Essay The Civil Rights Movement Taylor Branch The word "movement" often designates a cultural shift of less import than the American Revolution, Great Depression, and other capitalized dramas in history. To be sure, some popular movements have gained broader recognition in the...
History Now Essay Perils of the Ocean in the Early Modern Era Robert C. Ritchie Geography, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, World History 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ A traveler considering an ocean voyage around 1600 had much to contemplate. Voyage by voyage, explorers and colonists alike needed knowledge about the seas and lands in the Atlantic world. Unfortunately, information was never shared... Appears in: 25 | Three Worlds Meet Fall 2010
History Now Essay Women of the West Virginia Scharff Geography, Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Women are like water to Western history. Both have flowed through the terrain we have come to call the West, long before the inhabitants conceived of themselves as part of an expanding United States. Both have been represented as... Appears in: 9 | The American West Fall 2006
Essay The New Nation, 1783–1815 Alan Taylor Government and Civics The leaders of the American Revolution made three great gambles. First, they sought independence from the powerful British Empire, becoming the first colonies in the Americas to revolt and seek independence from their mother empire....
History Now Essay FDR and Hitler: A Study in Contrasts David M. Kennedy Government and Civics, World History 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ The Great Depression and World War II were events in world history, but they touched different countries in sometimes dramatically different ways. To paraphrase Tolstoy, many peoples suffered, but every unhappy people was unhappy in... Appears in: 14 | World War II Winter 2007
History Now Essay The Marshall and Taney Courts: Continuities and Changes R. B. Bernstein Economics, Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Though the first holders of the job thought it more a burden than a position of honor or power, the office of chief justice of the United States has a pivotal role in the American constitutional system, thanks mainly to John Marshall ... Appears in: 15 | The Supreme Court Spring 2008
History Now Essay Indian Removal Theda Perdue Geography, Government and Civics In 1828 pressure was building among white Americans for the relocation of American Indians from the eastern United States to lands west of the Mississippi River. A student at a mission school in the Cherokee Nation, which lay within... Appears in: 28 | American Indians Summer 2011
Essay The Human Toll of the Great Depression Steven Mintz Economics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ 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...
Essay Lincoln Allen C. Guelzo 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ No one seemed less well-cast for the role of reformer, in an age of reform, than Abraham Lincoln. To begin with, he was a stranger, emotionally and intellectually, to evangelical Christianity, the great engine of reform in the...
History Now Essay Andrew Jackson’s Shifting Legacy Daniel Feller Economics, Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Of all presidential reputations, Andrew Jackson’s is perhaps the most difficult to summarize or explain. Most Americans recognize his name, though most probably know him (in the words of a famous song) as the general who "fought the... Appears in: 22 | Andrew Jackson and His World Winter 2009
History Now Essay The Civil Rights Movement: Major Events and Legacies James T. Patterson Art, Government and Civics, Literature 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ From the earliest years of European settlement in North America, whites enslaved and oppressed black people. Although the Civil War finally brought about the abolition of slavery, a harsh system of white supremacy persisted thereafter... Appears in: 8 | The Civil Rights Movement Summer 2006
History Now Essay The World War II Home Front Allan M. Winkler Economics, Government and Civics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, World History 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ World War II had a profound impact on the United States. Although no battles occurred on the American mainland, the war affected all phases of American life. It required unprecedented efforts to coordinate strategy and tactics with... Appears in: 14 | World War II Winter 2007
Essay The Thirteen Colonies Francis J. Bremer Government and Civics The thirteen colonies that joined together to become the United States of America were but a part of the first British Empire. They were the product of a broad and dramatic expansion of England that began with the establishment of ...
History Now Essay Ordinary Americans and the Constitution Gary B. Nash Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ The Constitution is so honored today, at home and abroad, that it may seem irreverent to suggest that for a great many ordinary Americans, it was not what they wished as a capstone of their revolutionary experience. This is not to say... Appears in: 13 | The Constitution Fall 2007
History Now Essay Women and Wagoners: Camp Followers in the American War for Independence Holly A. Mayer 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ An old tune called "The Girl I Left Behind Me" tells of a lovelorn soldier yearning to return home to his waiting fair maid. Although there is a good chance that this song was fifed during the Revolutionary War, the earliest... Appears in: 21 | The American Revolution Fall 2009
Essay Early Settlements James Horn "I marvel not a little," Richard Hakluyt the younger wrote in 1582, "that since the first discovery of America (which is now full fourscore and ten years) after so great conquest and plantings of the Spaniards and Portuguese there,...
