the noblest and best part of my life," he admitted. But Douglass hardly...
Essay The Politics of Reform Julie Des Jardins At the turn of the twentieth century there was a resurging impulse toward social and political reform. In some ways it continued tendencies already apparent since the industrial revolution of the early nineteenth century, in which...
Essay Empire Building Robert W. Cherny Economics, Geography The years between the end of the Civil War, in 1865, and the end of the century witnessed rapid and far-reaching change in the economic and social life of the United States. During those years, the nation was transformed from rural...
Essay History Times: A Nation of Immigrants Gilder Lehrman Institute Economics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 Coming to the Land of Opportunity Throughout American history, millions of people around the world have left their homelands for a chance to start a new life in this country—and they continue to come here to this day. People who come...
Essay Prohibition and Its Effects Lisa Andersen 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ The Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in January 1919 and enacted in January 1920, outlawed the "manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors." This amendment was the culmination of decades of effort...
Essay Mary Elizabeth Lease: Populist Reformer Kelly A. Woestman Blaming Wall Street for the nation’s economic woes is not a new idea in American history. Over a century ago, Mary Elizabeth Lease, the best-known orator of the Populist era, asserted, "Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a...
Essay "The Merits of This Fearful Conflict": Douglass on the Causes of the Civil War David W. Blight In the spring of 1871, Frederick Douglass was worried. Six years after Robert E. Lee had surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, Grant was now President of the United States, the Union of northern and southern states was...