214 items
The Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I, was drafted at the Paris Peace Conference in the spring of 1919 and shaped by the Big Four powers—Great Britain, France, Italy, and the United States. This souvenir copy of the Paris...
Sacco and Vanzetti, 1921
On May 31, 1921, Nicola Sacco, a 32-year-old shoemaker, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, a 29-year-old fish peddler, went on trial for murder in Boston. More than a year earlier, on April 15, 1920, a paymaster and a payroll guard had been...
Herbert Hoover's Inaugural Address, 1929
In November 1928, Republican Herbert Hoover was elected president over the Democratic nominee Al Smith. Hoover had served in the Harding and Coolidge administrations and won the nomination after Coolidge declined to run for a third...
President Reagan’s First Inaugural Address, 1981
Ronald Reagan’s election to the White House came at a time of great economic and international turmoil for the United States. His first inaugural address on January 20, 1981, highlights many major issues of the day, including rising...
Ronald Reagan on economics and political parties, 1962
In May 1962, Ronald Reagan wrote this letter expressing his ideas about economic policy and the nation’s political parties. Reagan wrote as a supporter of the conservative Republican Senator Barry Goldwater. Reagan had spent much of...
Barack Obama’s First Inaugural Address, 2009
The inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States in 2009 was a historic moment not only because Obama was the first African American ever sworn into executive office but also because he entered the presidency at a...
Charles Guiteau's reasons for assassinating President Garfield, 1882
Charles Julius Guiteau employed the unusual medium of poetry to plead his innocence while on trial for assassinating President James Garfield. Guiteau’s odd behavior in court made him a media sensation, and the Gilded Age press...
The United Nations and the international community, 1967
In this 1967 letter, Dr. Israel Goldstein, a prominent American rabbi and Zionist, comments on the United Nations as a peacekeeping organization. After World War II, Goldstein, with other rabbis, had lobbied members of the newly...
Historical Context: "Birth of a Nation"
In 1915, fifty years after the end of the Civil War, D. W. Griffith released his epic film Birth of a Nation . The greatest blockbuster of the silent era, Birth of a Nation was seen by an estimated 200 million Americans by 1946. Based...
Historical Context: Black Soldiers in the Civil War
By early 1863, voluntary enlistments in the Union army had fallen so sharply that the federal government instituted an unpopular military draft and decided to enroll Black as well as White troops. Indeed, it seems likely that it was...
Historical Context: Go West ... and Grow Up with the Country
In 1854 Horace Greeley, a New York newspaper editor, gave Josiah B. Grinnell a famous piece of advice. "Go West, young man, and grow up with the country," said Greeley. Grinnell took Greeley's advice, moved west, and later founded...
Historical Context: The Breakdown of the Party System
As late as 1850, the two-party system seemed healthy. Democrats and Whigs drew strength in all parts of the country. Then, in the early 1850s, the two-party system began to disintegrate in response to massive foreign immigration. By...
Historical Context: The Confederacy Begins to Collapse
By early 1863, the Civil War had begun to cause severe hardship on the southern home front. Not only was most of the fighting taking place in the South, but also as the Union blockade grew more effective and the South's railroad...
Historical Context: The Constitution and Slavery
On the 200th anniversary of the ratification of the US Constitution, Thurgood Marshall, the first African American to sit on the Supreme Court, said that the Constitution was "defective from the start." He pointed out that the framers...
Historical Context: The First National Census
Early in August 1790, David Howe, an assistant federal marshal, began the difficult task of counting all the people who lived in Hancock County, Maine. One of 650 federal census takers, charged with making "a...perfect enumeration.....
Historical Context: The Survival of the US Constitution
The United States has the oldest written national framework of government in the world. At the end of the twentieth century, there were about 159 other national constitutions in the world, and 101 had been adopted since 1970. While...
Historical Context: The Post-World War I Red Scare
The end of World War I was accompanied by a panic over political radicalism. Fear of bombs, Communism, and labor unrest produced a “Red Scare.” In Hammond, Indiana, a jury took two minutes to acquit the killer of an immigrant who had...
Guided Readings: American Foreign Policy in the 1970s
Reading 1 Why are we in South Vietnam? We are there because we have a promise to keep. Since 1954 every American President has offered support to the people of South Vietnam. . . . We have made a national pledge to help South Vietnam...
Statistics: Education in America, 1860-1950
Resources Invested in Education Spending on Education Spending Per Child 15-19 Percentage of GNP 1860 $60 $5.33 1.4 1900 $503 $20.53 2.9 Improvements in Education % Illiteracy 10 or older High School Graduates College Enrollment Total...
Infographic: Differences between Federalists and Antifederalists
The differences between the Federalists and the Antifederalists are vast and at times complex. Federalists’ beliefs could be better described as nationalist. The Federalists were instrumental in 1787 in shaping the new US Constitution...
Statistics: Agriculture in America
Farm Production Year Number of Farms* Bales of Cotton* Bushels of Corn* Bushels of Wheat* Price Index 1860=100 1860 2 3.8 839 173 100 1870 2.7 4.4 760 254 140 1880 4 6.6 1,706 502 100 1890 4.6 8.7 2,125 449 90 1900 5.7 10.1 2,662 599...
Statistics: The Impact of the Depression
Change in Gross National Product 1879-89 + 6 percent 1889-99 + 4 percent 1899-1909 + 4 percent 1909-19 + 2 percent 1919-29 + 3 percent 1929-39 0 percent 1939-49 + 4 percent 1949-59 + 4 percent 1959-69 + 4 percent 1969-79 + 3 percent...
Statistics: Consequences of the Depression
Creation of Federal Regulatory Agencies Before 1900 5 1900-09 1 1910-19 4 1920-29 2 1930-39 11 1940-49 2 1950-59 2 1960-69 6 1970-79 20 Organized Labor Membership 1930 3 million 1935 3 million 1940 9 million 1945 14 million 1950 14...
Infographic: The Civil Rights Revolution: Interpreting Statistics
African American Voter Registrations Questions to Think About What difference did the Voting Rights Act make in black voter participation in the states that had been part of the Confederacy? In which states was the impact greatest?
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Study Aid: Reconstruction Amendments
Thirteenth Amendment Prohibited slavery in the United States Fourteenth Amendment Defined national citizenship Reduced state representation in Congress proportional to number of disfranchised voters Denied former Confederates the...
Study Aid: The Articles of Confederation
Deficiencies of the Articles of Confederation No separate executive branch to carry out the laws of Congress No national judiciary to handle offenses against the central government’s laws or to settle disputes between states Congress...
Study Aid: New Deal Legislation
New Deal Legislation 1932 Reconstruction Finance Corporation Granted emergency loans to banks, life insurance companies, and railroads 1933 Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Employed youth in reforestation, road construction, and...
Study Aid: Great Society Legislation
President Lyndon Johnson announced his Great Society program during his State of the Union address in 1964. He outlined a series of domestic programs that he promised would eliminate poverty and inequality in the United States. By the...
Study Aid: Slavery and the Law in Seventeenth-Century Virginia
1662 General Assembly determines “Negro women’s children to serve according to the condition of the mother.” 1667 General Assembly passes “An act declaring the baptisme of slaves doth not exempt them from bondage.” 1669 Virginia...
Study Aid: Major Slave Rebellions
New York City, 1712 Like many later revolts, this one occurred during a period of social dissension among White colonists following Leisler’s Rebellion. The rebels espoused traditional African religions. Stono Rebellion, 1739 The...
Historical Context: Facts about the Slave Trade and Slavery
TRANS-ATLANTIC SLAVE VOYAGES Over the period of the Atlantic Slave Trade, from approximately 1526 to 1867, some 12.5 million captured men, women, and children were put on ships in Africa, and 10.7 million arrived in the Americas. The...
Study Aid: National Expansion
National Expansion Free States Slave States Connecticut Delaware Massachusetts Georgia New Hampshire Maryland New Jersey North Carolina New York South Carolina Pennsylvania Virginia Rhode Island Kentucky (1792) Vermont (1791)...
A proclamation on the suspension of habeas corpus, 1862
The doctrine of habeas corpus is the right of any person under arrest to appear in person before the court, to ensure that they have not been falsely accused. The US Constitution specifically protects this right in Article I, Section...
George Washington would have supported the New Deal, 1934
During his first term, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sought to deflect opposition to the New Deal. Speaking at Gettysburg on Memorial Day, 1934, Roosevelt invoked the memory of George Washington by comparing his federal agenda with...
Our Victorious Fleets in Cuban Waters, 1898
In 1898, the US Navy was small—especially compared to the navies of the European powers. The Navy had shrunk in the years after the Civil War, from more than 600 vessels at that conflict’s close to just forty-eight ready but aging...
Confirming governors for territories of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, 1901
President Theodore Roosevelt wrote this letter to William H. Hunt, the governor of Porto Rico (as Puerto Rico was known at the time), just twelve days after he assumed the presidency following President William McKinley’s...
The Grange Movement, 1875
The Patrons of Husbandry, or the Grange, was founded in 1867 to advance methods of agriculture, as well as to promote the social and economic needs of farmers in the United States. The financial crisis of 1873, along with falling crop...
Building Mount Rushmore, 1926
This September 1926 report by the sculptor Gutzon Borglum to the Harney Peak Memorial Association anticipates the construction of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Borglum’s report offers a look...
J. Edgar Hoover on campus unrest, 1970
In September 1970, J. Edgar Hoover composed an open letter to American students detailing his view on civil unrest at the nation’s colleges and universities and warning against the elements he believed responsible. Hoover opened with...
Study Aid: Cultures of the Americas, 1200 BC–AD 1600
Mound Builders (Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River) Key Groups : Adena (500 BC), Hopewell (100 BC) Religion and Culture : Known as mound builders because they buried the dead in large earth mounds, these groups lived in small...
Study Aid: The Bill of Rights
The Bill of Rights First 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...
Study Aid: Checks and Balances
Checks and Balances Executive Branch carries out the laws can veto laws can call special sessions of Congress controls enforcement of laws nominates judges can pardon people convicted of federal crimes commander in chief develops...
Lincoln on abolition in England and the United States, 1858
Though Lincoln spoke frequently during the 1858 Illinois Senate race against Stephen Douglas—a campaign that propelled Lincoln to the political forefront and helped shape him into a presidential candidate—very few Lincoln manuscripts...
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