Series of 10 primary resources explores African American identity from 1917 to 1968, examining the changing notions of identity and affects on the definition of African American community.
Twelve primary sources - historical documents, literary texts, and visual images - that explore ways in which the memory of the Civil War affected American life in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
A Spanish Franciscan and a French Jesuit report on the reciprocal relationship between natives and Catholic missionaries as Europeans settled New France and New Spain.
A speech and an essay that alternately praise the acquisition of foreign territory by the U.S. and that raise questions about the costs and value of these imperialistic adventures.
An article that critiques the early civil rights efforts of the Kennedy administration. It explores the obstacles the civil rights movement had to overcome and the movement's effect on the lives of African Americans.
Two European maps of Florida and Roanoke, and a British and a French account-with associated engravings of these settlements-that promote a European interpretation of and claim over these areas.
Primary resources for U.S. history and literature offer two excerpts from the explorations of the Pacific coast by Sir Francis Drake and Vitus Bering as well as maps drawn to reflect those journeys. Includes questions for discussion.
An excerpt from a novel that explores the tensions of racial passing. Set in Chicago, Passing examines the diverging lives and chance reunions of two light-skinned women.
This lesson examines government reports that urged restrictions on immigration to America at the turn of the nineteenth century.
Excerpt from Horatio Alger's well-known novel, "Ragged Dick, Or, Street Life in New York," that describes the values and attitudes needed to make it in the capitalistic, urban America of the late-nineteenth century.
A photograph and an autobiographical excerpt about the changes experienced and challenges faced by Native Americans at the turn of the twentieth century.
Forty-two primary sources-historical documents, literary texts, and visual images-that explore the complex and interrelated factors that led to a permanent European presence in the New World.
A sculpture, poster, poem, and a painting that challenge black stereotypes in the early-twentieth century. Links to these precursors to the Harlem Renaissance are provided at the top of the page.
Fifty seven primary sources-historical documents, literary texts, and visual images-and one secondary historical account that explore imperial conflict, European economic rivalry, and the impact of colonial rule on native peoples.
Four original source accounts, and four related maps, of successful English, French, and Spanish settlements in North America and the Caribbean that explain the qualities of these settlements and their reasons for permanence and prosperity.
An online exhibition of images of European settlement to accompany two English, a French, and a Dutch set of promotional accounts that offer advice, encouragement, and occasional warning to prospective immigrants to newly settled areas of the New World.
A poem, an address, and a painting that illustrate black political struggle in late-nineteenth-century America. This series of resources characterize "the Negro Problem" as "a concrete test of the underlying principles of the great republic.
A chapter from a novel and a short story that explore the phenomenon of passing. These works examine the self-judgment and scrutiny often invoked upon oneself as a result of belonging to more than one race.
A speech and an engraving that illustrate how the railroad helped to unite the country after the Civil War.
An essay by the South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun, outlining his belief in a "concurrent majority" and the power of individual majority groups to determine whether to follow a particular law that had been passed.