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Spotlight on: Primary Source

A map of the Louisiana Territory, 1806

Geography, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

6, 7, 8

The 1803 Louisiana Purchase from France during Thomas Jefferson’s first term as president more than doubled the size of the United States. Jefferson’s next step was to learn all about this new territory of the United States. He chose...

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Jefferson on British aggression, 1815

4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In this letter in defense of American nationalism, Thomas Jefferson denounced the blustering of certain members of the British House of Lords who blamed the War of 1812 on US aggression. Jefferson’s letter followed a report from James...

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John Quincy Adams and the Amistad case, 1841

Government and Civics

On July 1, 1839, fifty-three Africans, recently kidnapped into slavery in Sierra Leone and sold at a Havana slave market, revolted on board the schooner Amistad . They killed the captain and other crew and ordered the two Spaniards...

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The Gettysburg Address, 1863

Government and Civics, Religion and Philosophy

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

On November 19, 1863, four months after the Battle of Gettysburg, a ceremony was held at the site in Pennsylvania to dedicate a cemetery for the Union dead. The battle had been a Union victory, but at great cost—about 23,000 Union...

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A perspective on the San Francisco earthquake, 1906

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

At 5:12 a.m. on April 18, 1906, a great earthquake broke loose, with an epicenter near San Francisco. Violent shocks punctuated the shaking, which lasted some 45 to 60 seconds. The earthquake was felt from southern Oregon to south of...

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Eyewitness account of the sinking of the Titanic, 1912

Geography, World History

6, 7, 8, 9

Shortly before midnight on April 14, 1912, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg roughly 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland. Two and a half hours later, at 2:20 a.m., the ship sank with approximately 1500 people still on board. This...

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Herbert Hoover on the Great Depression and New Deal, 1931–1933

Foreign Languages

The stock market crashed on Thursday, October 24, 1929, less than eight months into Herbert Hoover’s presidency. Most experts, including Hoover, thought the crash was part of a passing recession. By July 1931, when the President wrote...

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Japan declares war, 1941

World History

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

On December 7, 1941, two hours after the Japanese attack on American military installations at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Japan declared war on the United States and Great Britain, marking America’s entry into World War II. The Japanese...

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FDR on racial discrimination, 1942

Government and Civics

On June 25, 1941, almost six months before the United States’ entry into World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law Executive Order 8802, prohibiting racial discrimination by government defense contractors. The...

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Physicists predict a nuclear arms race, 1945

Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, World History

6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

This declaration of concern, written after the United States bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, offers insight into the Manhattan Project, an atomic development program led by the United States. The "Preliminary Statement of the...

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Victory Order of the Day, 1945

World History

In March 1945 American and British forces moved eastward into Germany in large numbers, stopping at the Elbe River in mid-April in accordance with pre-negotiated agreements with the Soviet Union. The Red Army, meanwhile, had moved...

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President Truman’s Farewell Address, 1953

Government and Civics, World History

5, 6, 7, 8, 9

It has none of the catch phrases or warnings of other, more famous presidential inaugural or farewell addresses, no cautions against permanent alliances or military-industrial complexes, no appeals to better angels or declarations...

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Robert Kennedy on civil rights, 1963

Government and Civics

6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

At the end of 1962, President John F. Kennedy asked his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, to compile a report on the Civil Rights enforcement activities of the Justice Department over the previous year. In this report,...

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Civil rights posters, 1968

Government and Civics

Memphis sanitation workers, the majority of them African American, went out on strike on February 12, 1968, demanding recognition for their union, better wages, and safer working conditions after two trash handlers were killed by a...

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Proclamation pardoning Richard Nixon, 1974

Government and Civics

"My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over." Speaking half an hour after Richard Nixon submitted his resignation letter to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on August 9, 1974, and minutes after taking the oath of...

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Washington on a proposed third term and political parties, 1799

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

By 1798, George Washington had led America to victory in the Revolution, helped create the American government, and served two terms as the nation’s first president (1789–1797). He was called back to service, though, by President John...

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Runaway slave ad, 1852

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Broadsides and notices posted by slave owners or their agents offer dramatic and concrete evidence of the inhumanity of slavery. Defined as both property and responsible persons by law, slaves were sold with cows, sheep, and furniture...

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John Adams on the abolition of slavery, 1801

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

On January 24, 1801, President John Adams responded to two abolitionists who had sent him an anti-slavery pamphlet by Quaker reformer Warner Mifflin (1745–1798). In the letter, Adams expresses his views on slavery, the dangers posed...

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The death of enslaved Africans on a voyage, 1725

7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Slavery in English America underwent profound changes during the first two centuries of settlement. During the early seventeenth century, some Black laborers were enslaved; others, however, were treated like White indentured servants...

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"I love you but hate slavery": Frederick Douglass to his former owner, Hugh Auld, ca. 1860

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Following his escape from slavery in Maryland to freedom in New York City in 1838, Frederick Douglass became a leader of the abolition movement and its best-known orator. His book Autobiography of an American Slave became a best...

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Columbus reports on his first voyage, 1493

Geography, World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

On August 3, 1492, Columbus set sail from Spain to find an all-water route to Asia. On October 12, more than two months later, Columbus landed on an island in the Bahamas that he called San Salvador; the natives called it Guanahani....

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Proclamation of 1763, 1763

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

At the end of the Seven Years’ War in 1763, France surrendered Canada and much of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys—two-thirds of eastern North America—to England. The Proclamation of 1763 “preserved to the said Indians” the lands west...

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Declaration of Independence, 1776

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

During the spring of 1776, colonies, localities, and groups of ordinary Americans—including New York mechanics, Pennsylvania militiamen, and South Carolina grand juries—adopted resolutions endorsing independence. These resolutions...

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Don’t Buy a Ford Ever Again, ca. 1960

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

New Orleans in 1960 was sharply divided over the practice of segregation. The schools were ordered to desegregate, which angered many white people. Members of the Citizens’ Council of Greater New Orleans believed that large companies...

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Surrender of the British General Cornwallis to the Americans, October 19, 1781

World History

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

These three documents—a map, a manuscript, and a print—tell the story of the surrender of British commander Charles Cornwallis to American General George Washington. In October 1781, the successful siege of Yorktown, Virginia, by...

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