Informative site that tells about the act that authorized the building of the Hoover Dam. Read the complete text of the Boulder Canyon Project here.
The Lawrence Textile Strike was a public protest mainly of immigrant workers from several countries, including Austria, Belgium, Cuba, Canada, France, England, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Scotland, Spain, Syria, and Turkey. According to the 1910 census, 65% of mill workers (many of whom eventually struck) lived in the United States for less than 10 years; 47% for less than five years. Prompted by a wage cut, the walkout spread quickly from mill to mill across the city. Strikers defied the assumptions of conservative trade unions within the American Federation of Labor that immigrant, largely female and ethnically diverse workers could not be organized. The Lawrence strike is referred to as the åÒBread and RosesåÓ strike and åÒThe Strike for Three Loaves." The first known source to do so was a 1916 labor anthology, The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest by Upton Sinclair. Prior to that, the slogan, used as the title of a 1911 poem by James Oppenheim, had been attributed to åÔChicago Women Trade Unionists.åÕ It has also been attributed to socialist union organizer Rose Schneiderman. James Oppenheim claimed his seeing women strikers in Lawrence carrying a banner proclaiming åÒWe Want Bread and Roses TooåÓ inspired the poem, åÒBread and Roses.åÓ The poem, however, was written and published in 1911 prior to the strike. Later the poem was set to music by Caroline Kohlsaat and then by Mimi Farina. The song and slogan are now important parts of the labor movement and womenåÕs movement worldwide. This exhibition was made in collaboration with the Lawrence History Center and the University of Massachusetts Lowell History Department.
In this transcript of an interview for Eyes on the Prize, Harry and Eliza Briggs describe their experience in the first school desegregation case, Briggs v. Elliott.
This 1954 statement, issued by a group of black educators, strongly endorses the Supreme Court's Brown ruling.
This sampling of newspaper editorials from the mid-1950s reflects the range of public opinion and responses to the Brown decision.
As the United States began the most deadly conflict in its history, the American Civil War, it was also laying the groundwork for one of its greatest achievements in transportation. The First Transcontinental Railroad, approved by Congress in the midst of war, helped connect the country in ways never before possible. Americans could travel from coast to coast with speed, changing how Americans lived, traded, and communicated while disrupting ways of life practiced for centuries by Native American populations. The coast-to-coast railroad was the result of the work of thousands of Americans, many of whom were Chinese immigrant laborers who worked under discriminatory pressures and for lower wages than their Irish counterparts. These laborers braved incredibly harsh conditions to lay thousands of miles of track. That trackåÑthe work of two railroad companies competing to lay the most miles from opposite directionsåÑcame together with the famous Golden Spike at Promontory Summit in Utah on May 10, 1869. This exhibition explores the construction of the first Transcontinental Railroad and its impact on American westward expansion. This exhibition was created as part of the DPLAåÕs Digital Curation Program by the following students as part of Professor Krystyna Matusiak's course "Digital Libraries" in the Library and Information Science program at the University of Denver: Jenifer Fisher, Benjamin Hall, Nick Iwanicki, Cheyenne Jansdatter, Sarah McDonnell, Timothy Morris and Allan Van Hoye.
A database of artifacts and articles related to Texas and its history. The artifacts are in different museums, or you can restrict your search to the Bullock Museum. You can search by time period from BCE to the present day, and by type of artifact. Each artifact is accompanied by an explanation of its significance.
This collection uses primary sources to explore school desegregation in Boston. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.
The text of the Camp David Accords with hypertext links to relevant documents.
The University of Texas at Austin provides an extensive collection of maps relating to Canada. Links are given for maps of Canada on many other web sites.
Click on these maps of Central African Republic to see a political map, relief map, and a small, clear map. Find the major cities, highways, and neigboring countries. From the Perry Castaneda Collection. Includes PDFs (require Adobe Reader).
On September 1, 1939, Germany attacked Poland. Hours later, Neville Chamberlain spoke to the members of the House of Commons. The gist of the speech was preparing Britain for war.
The complete text of the original land grant given to William Penn to settle Pennsylvania.
This website provides a full-text of the Charter of Georgia written in 1732. Includes link to webpage with links to other colonial charters.
The charter given by Gustavus Adolphus to the Swedish South Company detailing its rights, privileges, and requirements in its permission to explore and set up colonies.
Check here to read the three amendments passed during the Progressive Era, the 16th, 17th, & 18th amendments. Fron the National Archives and Records Adminstration.
Interactive images of two documents important in Alaska's history: the check written for its 1868 purchase from Russia and the Russian Treaty of Cession (an English transcript is provided), which concluded the deal.
This video is a professional development resource that explores student misconceptions about atoms, molecules, and chemical reactions. It also gives some pedagogical approaches for approaching these subjects. [10:12]
In twenty-first century American society, childhood is popularly understood as a time of innocence, learning, and play. At the end of the nineteenth century, however, children made up part of the countryåÕs workforce, and labored on farms and in factories. When they were not working, they enjoyed great independence in leisure activitiesåÑbe it in a loud city street or a peaceful country lake. Often, children were far from adult supervision. Reformers during the Progressive EråÑa period of social activism and political reform across the United States between the 1890s and 1920s åÑtook a great interest in child welfare. Through organizations and legislation, they sought to define what a happy and healthy childhood should be in the modern age. Immersion in nature was central to what the Progressives prescribed, and childrenåÕs organizations and camps offered a suitable combination of supervision and open spaces. The formula for a healthy childhood was further refined in postwar America. Children were given a distinct place in the family and home, as well as within the consumer market with the emergence of teenage culture and buying power. This exhibition was created as part of the DPLA's Public Library Partnerships Project by collaborators from the Digital Library of Georgia and Georgia's public libraries.
A copy of the original Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 is available on this site. You can also link to larger images, a typed transcript, and a downloadable .PDF file. There is also a concise and informative history and background on the document.