History Now Essay "All Should Have an Equal Chance": Abraham Lincoln and the Declaration of Independence Jonathan W. White In many ways, the Gettysburg Address reflects the culmination of Abraham Lincoln’s lifelong admiration for the principles of the Declaration of Independence. As a young man in 1838, Lincoln responded to the wave of mob violence... Appears in: 67 | The Influence of the Declaration of Independence on the Civil War and Reconstruction Era Summer 2023
History Now Essay "Dear Girl, how much I love you": The Revolutionary War Letters of Henry and Lucy Knox Phillip Hamilton 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Letters between soldiers and spouses are often powerful and moving documents. Given the intensity, danger, and uncertainty of armed conflict as well as the significant changes wrought by most wars, such correspondence reveals what... Appears in: 43 | Wartime Memoirs and Letters from the American Revolution to Vietnam Fall 2015
History Now Essay "Dear Miss Cole": World War I Letters of American Servicemen Phillip Papas World History 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ "Received your package," Pvt. George Van Pelt of Company I, 165th Infantry wrote in May 1918 from the frontlines in France to Annie E. Cole, a grammar school teacher and principal on Staten Island, New York, and to her students. "I... Appears in: 43 | Wartime Memoirs and Letters from the American Revolution to Vietnam Fall 2015
History Now Essay "Ditched, Stalled and Stranded": Dorothea Lange and the Great Depression Carol Quirke Art During the Great Depression, a top commercial portraitist took to San Francisco’s streets to experiment with representing the social devastation surrounding her. Her photos showed men sleeping on sidewalks and in parks like bundles of... Appears in: 45 | American History in Visual Art Summer 2016
History Now Essay "Fun, Fun Rock ’n’ Roll High School" Glenn C. Altschuler and Robert O. Summers Art, Government and Civics 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ With his tongue halfway in his cheek, Ambrose Bierce defined history as "an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools." Well, we’ve come a long... Appears in: 32 | The Music and History of Our Times Summer 2012
Essay "Half slave, half free": Lincoln and the "House Divided" Gabor S. Boritt Government and Civics The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all proclaim, "a house divided against itself can not stand." [1] Living in a Bible-reading country, most nineteenth-century Americans knew that metaphor by heart—words that also made good common...
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 "I begin to see it": Lincoln the War President James M. McPherson Government and Civics In the spring of 1864, three years into the Civil War, it seemed that the Union was finally in a position to defeat the Confederacy, taking advantage of the significant losses the Confederacy had suffered in 1863. For three years,...
History Now Essay "I, Too": Langston Hughes’s Afro-Whitmanian Affirmation Steven Tracy Literature 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ To read the text and hear the poem click here. Whatever we say, whatever we write, whatever we do, we never act alone. Just as John Donne meditated upon the notion that "no man is an island," so, too, in the twentieth century did T.S.... Appears in: 39 | American Poets, American History Spring 2014
History Now Essay "If Ever Two Were One": Anne Bradstreet’s "To My Dear and Loving Husband" Charlotte Gordon Literature 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Anne Bradstreet is famous for being the first American poet. But she did not think of herself as either "first" or "American." She did not even think of herself as a poet. We would call her a Puritan, a term adopted by their enemies... Appears in: 39 | American Poets, American History Spring 2014
History Now Essay "No Event Could Have Filled Me with Greater Anxieties": George Washington and the First Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789 Phillip Hamilton Government and Civics George Washington’s fame rests not upon his words but upon his deeds. Therefore, his First Inaugural Address is sometimes overlooked. This is unfortunate because the words he delivered on Thursday, April 30, 1789, not only launched... Appears in: 36 | Great Inaugural Addresses Summer 2013
History Now Essay "One of those monstrosities of nature": The Galveston Storm of 1900 Elizabeth Hayes Turner Geography, Government and Civics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Dawn brought "mother of pearl" skies to Galveston, Texas, that Saturday morning of September 8, 1900. The city of 38,000, perched on an island just off the mainland, had an elevation of no more than nine feet. With no sea wall to... Appears in: 40 | Disasters in Modern American History Fall 2014