Nine primary source resources describing the way people thought about progress during the Gilded Age, 1870-1912. Includes guided reading, links to supplemental material, and timeline.
Eighty-two primary sources explore African American identity in the 20th century. They examine segregation, migrations, protest, community, and what remained to be overcome.
Primary source material on the how enslaved Africans envisioned and pursued freedom and how these ideas affected them after the Civil War.
Congressional testimony and a letter that explore late nineteenth-century black migration from the South. Links to both resources are provided within this site.
Uses primary resources-historical documents, literary texts, visual images, audio, and video material-to explore how African Americans created group and individual identities in the late-nineteenth century. Topics include freedom, identity, institutions, and forward.
Hamlin Garland's short story, "The Return of a Private", that describes the post-Civil War conflicts for western farmers with nature and with other settlers.
Four nineteenth-century landscape paintings that suggest the meaning of the West in American life.
A collection of nine primary resources including historical documents, literary texts, visual images, and maps illuminated and contextualized by notes, thematic questions, and text-specific discussion questions for classroom instruction and teacher professional development.
A collection of twelve primary resources, primarily from American literature, that addresses questions about how the United States could function as a democracy, and differences between the concepts of the North and the South concerning that question.
Two poems that explore the struggles of African Americans in the early-twentieth century. Links to both poems by Fenton Johnson are provided, and illustrate the struggles experienced as black man in white America in the 1910s
The efforts to secure African American voting rights in Mississippi are described within this resource. Anne Moody's, "Coming of Age in Mississippi", a four-part memoir recounts her childhood and young adulthood in racist rural Mississippi.
Arguments by women for and against the extension of the vote to women. This resource primarily focuses on, "If Men Were Seeking the Franchise," by Jane Addams, used to project domestic values upon government and the state.
Letters by African Americans seeking help to leave the South. They explore issues including identity, family, community, and the struggles induced by the need to migrate north.
Three essays from the famous French visitor to America, Alexis de Tocqueville, in which he examines how religion in early nineteenth century America supported democratic tendencies.
This site from the National Humanities Center provides the story of the struggle to inhabit the West in spite of the dry climate. With questions for student discussion, online resources, scholars debate and bibliography.