Sources for America's History, Volume 2: Since 1865

Putting a human face on history, Sources for America's History, Volume 2: Since 1865 encourages you to develop historical thinking skills by providing between five and six sources per chapter that offer varying perspectives  on a central theme, from well-known historical figures to everyday people living during that period.

CHAPTER 14: Reconstruction, 1865–1877  
  
14-1 | President Focuses on Work of Reconstruction
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Last Public Address (1865)  
 
14-2 | A Freed Family’s Dream of Landownership
BETTY POWERS, Federal Writers’ Project Interview (c. 1936)  
 
14-3 | A Former Slave Owner Complains of “Negro Problem”
FRANCES BUTLER LEIGH, Letter to a Friend in England (1867)  
 
14-4 | A Liberal Republican Opposes Universal Suffrage
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS JR., The Protection of the Ballot in National Elections (1869)  
 
14-5 | Nast Lampoons Freedmen’s Government
THOMAS NAST, Colored Rule in a Reconstructed State (1874)  
 
14-6 | African American Congressman Urges Support of Civil Rights Bill
ROBERT BROWNE ELLIOTT, Speech to Congress (1874)  
 
COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS   

CHAPTER 15: Conquering a Continent, 1860–1890   
15-1 | Opening the West
Indian Territory, That Garden of the World (c. 1880)  
 
15-2 | Railroad Transforms the Nation
CURRIER & IVES, Across the Continent (1868)  
 
15-3 | Harvesting the Bison Herds
J. WRIGHT MOOAR, Buffalo Days (1933)  
 
15-4 | Addressing the Indian Question
FRANCIS A. WALKER, Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs (1872)  
 
15-5 | Remembering Indian Boarding School Days
MOURNING DOVE, A Salishan Autobiography (1990)  
 
COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS  
 
PART 5 DOCUMENT SET: Americans Debate the Meaning of the Constitution, 1844–1877  
 
P5-1 | Women Reformers Demand Citizenship Rights
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, Declaration of Rights and Sentiments (1848)  
 
P5-2 | Defining Native American Rights and Limits
STATUTES OF CALIFORNIA, An Act for the Government and Protection of Indians (1850)  
 
P5-3 | The Catholic Threat to American Politics
SAMUEL F. B. MORSE, Foreign Conspiracy Against the Liberties of the United States (1855)  
 
P5-4 | Debating the Meaning of the Constitution
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Cooper Union Address (1860)   
P5-5 | Southern Leader Contrasts Union and Confederate Constitutions
ALEXANDER STEPHENS, “Cornerstone” Speech (1861)   
P5-6 | Contesting African American Citizenship
          THOMAS NAST, “This Is a White Man’s Government” (1868)   
COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS   

Part 6: Industrializing America: Upheavals and Experiments (1877–1917) 
CHAPTER 16: Industrial America: Corporations and Conflicts
1877–1911  
16-1 | Industrialist Justifies Fortunes Used for the Common Good
          ANDREW CARNEGIE, Wealth (1889)  

16-2 | Industrial Brotherhood Counters Excesses of Capitalist Power
          TERENCE POWDERLY, Thirty Years of Labor (1889)  

16-3 | Worker Finds His Way on the Shop Floor
          ANTANAS KAZTAUSKIS, Life Story of a Lithuanian (c. 1906)  

16-4 | Congress Closes Door to Chinese Laborers
          Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)  

16-5 | Pointing Out the Irony of Nativist Policies
          JOSEPH KEPPLER, Looking Backward (1893)  

16-6 | Economist Scores the Costs and Benefits of Monopoly
          ARTHUR TWINING HADLEY, The Good and the Evil of Industrial
       Combination (1897)  

COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS        

CHAPTER 17: Making Modern American Culture, 1880–1917     

17-1 | Pursuing the Manly Sports for Self and Society
Theodore Roosevelt, Professionalism in Sports (1890)
  
17-2 | Healthy Girls
          FRANCES BENJAMIN JOHNSTON, Children Doing Calisthenics While Sitting at Their Desks (c. 1890s)  

17-3 | Arguing the Merits of College for Women
Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant, Educated for What? (1916)  

17-4 | The Lure of the Department Store
THEODORE DREISER, Sister Carrie (1900)  
 
17-5 | A Black Leader’s Compromise for Racial Opportunity
Booker T. Washington, Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition Speech (1895)  
 
17-6 | Women’s Club Movement Attacks Social and Racial Injustice
Mary White Ovington, Black and White Sat Down Together: The Reminiscences of an NAACP Founder (1932–1933)  
 
COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS  

Chapter 18: “Civilization’s Inferno”: The Rise and Reform of Industrial Cities, 1880–1917   
 
18-1 | Escaping the City for a Fantasy World of Pleasure
Luna Park at Night (c. 1913)  
 
18-2 | Competing Against the Party Machine
Jane Addams, Why the Ward Boss Rules (1898)  
 
18-3 | American Dream Meets Tenement Reality
Marie Ganz and Nat J. Ferber, Rebels: Into Anarchy — and Out Again (1920)
 
18-4 | Persistent and Violent Racism Against African Americans
NEW YORK WORLD, New York Negroes Stage Silent Parade of Protest (1917)

18-5 | The Need for Play
CHARLES E. HUGHES, Address to the Second Annual Congress of the Playground Association of America  (1908)   
 
