1.1: Early America and the Civil War
A Guided Journey through Key Documents, 1865-present
Table of Contents
1.1 Early America and the Civil War
Overview
Unit Questions
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Abstract
This course begins around the Civil War and Reconstruction, but it’s important to understand how those events came about. The sve readings in this unit span over 200 years of U.S. history (from 1623 to 1865). They reveal what life was like for early Americans, both white indentured servants (Richard Frethorne) and enslaved Africans and African Americans (Virginia Acts, Dred Scott v. Sanford). They also illustrate the impact of slavery on the nation (South Carolina’s Declaration of the Causes of Secession and Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address). Read together, these sources should help you think about how slavery and its legacy have shaped the nation and created ongoing challenges for America.
Contents
- 1.1: Early America and the Civil War
- 1.2: Richard Frethorne: Letter to His Parents (1623)
- 1.3: Virginia Slave Acts (1660s)
- 1.4: Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857)
- 1.5: South Carolina Declaration of Causes of Secession (1860)
- 1.6: Abraham Lincoln: Second Inaugural Address (1865)
- 1.7: Unit 1 Review
- 2.1: Reconstruction and Redemption
- 2.2: The “Civil War Amendments”: Excerpts from the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution
- 2.3: Black Code of Mississippi (1865)
- 2.4: Organization and Principles of the Ku Klux Klan (1869)
- 2.5: Initiation Charge of the Ku Klux Klan (1869)
- 2.6: Richard Harvey Cain: “All That We Ask Is Equal Laws, Equal Legislation, and Equal Rights” (1874)
- 2.7: Unit 2 Review
- 3.1: Westward Expansion and American Identity
- 3.2: Letter from Wong Ar Chong (1879)
- 3.3: Dawes Severalty Act (1887)
- 3.4: Wounded Knee Massacre: Statements and Eyewitness Accounts (1891)
- 3.5: Frederick Jackson Turner: “The Signiscance of the Frontier in American History” (1893)
- 3.6: Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
- 3.7: Unit 3 Review
- 4.1: Industrialization and Social Reform
- 4.2: Wendell Phillips: “The Foundation of the Labor Movement” (1871)
- 4.3: Samuel Gompers: Editorial on the Pullman Strike (1894)
- 4.4: Upton Sinclair: The Jungle (1906)
- 4.5: Ida B. Wells: “Lynching: Our National Crime” (1909)
- 4.6: Jane Addams: “Why Women Should Vote” (1910)
- 4.7: Unit 4 Review
- 5.1: World War I and the Turbulent Twenties
- 5.2: Navy Poster from World War I (1917)
- 5.3: W.E.B. Du Bois: “Returning Soldiers” (1919)
- 5.4: Walter F. White: “The Eruption of Tulsa” (1921)
- 5.5: Marcus Garvey: “The Principles of the Universal Negro Improvement Association” (1922)
- 5.6: Ellen Welles Page: “A Flapper’s Appeal to Parents” (1922)
- 5.7: Unit 5 Review
- 6.1: The Great Depression
- 6.2: Herbert Hoover: “Rugged Individualism” Campaign Speech (1928)
- 6.3: Franklin D. Roosevelt: First Inaugural Address (1933)
- 6.4: Wayne W. Parrish: Letter to Harry Hopkins (1934)
- 6.5: New Deal Legislation (selected excerpts from 1935 and 1938)
- 6.6: John P. Davis: “A Black Inventory of the New Deal” (1935)
- 6.7: Unit 6 Review
- 7.1: World War II and the Home Front
- 7.2: Franklin D. Roosevelt: Four Freedoms Message to Congress (1941)
- 7.3: Executive Order 8802: Banning Discrimination in Government and Defense Industries (1941)
- 7.4: Order for Internment of Japanese Americans in San Francisco (1942)
- 7.5: GI Bill (Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944)
- 7.6: Harry S. Truman: Statement Announcing the Use of the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima (1945)
- 7.7: Unit 7 Review
- 8.1: The Cold War
- 8.2: George F. Kennan: “Long Telegram” (1946)
- 8.3: Harry S. Truman: Truman Doctrine (1947)
- 8.4: Joseph McCarthy: “Enemies from Within” Speech (1950)
- 8.5: Richard M. Nixon: “Kitchen” Debate with Nikita Khrushchev (1959)
- 8.6: John F. Kennedy: Report to the American People on the Soviet Arms Buildup in Cuba (1962)
- 8.7: Unit 8 Review
- 9.1: Aruence, Unrest, and Civil Rights
- 9.2: Advertisements from the 1950s and 1960s
- 9.3: Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
- 9.4: Southern Manifesto (1956)
- 9.5: Martin Luther King Jr.: “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (1963)
- 9.6: Stokely Carmichael: “Black Power” (1966)
- 9.7: Unit 9 Review
- 10.1: Expanding Civil Rights
- 10.2: Betty Friedan: The Feminine Mystique (1963)
- 10.3: Indians of All Tribes Occupation of Alcatraz: Proclamation (1969)
- 10.4: Statement of Cesar E. Chavez before the U.S. Senate (1969)
- 10.5: Gay Liberation Front: Program Platform Statement (1970)
- 10.6: Combahee River Collective Statement (1977)
- 10.7: Unit 10 Review
- 11.1: Vietnam and Counterculture
- 11.2: Bob Dylan: “Blowin’ in the Wind” (1963)
- 11.3: Martin Luther King Jr.: “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” (1967)
- 11.4: Richard M. Nixon: Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia (1970)
- 11.5: John Kerry: Testimony of the Vietnam Veterans against the War (1971)
- 11.6: Richard M. Nixon: Special Message to Congress about Establishing the EPA and NOAA (1970)
- 11.7: Unit 11 Review
- 12.1: The Triumph of Conservatism
- 12.2: Barry Goldwater: Acceptance Speech for the Presidential Nomination of the Republican Party (1964)
- 12.3: Ronald Reagan: “A Time for Choosing” (1964)
- 12.4: Richard M. Nixon: “Silent Majority” Speech (1969)
- 12.5: Jerry Falwell: Listen America (1980)
- 12.6: Ronald Reagan: First Inaugural Address (1981)
- 12.7: Unit 12 Review
- 13.1: Deindustrialization and the Booming Nineties
- 13.2: Bill Tolan: “In Desperate 1983, There Was Nowhere for Pittsburgh’s Economy to Go but Up: A Tide of Change” (2012)
- 13.3: George H.W. Bush: “Read My Lips” Speech (1988)
- 13.4: Bill Clinton: Remarks on Signing the North American Free Trade Agreement (1993)
- 13.5: Republican Contract with America (1994)
- 13.6: Bill Clinton: Farewell Address (2001)
- 13.7: Unit 13 Review
- 14.1: Twenty-First Century America
- 14.2: George W. Bush: Address to the Nation on September 11, 2001
- 14.3: Robert C. Byrd: “The Emperor Has No Clothes” Speech (2003)
- 14.4: Barack Obama: “A More Perfect Union” (2008)
- 14.5: Sarah Palin: Keynote Speech at the Inaugural Tea Party Convention (2010)
- 14.6: Donald J. Trump: Inaugural Address (2017)
- 14.7: Unit 14 Review