134 items
In the late nineteenth century, Democrats and Republicans fought over whether the gold standard ought to be retained or if the United States should switch to a free silver system. In 1890, the Sherman Silver Purchase Act was passed,...
People’s Party campaign poster, 1892
In July 1892, the Populist Party (or People’s Party), formed by farmers and labor supporters, held its first convention in Omaha, Nebraska. At that convention, the party created and ratified its Omaha Platform and nominated James B....
Disfranchisement of African American voters in Virginia, 1901
In February 1901, the Virginia General Assembly authorized a constitutional convention to draft election reforms. The convention, supported vehemently by Democrats, aimed to disfranchise African Americans without violating the...
Lynching in America, ca. 1926
The number of violent acts against African Americans accelerated during the first quarter of the twentieth century. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) began compiling lynching statistics in 1912,...
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, 1911
On March 25, 1911, a devastating fire started at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City. Workers had been locked in the factory to discourage theft and prevent labor organization, and they were unable to escape when the fire...
Prescription for alcohol during Prohibition, 1923
At midnight, January 16, 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment to the US Constitution prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcohol took effect. The Eighteenth Amendment banned the manufacture and sale (but not the possession, consumption,...
Women's suffrage poster, 1915
Opponents to women’s suffrage argued that voting would be detrimental to women’s character and to their families. This broadside, published around 1915 refutes those accusations. It declares that if a woman is responsible for taking...
Susan B. Anthony on suffrage and equal rights, 1901
Writing at the age of eighty, having just retired from a long public life as an advocate for abolition and women’s rights, Susan B. Anthony trenchantly summarized the gains that had been made in women’s rights. Her energetic tone...
Herbert Hoover's Inaugural Address, 1929
In November 1928, Republican Herbert Hoover was elected president over the Democratic nominee Al Smith. Hoover had served in the Harding and Coolidge administrations and won the nomination after Coolidge declined to run for a third...
Ronald Reagan on economics and political parties, 1962
In May 1962, Ronald Reagan wrote this letter expressing his ideas about economic policy and the nation’s political parties. Reagan wrote as a supporter of the conservative Republican Senator Barry Goldwater. Reagan had spent much of...
Barack Obama’s First Inaugural Address, 2009
The inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States in 2009 was a historic moment not only because Obama was the first African American ever sworn into executive office but also because he entered the presidency at a...
Diary of World War I nurse Ella Osborn, 1918–1919
At the outbreak of World War I, Ella Jane Osborn was a surgical nurse at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. In January 1918, she volunteered to serve with the American Expeditionary Forces as a member of the Red Cross’s nursing...
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,...
Theodore Roosevelt supports women’s suffrage, 1912
In this letter written in July 1912, during his campaign for a thrid term as president, Theodore Roosevelt informs the state and county chairmen of the Progressive Party of his plan to support women’s suffrage. The document shows the...
Margaret Corbin
Margaret Corbin Revolutionary War Margaret “Molly” Corbin was the first woman in the United States to earn a military pension, based on her service at the Battle of Fort Washington. Image Source: Herbert Knotel, Twentieth-century sketch representing...
Pauline Cushman
Pauline Cushman Civil War Pauline Cushman served as a spy for the Union Army and is buried at San Francisco National Cemetery. She was an actress who used her skills to gather intelligence for the Union Army. Image Source: Mathew Brady Studio,...
Ella Osborn
Ella Osborn World War I Ella Jane Osborn, a nurse deployed to France during World War I, is buried at Wainscott Cemetery in New York. She kept a remarkable diary in 1918 and 1919 that captured her experiences during the war. Image Source: Ella Jane...
Annie Fox
Annie Fox World War II Annie Fox was Station Hospital’s chief nurse during the attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawai'i. On October 26, 1942, Fox became the first woman in America to be awarded the Purple Heart for her heroism during the attack. Image...
Perry Watkins
Perry Watkins Cold War Perry Watkins served fifteen years in the Army as an openly gay man. Despite this, in 1980, the Army revoked his security clearance and had him discharged because he was gay, a discharge he successfully fought in court. Image...
Grace Murray Hopper
Grace Murray Hopper Cold War Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper was a naval computer scientist who held the rank of rear admiral when she retired in 1985. Image Source: Lynn Gilbert, Photograph of Grace Murray Hopper in her office in Washington, DC,...
Ashley White-Stumpf
Ashley White-Stumpf Iraq & Afghanistan Ashley White-Stumpf served in the Army during the Afghanistan War. She was posthumously awarded a Bronze Star and the Purple Heart for her service. Image Source: Photograph of the unveiling ceremony for...
The Right to Vote, Part 1: The Early Republic through the Civil War
The Right to Vote: Part 1 The Early Republic through the Civil War
Who could vote in the founding and Jacksonian eras? Scroll through to view the exhibition (above). Recorded readings of select components in the exhibition...
The Right to Vote, Part 2: Reconstruction and the Jim Crow Era
The Right to Vote: Part 2 Reconstruction and the Jim Crow Era
How did access to the vote evolve during the Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras? Scroll through to view the exhibition (above). Recorded readings of select...
The Right to Vote, Part 3: Women's Suffrage
The Right to Vote: Part 3 Women's Suffrage
What was the path to the Nineteenth Amendment? Scroll through to view the exhibition (above). Recorded readings of select components in the exhibition are available by clicking ...
The Right to Vote, Part 4: The Civil Rights Era to the 2000s
The Right to Vote: Part 4 The Civil Rights Era to the 2000s
How has access to the vote expanded and contracted over the past sixty years? Scroll through to view the exhibition (above). Recorded readings of select components...
A family torn apart by war, 1777
The Revolutionary War divided families. In 1774, eighteen-year-old Lucy Flucker married twenty-four-year-old Henry Knox. Lucy’s parents were powerful, wealthy Tories, and they were not happy with the match. Henry Knox was the son of...
Bartolomé de Las Casas debates the subjugation of the Indians, 1550
This tract, a summary of a debate concerning the subjugation of Indians, contains the arguments of Bartolomé de Las Casas, the Bishop of Chiapas, Mexico, and Juan Gines Sepulveda, an influential Spanish philosopher, concerning the...
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