History Now Essay England on the Eve of Colonization Paul E. J. Hammer World History 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ When James VI of Scotland and his entourage began his journey south to take up the crown of England in April of 1603, it looked as if the ancient enmity between the two realms had finally been swept away. With England’s aristocratic... Appears in: 25 | Three Worlds Meet Fall 2010
History Now Essay The Jungle and the Progressive Era Robert W. Cherny Economics, Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ The publication of Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel The Jungle produced an immediate and powerful effect on Americans and on federal policy, but Sinclair had hoped to achieve a very different result. At the time he began working on the... Appears in: 16 | Books That Changed History Summer 2008
Essay The Road to War Chandra M. Manning Economics, Government and Civics 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ ‘A house divided against itself can not stand’ I believe this government can not endure permanently, half slave, and half free . . . I do not expect the Union to be dissolved - I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it...
History Now Essay John Brown: Villain or Hero? Steven Mintz Economics, Literature, Religion and Philosophy 9, 10, 11, 12 In 1856, three years before his celebrated raid on Harpers Ferry, John Brown, with four of his sons and three others, dragged five unarmed men and boys from their homes along Kansas’s Pottawatomie Creek and hacked and dismembered... Appears in: 5 | Abolition Fall 2005
History Now Essay The US Banking System: Origin, Development, and Regulation Richard Sylla Economics, Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Banks are among the oldest businesses in American history—the Bank of New York, for example, was founded in 1784, and as the recently renamed Bank of New York Mellon it had its 225th anniversary in 2009. The banking system is one of... Appears in: 24 | Shaping the American Economy Summer 2010
History Now Essay Cahokia: A Pre-Columbian American City Timothy R. Pauketat 9 Almost a thousand years ago, American Indians built a city along the Mississippi River in the middle of North America. Located opposite modern-day St. Louis, Missouri, this city is called Cahokia by archaeologists, and it was as large... Appears in: 28 | American Indians Summer 2011
History Now Essay Amateurism and Jim Thorpe at the Fifth Olympiad Kate Buford 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Thorpe’s deception and subsequent confession deals amateur sport in America the hardest blow it has ever had to take and disarranges the scheme of amateur athletics the world over. New York Times , January 28, 1913 The early years of... Appears in: 23 | Turning Points in American Sports Spring 2010
History Now Essay The Battle of the Sexes Gail Collins 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ It’s hard to explain, if you weren’t there at the time, why the "Battle of the Sexes"—the 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs—was so important. The most enduring image from the event was the picture of Billie... Appears in: 23 | Turning Points in American Sports Spring 2010
Essay The War for Independence Ray Raphael World History On July 4, 1774, exactly two years before the United States declared independence, a patriotic club in Worcester, Massachusetts, decided that each member should have in the ready two pounds of gunpowder and twelve flints. With the...
History Now Essay New Orleans and the History of Jazz Loren Schoenberg Art, Geography 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ New Orleans is a city built in a location that was by any measure a mistake. North American settlers needed a way to import and export goods via the Mississippi River, so a city was created atop swamps. By virtue of its location and... Appears in: 11 | American Cities Spring 2007
History Now Essay Women and the Great Depression Susan Ware Economics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ In 1933 Eleanor Roosevelt’s It’s Up to the Women exhorted American women to help pull the country through its current economic crisis, the gravest it had ever faced: "The women know that life must go on and that the needs of life must... Appears in: 19 | The Great Depression Spring 2009
Essay "Hidden Practices": Frederick Douglass on Segregation and Black Achievement, 1887 Edward L. Ayers Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Frederick Douglass recalled his feelings when slavery came to an end, after so much work and so many sacrifices. "I felt that I had reached the end of the noblest and best part of my life," he admitted. But Douglass hardly...
History Now Essay Economic Policy through the Lens of History Roger E. A. Farmer Economics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be... Appears in: 24 | Shaping the American Economy Summer 2010
History Now Essay The Indians’ War of Independence Colin G. Calloway Geography, Government and Civics, World History 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson clearly described the role of American Indians in the American Revolution. In addition to his other oppressive acts, King George III had "endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of... Appears in: 21 | The American Revolution Fall 2009
Essay Reconstruction Edward L. Ayers In the twelve years after the Civil War—the era of Reconstruction—there were massive changes in American culture, economy, and politics. These were the years of the "Old West," of cowboys, Indians, and buffalo hunts, of cattle drives,...
Essay The Failure of Compromise Bruce Levine Government and Civics K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ In the spring of 1861, the United States of America split into two hostile countries—the United States and the new Confederate States of America. The two opposing heads of state agreed about what was causing the rupture—the long...
Essay Colonization and Settlement, 1585–1763 John Demos Economics, Geography, Government and Civics, Religion and Philosophy, World History 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ American colonial history belongs to what scholars call the early modern period. As such, it is part of a bridge between markedly different eras in the history of the western world. On its far side lies the long stretch we call the...