115 items
Throughout the twentieth century, many influential Hollywood films, such as Birth of a Nation , Gone with the Wind , Glory , and Amistad , have helped shape the way Americans have thought about slavery and its legacy. Birth of a...
Statistics: The Changing Lives of American Women
The Changing Family Age of First Marriage Average Household Size Male Female 1790 -- -- 5.79 1890 26.1 22.0 4.93 1900 25.9 21.9 4.76 1910 25.1 21.6 4.54 1920 24.6 21.2 4.34 1930 24.3 21.3 4.11 1940 24.3 21.5 3.77 1950 22.8 20.3 3.52...
Statistics: The American Economy during the 1920s
Cars on the Road 1919 6.7 million 1929 23 million Percentage of Households with Radios 1925 19 percent (5,000,000 homes) 1929 35 to 40 percent Sales of Radios 1922 $60 million 1929 $842.6 million Wage Levels and the Price of a Ford...
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...
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...
Statistics: Immigration in America, Ku Klux Klan membership: 1915-1940s
The following charts are presented in the book The Ku Klux Klan in the City, 1915–1930 by Kenneth T. Jackson. The first chart represents the states with the highest recorded membership in the Klan during this time period. The...
Presidential Election Results, 1789–2020
Introduction The Electoral College consists of 538 electors, who are representatives typically chosen by the candidate’s political party, though some state laws differ. Each state’s number of electors is based on its congressional...
The Human Toll of the Great Depression
After more than half a century, images of the Great Depression remain firmly etched in the American psyche—breadlines, soup kitchens, tin-can shanties and tar paper shacks known as "Hoovervilles," penniless men and women selling...
The New Deal
Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s protean presidency from 1933 to 1945 (the longest term of leadership in this nation’s history) has provoked many debates about the man and his policies. For some he is the brilliant tactician who wrestled...
The Great Depression
Herbert Hoover got many things wrong about the great economic calamity that destroyed his presidency and his historical reputation, but he got one fundamental thing right. Much legend to the contrary, the Great Depression was not...
World War II
World War II was the central event of the twentieth century. It involved all six major continents, all three of the great oceans on the planet, scores of countries, and billions of people. It caused 57 million deaths and unimaginable...
Anti-Communism in the 1950s
In 1950, fewer than 50,000 Americans out of a total US population of 150 million were members of the Communist Party. Yet in the late 1940s and early 1950s, American fears of internal communist subversion reached a nearly hysterical...
Inside the Vault: Pearl Harbor
Originally broadcast on December 3, 2020, this session of Inside the Vault: Highlights from the Gilder Lehrman Collection explores Gilder Lehrman Collection materials relating to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7,...
Inside The Vault: Eleanor Roosevelt, “Four Basic Rights,” and Desegregation
Originally broadcast on August 21, 2020, this session of Inside the Vault: Highlights from the Gilder Lehrman Collection explores a 1944 letter by Eleanor Roosevelt defending the four basic rights of all Americans and desegregation...
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