The Mexica encounter Cortes (1519)

The Holy Commonwealth (1617, 1630)

Corn crisis in Plymouth (1623)

A Model of Christian Charity (1630)

The Anatomie (1633)

Emigrants to New England (1635)

Emigrants to Virginia (1635)

Declension (1646, 1664)

Ben Franklin on religion (1757, 1790)

Adam Smith (1776)

Origins of the Revolution (1976)

Cartoon on the French Alliance (1778)

Two textbooks evaluate the Battle of Yorktown (1982, 1991)

Almanac anecdote (1781)

George Washington on Shay's Rebellion (1786)

Federalist, No. 10 (1787)

Federalist, No. 51 (1788)

Patrick Henry argues against ratification (1788)

Thomas Jefferson exalts the yeoman farmer (1787)

Marbury v. Madison (1803)

Antonin Scalia defends strict construction (2005)

Madison vetoes internal improvements (1817)

3 documents on the Missouri Compromise (1819-1820)

Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)

Jacksonian Democracy (cartoon)

Jackson on Indian Removal (1830)

Jackson vetoes the 2nd Bank of the U.S. (1832)

The duty to reform (1831-1848)

Separate Spheres (1835)

Irish and Nativism (1841, 1842)

Commonwealth v. Hunt (1842)

Amelia, the Lowell Factory Worker (1845)

Frederick Law Olmsted reports from a plantation (ca. 1852)
[2 pages: p.1; p. 2]

Varieties of Anti-Slavery

Santa Barbara Courthouse mural

Fugitive Slave Act (1850)

Anthony Burns case (1854)

Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)

Dred Scott decision (1857)

Larry Gonick cartoon

Mississippi justifies secession (1861)

Lincoln's letter to Horace Greeley (1862)

Lincoln's proposed amendments (1862)

The Emancipation Proclamation (1863)

James McPherson on the Emancipation Proclamation (1991)

Excerpt from Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural Address (March 1865)

Lousiana Black Codes (1865)

Speech by Thaddeus Stevens (10 April 1865)

Lincoln's Reconstruction speech (11 April 1865)

Jourdon Anderson writes home (1865)

Two documents on Jim Crow (1890s):
Click here for p. 1
Click here for p. 2

Booker T. Washington's Atlanta Compromise (1895)

Las Vegas Compromise? (2004)

Two Supreme Court opinions on Plessy v. Ferguson (1896):
a. from the majority opinion
b. from John Marshall Harlan's dissent

The Encyclopedia Britannica looks back on Reconstruction (11th ed., 1911)

Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform (1955)

Civilizing the Uncivilized (1862, 1879, 1883)

Mary Elizabeth Lease raises more hell (ca. 1890)

Ocala Demands (1890)

Omaha Platform (1892)

Benjamin Harrison on the Hawaii Question (1893)

Grover Cleveland on the Hawaii Question (1893)

Teddy Roosevelt updates the Monroe Doctrine (1904)

W. J. Bryan's Cross of Gold speech (1896)

Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward (1888)

Assimilation of immigrants (ca. 1900)

Assimilation of the Fugees (2007)

Obituary of C. Douglas Dillon [Lapowski] (2003)

Luc Sante on the Whyos and Big Tim Sullivan

G.W. Plunkitt describes "honest graft" (1905)
[2 pages; p. 1; p. 2]

San Francisco HUD (2002)

Daniel Yergin on the rise of Standard Oil (1991)

Upton Sinclair, The Jungle (1906)

Teddy Roosevelt redefines the (1912)

Jane Addams, Utlilization of Women in City Government (1907)

Depression and New Deal

New York Times denounces Jazz (1917-1925)

Langston Hughes, "I, Too" (1926)

New York Tribune cartoon (1932)

3 cartoons on Hoover (1932)

Richard Hofstadter on Hoover (1948)
[2 pages: p.1, p.2]

GDP statistics (1900-2000)

Bruce Schulman on "Liberalism" and the New Deal (2007)

FDR's first Fireside Chat (March 1933)

Wagner Act (1935)

Social Security Act (1935)

Gonick cartoon: New Deal
[p.1 ... and p. 2]

Michael Barone, Our Country (1990)

Truman Doctrine (1947)

Four documents on Joe McCarthy (1950-1954)

Want ads for office girls (ca. 1950)

Allen Ginsberg, America (1956)

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

Southern Congressmen Dissent (1956)

Obituary of Catherine Roraback (20 Oct. 2007)

Cass Sunstein looks back at Brown v. Board (2004)

Jimmy Cannon on Cassius Clay [Muhammad Ali] (1968)

Tommie Smith and John Carlos in Mexico City (1968)

Robert Kennedy's remarks on the death of Martin Luther King (1968)

Two textbooks evaluate the Civil Rights Movement (1990, 2000)

Obituary of Mildred Jeffrey (2004)

Three documents on Gay Rights:
Gays at Harvard (2002)
John Fryer obituary (2003)
Same-sex marriage in California (2008)

The Counterculture

Songs of the New Left:
Big Yellow Taxi (1970)
Big Brother (1972)
Taking it to the Streets (1976)

Songs of the not-so-new Left:
Revolution (1970)
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (1967)
All You Need Is Love (1967)

J. William Fulbright, The Arrogance of Power (1966)
[2 pages: p.1; p. 2]

Walter Cronkite comments on the Tet Offensive (1968)

Robert McNamara, In Retrospect (1996)

Justice Black and Justice Blackmun disagree over the Pentagon Papers case (1971)

Nixon discusses "dirty tricks" with Buchanan and Colson (1972)

Two textbooks evaluate Vietnam and Watergate (1987, 1998, 2000, 2002)

Todd Purdum compares Vietnam and Iraq (2005)

Vietnam: The history of the present? (2005):
Stephen Morris in the New York Times
Letters to the Editor in response

Clarence Thomas vs. Anita Hill (1991)

End of the New Deal? (2002)

Lessons of History?

Voltaire's definition of History

Erich Fromm (1956)

"Wicked" (2003)