Post-Civil War America, 1865-1900

A variety of materials demonstrates the rise and fall of civil rights for African Americans during the latter half of the nineteenth century, including constitutional amendments, sharecropper contracts, and discussions of segregation and voting rights. Other items from this time period document relations with American Indians and the Spanish-American War.

Selected searches:

• John Quincy Adams Ward’s archive of designs, drawings, studies, sketches, and supporting paperwork
• Presidential pardons
• American Indians, 1861–1877
• Reconstruction
• Letters and documents received by Blanche K. Bruce, the first African American to serve a full term in the US Senate. 
• Letters by Daniel and Nancy Hemans, two Santee Indians who served as missionaries in South Dakota
• Gilded Age
• Materials relating to race relations and Jim Crow
• American Indians, 1877–1900
• Frederick Douglass

Educational Resources:

Educational materials including essays, timelines, multimedia, interactives, featured primary sources, and other teaching resources can be found in the History by Era section of our website. Our Featured Primary Sources include introductions, transcriptions, and images of documents, available to all educators, with additional content of questions for discussion and printable hand-outs for Affiliate School members.

Civil War & Reconstruction, 1861–1877

• African Americans and Emancipation
• Reconstruction

Rise of Industrial America, 1877–1900

• Development of the West
• Populism and Agrarian Discontent
• The Gilded Age
• Empire Building
• Immigration and Migration

Common Core Units for this Era 

• The Haymarket Riot
• The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine