Site Search

90,304 items

History Now Essay

Revolutionary Philadelphia

Ray Raphael

Geography, Government and Civics

The image is so clear in our minds, seen first in elementary school and reinforced countless times since: a few dozen gentlemen with powdered wigs and period suits (coats, waistcoats, and knee-length breeches) gathered in a large...

Appears in:

11 | American Cities Spring 2007

History Now Essay

The Passage of the Civil Rights Act

Clay Risen

Government and Civics

When the Civil Rights Act passed fifty years ago, it was immediately hailed as one of the most important pieces of legislation of the twentieth century. Not only did it ban discrimination in hotels, restaurants, public parks, schools,...

Appears in:

41 | The Civil Rights Act of 1964: Legislating Equality Winter 2015

History Now Essay

Civil Rights Leadership and the 1964 Civil Rights Act

Clarence Taylor

Government and Civics

The most important social protest movement of the twentieth century was the civil rights movement, which provided countless numbers of people the opportunity to become involved in the struggle for racial equality. The civil rights...

Appears in:

41 | The Civil Rights Act of 1964: Legislating Equality Winter 2015

57 | Black Voices in American Historiography Summer 2020

History Now Essay

Dispatches from the Front: The Civil Rights Act and the Pursuit of Greater Freedom in a Small Southern City

Charles W. McKinney

Government and Civics

The civil rights protests that enveloped the nation in the summer of 1964 occurred against the backdrop of the slow, uncertain progress of the legislation that would eventually become known as the Civil Rights Act. As activists across...

Appears in:

41 | The Civil Rights Act of 1964: Legislating Equality Winter 2015

57 | Black Voices in American Historiography Summer 2020

History Now Essay

Teaching the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Charles L. Zelden

As is the case with most historical events, the key to teaching the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (CRA) is context. The CRA by itself is simply a piece of congressional legislation—structurally complicated and textually byzantine. Still,...

Appears in:

41 | The Civil Rights Act of 1964: Legislating Equality Winter 2015

History Now Essay

The Role of China in US History

Warren I. Cohen

Economics, Government and Civics, World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Today, our homes are filled with countless products "Made in China." Long before the American Revolution, thanks to British trade with China, many colonists were able to purchase Chinese furniture, wallpapers, silks, and porcelains....

Appears in:

42 | The Role of China in US History Spring 2015

History Now Essay

America and the China Trade

William R. Sargent

Art, World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

On a quarter-mile strip of land in the bustling city of Canton (Guangzhou), China, trade was conducted between merchants from China and the eastern seaboard of America, beginning in 1784 and lasting until the mid-nineteenth century....

Appears in:

42 | The Role of China in US History Spring 2015

History Now Essay

Chinese American Politics in the Cold War Years

Charlotte Brooks

Economics, Government and Civics

In October 1950, the newly established People’s Republic of China entered the Korean War on the North Korean side against the United States and other United Nations troops. Many Chinese American citizens expressed deep concern at this...

Appears in:

42 | The Role of China in US History Spring 2015

History Now Essay

Postwar Taiwan and the USA

Denny Roy

World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Taiwan has been a showcase of liberalization under American encouragement, but also the primary irritant in US-China relations. A large island with a population of twenty-three million located about 100 to 150 miles off the coast of...

Appears in:

42 | The Role of China in US History Spring 2015

History Now Essay

"The Chinese Question"—Unresolved and Ongoing for Americans

John Kuo Wei Tchen

Government and Civics

In 1882, the United States Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act—the nation’s first race-based immigration law that was not effectively repealed until 1965–1968. The act exempted Chinese merchants, diplomats, scholars, and...

Appears in:

42 | The Role of China in US History Spring 2015

Essay

"In the end you are sure to succeed": Lincoln on Perseverance

Harold Holzer

If there was one quality Abraham Lincoln believed essential both to individual success and to social advancement, it was industriousness. A child of the impoverished frontier who went on to take proud advantage of what historian Gabor...

History Now Essay

"Dear Girl, how much I love you": The Revolutionary War Letters of Henry and Lucy Knox

Phillip Hamilton

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Letters between soldiers and spouses are often powerful and moving documents. Given the intensity, danger, and uncertainty of armed conflict as well as the significant changes wrought by most wars, such correspondence reveals what...

Appears in:

43 | Wartime Memoirs and Letters from the American Revolution to Vietnam Fall 2015

History Now Essay

The Diary of Ella Jane Osborn, World War I US Army Nurse

Susan F. Saidenberg

World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The unpublished diary of Ella Jane Osborn (1881–1966) in the Gilder Lehrman Collection opens an extraordinary window into the daily experiences of one American woman stationed in a US Army hospital in a dangerous and contested battle...

Appears in:

43 | Wartime Memoirs and Letters from the American Revolution to Vietnam Fall 2015

History Now Essay

"Dear Miss Cole": World War I Letters of American Servicemen

Phillip Papas

World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

"Received your package," Pvt. George Van Pelt of Company I, 165th Infantry wrote in May 1918 from the frontlines in France to Annie E. Cole, a grammar school teacher and principal on Staten Island, New York, and to her students. "I...

Appears in:

43 | Wartime Memoirs and Letters from the American Revolution to Vietnam Fall 2015

History Now Essay

Race and the Good War: An Oral History Interview with Calvin D. Cosby, World War II Veteran

Cecelia Hartsell

World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Calvin D. Cosby was born in 1918, in Knoxville, Tennessee, which was my hometown as well. I first knew Calvin Cosby as the husband of my beloved second-grade teacher, Mrs. Ima Bradford Cosby. Mr. and Mrs. Cosby and their daughter...

Appears in:

43 | Wartime Memoirs and Letters from the American Revolution to Vietnam Fall 2015

57 | Black Voices in American Historiography Summer 2020

History Now Essay

The First Saddest Day of My Life: A Vietnam War Story

Sharon D. Raynor

World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

What I know about the Vietnam War, I learned as a child from my father, Louis Raynor. At thirteen years old, I discovered an old, tattered, leather-bound diary in my parents’ chest of drawers. When I opened it, I immediately...

Appears in:

43 | Wartime Memoirs and Letters from the American Revolution to Vietnam Fall 2015

57 | Black Voices in American Historiography Summer 2020

History Now Essay

Ralph W. Kirkham: A Christian Soldier in the US-Mexican War

Amy S. Greenberg

World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

North of Mexico’s border, most Americans know the 1846 conflict that established that boundary (if they know it at all) as the training ground for Civil War heroes. Generals Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, Stonewall Jackson, and...

Appears in:

43 | Wartime Memoirs and Letters from the American Revolution to Vietnam Fall 2015

History Now Essay

The William Shepp Diaries: Combat and Danger in World War I

Michael S. Neiberg

World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

"Disappointments," wrote Private William Shepp, "are common in the army." At the time, Shepp, an aspiring teacher from a small community in West Virginia, was pondering the seemingly unrewarding and unending work that he and the men...

Appears in:

43 | Wartime Memoirs and Letters from the American Revolution to Vietnam Fall 2015

Essay

Abraham Lincoln and the Passage of the Thirteenth Amendment

Allen C. Guelzo

Government and Civics

"Those who knew Mr. Lincoln best," wrote Illinois Congressman Isaac Arnold, "knew that he looked, confidently, to the ultimate extinction of slavery" and used "every means which his prudent and scrupulous mind recognized as right and...

Essay

"I begin to see it": Lincoln the War President

James M. McPherson

Government and Civics

In the spring of 1864, three years into the Civil War, it seemed that the Union was finally in a position to defeat the Confederacy, taking advantage of the significant losses the Confederacy had suffered in 1863. For three years,...

History Now Essay

Alexander Hamilton, The Man Who Made America Prosperous

Richard Brookhiser

Economics

When George Washington, newly elected president, picked the members of his administration in 1789 he tapped thirty-two-year-old Alexander Hamilton to be the first treasury secretary. Hamilton had been a colonel on Washington’s staff...

Appears in:

44 | Alexander Hamilton in the American Imagination Winter 2016

History Now Essay

Understanding the Burr-Hamilton Duel

Joanne B. Freeman

Without a doubt, the duel between former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton and Vice President Aaron Burr is the most famous duel in American history. On July 11, 1804, the two political rivals met on a dueling ground in...

Appears in:

44 | Alexander Hamilton in the American Imagination Winter 2016

History Now Essay

Making a Film about Alexander Hamilton

Muffie Meyer

A few years ago, my colleagues and I made a documentary, Alexander Hamilton , for the Public Television series American Experience . When it was completed, we did a lot of screenings, interviews, and Q&As for all kinds of...

Appears in:

44 | Alexander Hamilton in the American Imagination Winter 2016

History Now Essay

Alexander Hamilton on the $10 Bill: How He Got There and Why It Matters

Brian Phillips Murphy

Economics

2015 was a big year for Alexander Hamilton. Nearly two hundred eleven years after the nation’s first treasury secretary was shot and killed in a duel with then-Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr, an Off Broadway play...

Appears in:

44 | Alexander Hamilton in the American Imagination Winter 2016

History Now Essay

"The Authentic Voice of Today": Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton

Elizabeth L. Wollman

Art

"The show is the first Broadway musical in some time to have the authentic voice of today rather than the day before yesterday." The comment above could easily have been written about Hamilton , but it was written long before Hamilton...

Appears in:

44 | Alexander Hamilton in the American Imagination Winter 2016

Site Search

Stay up to date, and subscribe to our quarterly newsletter.