17 items
Official photograph from the "Golden Spike" Ceremony, 1869
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,...
A World War II poster: "Starve the Squander Bug," 1943
Before he became world-renowned as Dr. Seuss for his children’s books and illustrations, Theodor Geisel worked for the US government during World War II designing posters such as this one, encouraging patriotism and investment. The...
A Jamestown settler describes life in Virginia, 1622
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...
George Washington on the abolition of slavery, 1786
Of the nine presidents who were slaveholders, only George Washington freed all his own slaves upon his death. Before the Revolution, Washington, like most White Americans, took slavery for granted. At the time of the Revolution, one...
Sharecropper contract, 1867
Immediately after the Civil War, many former slaves established subsistence farms on land that had been abandoned by fleeing white Southerners. President Andrew Johnson, a Democrat and a former slaveholder, soon restored this land to...
Runaway slave ad, 1852
Broadsides and notices posted by slave owners or their agents offer dramatic and concrete evidence of the inhumanity of slavery. Defined as both property and responsible persons by law, slaves were sold with cows, sheep, and furniture...
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