173 items
The years following the end of World War I were a period of deep social tensions, aggrevated by high wartime inflation. Food prices more than doubled between 1915 and 1920; clothing costs more than tripled. A steel strike that began...
Historical Context: The Breakdown of the Party System
As late as 1850, the two-party system seemed healthy. Democrats and Whigs drew strength in all parts of the country. Then, in the early 1850s, the two-party system began to disintegrate in response to massive foreign immigration. By...
Historical Context: The Confederacy Begins to Collapse
By early 1863, the Civil War had begun to cause severe hardship on the southern home front. Not only was most of the fighting taking place in the South, but also as the Union blockade grew more effective and the South's railroad...
Historical Context: The Constitution and Slavery
On the 200th anniversary of the ratification of the US Constitution, Thurgood Marshall, the first African American to sit on the Supreme Court, said that the Constitution was "defective from the start." He pointed out that the framers...
Historical Context: The First National Census
Early in August 1790, David Howe, an assistant federal marshal, began the difficult task of counting all the people who lived in Hancock County, Maine. One of 650 federal census takers, charged with making "a...perfect enumeration.....
Historical Context: The Survival of the US Constitution
The United States has the oldest written national framework of government in the world. At the end of the twentieth century, there were about 159 other national constitutions in the world, and 101 had been adopted since 1970. While...
Historical Context: The Post-World War I Red Scare
The end of World War I was accompanied by a panic over political radicalism. Fear of bombs, Communism, and labor unrest produced a “Red Scare.” In Hammond, Indiana, a jury took two minutes to acquit the killer of an immigrant who had...
Historical Context: The Global Effect of World War I
A recent list of the hundred most important news stories of the twentieth century ranked the onset of World War I eighth. This is a great error. Just about everything that happened in the remainder of the century was in one way or...
What Does Liberty Look Like?
" We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ." Declaration of...
World War I, African American Soldiers, and America’s War for Democracy
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War, Immigration Policies, and Dissent: Landmark Moments in Latina/o History
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The History of Federal, State, and Tribal Powers, 1788–2020
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Free Speech in US History, 1917-1988
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The US Government and Indigenous Peoples before the Trail of Tears, 1770-1839
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Infographic: The Vietnam War Military Statistics
Download Infographic as PDF Questions for Discussion In what year were the greatest number of US service members stationed in Vietnam? In what year were there the greatest number of US battle deaths in Vietnam? How many...
The Trail of Tears
Historical Background In 1830, under President Andrew Jackson, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act directing the executive branch to negotiate for American Indian lands. The act set the tone for President Jackson in dealing with...
Children’s Attitudes about Slavery and Women’s Abolitionism as Seen through Anti-slavery Fairs
Overview Over two days, students will examine the attitudes that children from northern states had about slavery during the 1830s to 1860s and how abolitionists tried to change their way of thinking. They will also explore how woman...
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