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90,987 items

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President Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, 1865

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Just 701 words long, Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address took only six or seven minutes to deliver, yet contains many of the most memorable phrases in American political oratory. The speech contained neither gloating nor rejoicing....

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Charles Sumner on Reconstruction and the South, 1866

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

By 1865 there were sharp differences of opinion about the rights of freedmen and the governance of the defeated Southern states among political leaders in Congress and the Executive Branch in Washington, DC. Conflict among Republicans...

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Best friends divided by the Civil War, 1861

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

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...

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Olaudah Equiano, 1789

Economics, World History

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Within ten years of the first North American settlements, Europeans began transporting captured Africans to the colonies as enslaved laborers. Imagine the thoughts and fears of an eleven-year-old boy who was kidnapped from his village...

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A View of Savannah, Georgia, 1734

World History

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The colony of Georgia was founded in 1732 by James Oglethorpe, a British Member of Parliament. Oglethorpe planned Savannah as a place where the poor could come to make a better life. An attempt to produce a "classless society," this...

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Stephen Austin's contract to bring settlers to Texas, 1825

Geography

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In order to settle Texas in the 1820s, the Mexican government allowed speculators, called empresarios, to acquire large tracts of land if they promised to bring in settlers to populate the region and make it profitable. Moses and...

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Statue of Liberty, 1884

Literature

4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

First conceived of in 1865, the Statue of Liberty was a gift from France commemorating the alliance between that country and the United States during the American Revolution as well as their mutual dedication to freedom and democracy....

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Anti-corporate cartoons, ca. 1900

Art, Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

These cartoons illustrate the growing hostility toward the practices of the big businesses that fueled the industrial development of the United States. In "The Protectors of Our Industries" (1883), railroad magnates Jay Gould and...

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Civilian Conservation Corps poster, 1938

Art, Economics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The Civilian Conservation Corps directly addressed two of the most pressing problems during the Depression: male youth unemployment and environmental degradation. The CCC, based on a military model of everyday life, put thousands of...

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Horace Greeley: "Go West," 1871

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune , wrote this letter in 1871 to R. L. Sanderson, a young correspondent who had requested career advice. Greeley, a great supporter of westward expansion, shared the national conviction...

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Indian Wars: The Battle of Washita, 1868

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The Battle of Washita on November 27, 1868, pitted US Army troops commanded by General George Custer against the Southern Cheyenne. An excerpt from Custer’s report on a return to the battlefield ten days later is presented here. The...

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Japanese internment, 1942

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Responding to fears of Japanese spies within the United States, President Roosevelt signed an order authorizing the forced relocation and confinement of more than 110,000 Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans living in the West....

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Official photograph from the "Golden Spike" Ceremony, 1869

Economics, Geography, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

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,...

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Photograph of a "Hooverville," 1936

Economics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

"Hoovervilles" were temporary communities that America’s homeless created to provide shelter for themselves and their families during the Great Depression. They were so named as an insult to President Herbert Hoover, who seemed to be...

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Photograph of an abandoned farm in the Dust Bowl, 1938

Art, Economics, Geography

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

When a severe drought in the early 1930s left the crops of the Great Plains stunted, the relentless winds of the plains picked up the soil and brewed up horrific, roiling storms that gave this time its name: the Dust Bowl. Thousands...

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San Francisco's Chinatown, 1880

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The Workingmen’s Party of California pamphlet, which is representative of widespread anti-immigration sentiment, attacks President Ulysses S. Grant and calls San Francisco’s Chinatown "rampant with disease." On May 8, 1882, President...

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William T. Sherman on the western railroads, 1878

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

After Ulysses S. Grant’s election as president, William Tecumseh Sherman, known for leading the "March to the Sea" in the closing months of the Civil War, was appointed commanding general of the United States Army. Headquartered in St...

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Andrew Jackson to the Cherokee Tribe, 1835

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Elected president in 1828, Andrew Jackson supported the removal of American Indians from their homelands, arguing that the American Indians’ survival depended on separation from whites. In this 1835 circular to the Cherokee people,...

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"Jefferson is in every view less dangerous than Burr": Hamilton on the election of 1800

Government and Civics

The presidential election of 1800 had resulted in a tie between the two Democratic Republicans, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. The founders had not foreseen the rise of political parties and the effects that development would have...

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The Battles of Lexington and Concord, 1775

By April 1775, reconciliation between England and the thirteen colonies had failed. Two months earlier, Parliament had declared Massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion, and on April 14 General Thomas Gage received secret orders...

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Secotan, an Algonquian village, ca. 1585

Art

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In the 1570s and 1580s, John White served as an artist and mapmaker to several expeditions around the Carolinas. White made numerous watercolor sketches depicting the Algonquian people and stunning American landscapes. This engraving...

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William Penn on the "Well-Governing of My Family," 1751

Religion and Philosophy

K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Quaker school teacher Josiah Forster first published this broadside in 1751, thirty years after the death of its author, William Penn, the Quaker founder of Pennsylvania. The treatise, Christian Discipline: Or Certain Good and...

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An African American protests the Fugitive Slave Law, 1850

Economics

6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

This 1850 letter written by Henry Weeden is a statement against slavery by a free African American. Weeden was one of Boston’s leading abolitionists. In the 1840s, he had been an activist for the integration of Boston’s schools. [1]...

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Albert Einstein on the McCarthy hearings and the Fifth Amendment, 1953

Government and Civics

6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

During the "McCarthy hearings" of the 1950s, the government investigated American society and industry in an attempt to root out communist sympathizers. Among those investigated were scientists and scholars, who were called upon to...

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George Wallace on segregation, 1964

Government and Civics

In 1958, George Wallace ran against John Patterson in his first gubernatorial race. In that Alabama election, Wallace refused to make race an issue, and he declined the endorsement of the Ku Klux Klan. This move won Wallace the...

Site Search

90,987 items

President Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, 1865

Charles Sumner on Reconstruction and the South, 1866

Best friends divided by the Civil War, 1861

Olaudah Equiano, 1789

A View of Savannah, Georgia, 1734

Stephen Austin's contract to bring settlers to Texas, 1825

Statue of Liberty, 1884

Anti-corporate cartoons, ca. 1900

Civilian Conservation Corps poster, 1938

Horace Greeley: "Go West," 1871

Indian Wars: The Battle of Washita, 1868

Japanese internment, 1942

Official photograph from the "Golden Spike" Ceremony, 1869

Photograph of a "Hooverville," 1936

Photograph of an abandoned farm in the Dust Bowl, 1938

San Francisco's Chinatown, 1880

William T. Sherman on the western railroads, 1878

Andrew Jackson to the Cherokee Tribe, 1835

"Jefferson is in every view less dangerous than Burr": Hamilton on the election of 1800

The Battles of Lexington and Concord, 1775

Secotan, an Algonquian village, ca. 1585

William Penn on the "Well-Governing of My Family," 1751

An African American protests the Fugitive Slave Law, 1850

Albert Einstein on the McCarthy hearings and the Fifth Amendment, 1953

George Wallace on segregation, 1964

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