425 items
Introduction The growth of manufacturing in the decades prior to the Civil War transformed the country. The nation experienced the appearance of cities, manufacturing, and a commitment to wage labor at the same time as the expansion...
Colonists Divided: A Revolution and a Civil War
Background The Stamp Act, the Quartering Act, the Declaratory Act, the Sugar Act, and the Tea Act were just a few of the many policies Great Britain enacted in the British North American colonies in the eighteenth century. To many...
American Music Goes to War
Entertainment is always a national asset. Invaluable in time of peace, it is indispensable in wartime. —Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1943 Background Music during World War II had an unprecedented impact on America, both on the home front...
The Civil War and early submarine warfare, 1863
Civil War combat foreshadowed modern warfare with the introduction of the machine gun, repeater rifles, and trench warfare, and the use of trains to quickly move troops. However, one of the most celebrated tactical innovations of the...
Best friends divided by the Civil War, 1861
On April 12, 1861, Confederate officials informed Major Robert Anderson, US commander at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, that they would allow one hour for him to surrender his forces. When he refused, Confederates...
A Civil War soldier’s satirical take on the news, 1863
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...
Poem on a Civil War death: "Only a Private Killed," 1861
Approximately 3.5 million men served in the Union and Confederate military during the Civil War. Recent scholarship indicates that at least 750,000 men died. Lewis Mitchell of the 1st Minnesota Volunteers was one of those men. On...
The women’s rights movement after the Civil War, 1866
The fight for women’s rights that had begun in earnest with the convention at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848, diminished in the 1850s and 1860s as reformers focused on the abolition of slavery and the Civil War, but the movement did...
Civil War condolence letter for General Paul Semmes, 1863
By 1863, thousands of Northern and Southern women had volunteered in hospitals to help care for sick and wounded soldiers. In cities and towns near battlefields, wounded soldiers were often placed in private homes and other buildings...
World War I, African American Soldiers, and America’s War for Democracy
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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...
The Mexican-American War: Arguments for and against Going to War
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A former Confederate officer on slavery and the Civil War, 1907
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...
American Indians' service in World War I, 1920
More than 11,000 American Indians served with the American forces during World War I. Nearly 5,000 Native men enlisted and approximately 6,500 were drafted—despite the fact that almost half of American Indians were not citizens and...
Lincoln and Civil Liberties
Overview The tension between individual rights and a government’s need to preserve and protect national security during times of war has represented a constant theme throughout American history. During the John Adams administration, a...
Civil rights posters, 1968
Memphis sanitation workers, the majority of them African American, went out on strike on February 12, 1968, demanding recognition for their union, better wages, and safer working conditions after two trash handlers were killed by a...
Robert Kennedy on civil rights, 1963
At the end of 1962, President John F. Kennedy asked his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, to compile a report on the Civil Rights enforcement activities of the Justice Department over the previous year. In this report,...
Native American Housing
Historical Background American Indians (First Nations in Canada) constructed homes to conform to their needs and environment. Housing for some tribal groups was permanent, while other residences reflected the need to relocate, often...
Native American Policy
Background: Two conflicting policies have governed this country’s treatment of Native Americans—assimilation and removal. As the United States expanded, it became necessary to issue formal policy statements and make treaties with...
Japan declares war, 1941
On December 7, 1941, two hours after the Japanese attack on American military installations at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Japan declared war on the United States and Great Britain, marking America’s entry into World War II. The Japanese...
Emma Goldman on the restriction of civil liberties, 1919
Emma Goldman was born to a Jewish family in Kovno, Russia (present-day Lithuania). In 1885, at the age of sixteen, she emigrated to the United States, becoming a well-known author and lecturer promoting anarchism, workers’ rights,...
The French and Indian War
Unit Objective This unit is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based teaching resources. These units were developed to enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original texts of historical...
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