Like fun house mirrors, motion pictures over the past one hundred years have reflected, challenged, influenced, and altered our visions of ourselves and the world in which we live. This virtual Exhibition was produced by the Photographic History Collection at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History as a centennial salute to cinema. The site contains a selection of early equipment, posters, and photographs from the Museum collections.

U.S. History is designed to meet the scope and sequence requirements of most introductory courses. The text provides a balanced approach to U.S. history, considering the people, events, and ideas that have shaped the United States from both the top down (politics, economics, diplomacy) and bottom up (eyewitness accounts, lived experience). U.S. History covers key forces that form the American experience, with particular attention to issues of race, class, and gender.Senior Contributing AuthorsP. Scott Corbett, Ventura CollegeVolker Janssen, California State University, FullertonJohn M. Lund, Keene State CollegeTodd Pfannestiel, Clarion UniversityPaul Vickery, Oral Roberts UniversitySylvie Waskiewicz

Inventors of the Age
From Invention to Industrial Growth
Building Industrial America on the Backs of Labor
A New American Consumer Culture

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Explain how the ideas and products of late nineteenth-century inventors contributed to the rise of big business
Explain how the inventions of the late nineteenth century changed everyday American life