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Spotlight on: Primary Source

World War I poems: “In Flanders Fields” and “The Answer,” 1918

Literature, World History

Ella Osborn’s 1918 diary provides insight into the experiences of an American nurse serving in France at the end of World War I. In addition to her notes about the men under her care and events in France, Osborn jotted down two...

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Civilian defense on the home front, 1942

Art, Government and Civics

In the early days of World War II, air raids and other attacks on populated areas in Europe generated fears that similar attacks could happen in the United States. On May 20, 1941, more than six months before the United States entered...

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Nominating an African American for vice president, 1880

Government and Civics

Born a slave in 1841, Blanche Kelso Bruce was the first African American to be elected to a full term in the US Senate. During his term as a senator from Mississippi (1875–1881), he advocated the rights of African Americans and other...

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The service of Medal of Honor recipient Dr. Mary Walker, 1864

Government and Civics

A graduate of Syracuse Medical College, Mary Walker served as a doctor during the American Civil War and was the only female acting assistant surgeon in the Union Army. In April 1864, Walker was captured by the Confederates in...

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The Battle of Horseshoe Bend and the end of the Creek War, 1814

On May 12, 1814, Tennessee settler Isaac Stephens wrote to his uncle Henry Mackey in Virginia about the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in Alabama. In that battle on March 27, 1814, US Army and Tennessee militia troops under General Andrew...

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Recalling the Schoolchildren’s Blizzard of 1888, ca. 1930s

From November 1887 through January 1888, ice storms, frigid temperatures, and a December snowfall measuring up to 40 inches battered the Midwest. The morning of January 12 dawned with unseasonably mild temperatures and lulled many...

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Benedict Arnold’s 1780 treason and the execution of John Andre recalled, 1823

During the American Revolution, the discovery of General Benedict Arnold’s plot to surrender West Point to the British was a deeply shocking revelation. In a memoir written some forty years after the war, William North, an aide-de...

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Racism in the North: Frederick Douglass on "a vulgar and senseless prejudice," 1870

In 1870 Thomas Burnett Pugh, an ardent abolitionist prior to the Civil War, invited Frederick Douglass to participate in the "Star Course" lecture series he had organized at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. However, Douglass ...

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The Brotherton Indians of New Jersey, 1780

During the French and Indian War, the Lenni-Lenape (or Delaware) Indians of New Jersey were among the tribes that signed the Treaty of Easton of 1758. The tribes agreed not to support the French in the colonial conflict and to leave...

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The struggle for married women’s rights, circa 1880s

Government and Civics

In the early nineteenth century, married women in the US were legally subordinate to their husbands. Wives could not own their own property, keep their own wages, or enter into contracts. Beginning in 1839, states slowly began to...

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Verses on Norwegian emigration to America, 1853

Foreign Languages, Literature, World History

Between 1836 and 1865, approximately 55,000 Norwegians sailed to the United States. [1] Like most immigrants, they sought opportunities that didn’t exist at home—religious freedom, economic security, land ownership, and educational...

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Energy conservation during WWII, 1943

Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

World War II had a profound impact on life in the United States although no battles took place on the American mainland. Americans were asked to ration, recycle, and conserve materials that were essential to the war effort. This...

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An African American soldier’s pay warrant, 1780

Economics

During the American Revolution, Sharp Liberty, an African American soldier, served in the Connecticut Line of the Continental Army. Before the war, he had been enslaved in Wallingford, Connecticut. In 1777, he enlisted in the army,...

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Lyndon B. Johnson proclaims a national day of mourning for JFK, 1963

Government and Civics

On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, by Lee Harvey Oswald. The next day, the newly sworn-in Lyndon B. Johnson issued his first presidential proclamation. In a statement that was broadcast...

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Reports on the yellow fever epidemic, 1793

Between August 1 and November 9, 1793, approximately 11,000 people contracted yellow fever in the US capital of Philadelphia. Of that number, 5,000 people, 10 percent of the city’s population, died. The disease gets its name from the...

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Campaigning against Franklin Roosevelt’s third term, 1940

Government and Civics

Franklin Roosevelt’s run in 1940 for a third consecutive term as president was unprecedented. George Washington established a two-term tradition when he declined to run for a third term in 1796, and until 1940, no other president...

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An eyewitness account of the Great Chicago Fire, 1871

The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 killed nearly 300 people, left 100,000 homeless, destroyed over $190 million worth of property, and leveled the entire central business district of the city. The fire broke out just after 9 p.m. on...

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Temperance movement cartoon: The Drunkard’s Progress, 1826

Art

Numerous reform movements to improve society sprang up in the United States in the first half of the nineteenth century. The temperance movement attracted reformers who identified excessive drinking as the principal cause of domestic...

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A British view of rebellious Boston, 1774

Art, Government and Civics, World History

In the years leading up to the American Revolution, both the British and the colonists used broadsides to influence public opinion. This broadside, “The Bostonian’s Paying the Excise-man, or Tarring & Feathering,” printed in...

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Frederick Douglass’s tribute to Abraham Lincoln, 1880

Literature

Despite initial differences, Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln forged a relationship over the course of the Civil War based on a shared vision. Fifteen years after Lincoln’s death, Douglass described him as "one of the noblest...

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A World War II poster: "Starve the Squander Bug," 1943

Art, Government and Civics, World History

2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Before he became world-renowned as Dr. Seuss for his children’s books and illustrations, Theodor Geisel worked for the US government during World War II designing posters such as this one, encouraging patriotism and investment. The...

Lesson Plan

The Civil Rights Movement: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X

Government and Civics

Click to download this three-lesson unit.

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A soldier on the battle for the Philippines, 1945

Geography

Witnessing the brutality of war and atrocities against civilians could overwhelm the most fair-minded of men. Sidney Diamond, an officer in the 82nd Chemical Battalion, wrote loving, humorous, and hopeful letters to his fiancée almost...

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Abraham Lincoln's last letter to his wife, 1865

Government and Civics

This letter, written as the Union captured the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, demonstrates Lincoln’s active, hands-on commitment as commander in chief of the armed forces as well as his devotion to his family. It reads...

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The women’s rights movement after the Civil War, 1866

The fight for women’s rights that had begun in earnest with the convention at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848, diminished in the 1850s and 1860s as reformers focused on the abolition of slavery and the Civil War, but the movement did...

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