18-6 | Muckraker Exposes Chicago’s Meat-Packing Industry
Upton Sinclair, The Jungle (1906)  
 
COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS  

Chapter 19: Whose Government? Politics, Populists, and Progressives, 1880–1917   
19-1 | Populist Manifesto for a Reformed America
Omaha Platform (1892)  
 
19-2 | Progressive Leader Identifies the Problem with Cities
Frederic Howe, The City: The Hope of Democracy (1909)  
 
19-3 | Radical Reformer Appeals to Chicago’s Voters
Josephine Conger-Kaneko, What a Socialist Alderman Would Do (1914)  
19-4 | Supreme Court Ruling on Women’s Rights
U.S. SUPREME COURT, Muller v. Oregon (1908)   

19-5 | President Calls for Conservation of Natural Resources
Theodore Roosevelt, Annual Message to Congress (1907)   
19-6 | Negro Problem Solved Through Education of Leadership Class
W. E. B. Du Bois, The Talented Tenth (1903)   

COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS  

PART 6 Document Set: The Clash of Cultural Values and Ideas in an Industrializing Era, 1877–1917   
 
P6-1 | Social Darwinist Explains Relationship Between Classes
William Graham Sumner, What Social Classes Owe to Each Other (1883)
 
P6-2 | Promoting the Social Gospel
          WALTER RAUSCHENBUSCH, Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)   
P6-3 | The New Woman Challenges the Social Order
Caroline Ticknor, The Steel-Engraving Lady and the Gibson Girl (1901)  

P6-4 | Anthropologist Undermines Racial Stereotypes
Franz Boas, The Mind of Primitive Man (1911)  
 
P6-5 | Modernism and Its Critics
MARCEL DUCHAMP, Nude Descending a Staircase (1912), and J. F. GRISWOLD,  The Rude Descending a Staircase (Rush Hour at the Subway) (1913)   
P6-6 | Solving the Problems Plaguing Native Americans
Carlos Montezuma, What Indians Must Do (1914)  
 
COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS  

Part 7: Domestic and Global Challenges (1890–1945)
  
Chapter 20: An Emerging World Power, 1890–1918   
20-1 | Senator Defends America’s Imperial Ambitions
Albert Beveridge, “The March of the Flag” Speech (1898)
  
20-2 | Deposed Queen Pleads for Her Island Kingdom
Liliuokalani, Hawaii’s Story by Hawaii’s Queen (1898)
  
20-3 | The New Diplomacy
PUCK, US President Theodore Roosevelt’s New Diplomacy, “Speak Softy and Carry  a Big Stick” (1901)  
 
20-4 | Antiwar Song Stirs Peace Movement
Alfred Bryan and Al Piantadosi, “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier (1915) 
20-5 | Workers Protest Wartime Attacks
The Liberator, Tulsa, November 9th (1918)  
 
20-6 | President’s Fourteen Points for Postwar Peace
Woodrow Wilson, War Aims and Peace Terms (1918)
  
COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS  
 
Chapter 21: Unsettled Prosperity: From War to Depression, 1919–1932   
21-1 | Condemned Radical Protests Political Hysteria
BARTOLOMEO VANZETTI, Last Statement to the Court of Massachusetts (1927)  

21-2 | Women’s Rights Champion Pushes to Finish the Fight
CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT, Passing the Federal Suffrage Amendment (1918)   
21-3 | Progressive Party’s Call for Greater Democracy
Platform of the Conference for Progressive Political Action (1924)   
21-4 | Evangelist Condemns the Curse of Alcohol
Billy Sunday, Get on the Water Wagon (1915)  
 
21-5 | Harlem Renaissance Poet Sings the Blues
LANGSTON HUGHES, “The Weary Blues” (1926)
  
21-6 | Advertising the American Dream
Westinghouse Advertisement (1924) and Chevrolet Advertisement (1927)   
COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS  
 
Chapter 22: Managing the Great Depression, Forging the New Deal, 1929–1938   
22-1 | Defeated President Explains the Cause of the Depression
Herbert Hoover, Letter to Simeon Fess (1933)  
 
22-2 | President Inspires Depressed Nation with Promise of Action
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address (1933)  
 
22-3 | Outflanking Roosevelt with Plan to Share the Nation’s Wealth
Huey Long, “Every Man a King” (1934)  
 
22-4 | FDR’s New Deal Programs in Action
Michigan Artist Alfred Castagne Sketching WPA Construction Workers (1939)   
22-5 | Two Views of the National Recovery Administration
CLIFFORD K. BERRYMAN, “The Spirit of the New Deal” (1933) and “It’s So Hard to Find a Place for You” (1935)
  
22-6 | Reporting the Plight of Depression Families
martha gellhorn, Field Report to Harry Hopkins (1934)  
 
COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS  
 
Chapter 23: The World at War, 1937–1945   
23-1 | President Roosevelt Defines the Four Freedoms at Risk
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Annual Message to Congress on the State of the Union (1941)  

23-2 | Soldiers Describe D-Day Experience
Interviews with the Library of Congress Veterans History Project (2001, 2003)   
23-3 | Japanese Americans in the Crosshairs of War
Gordon Hirabayashi, Why I Refused to Register for Evacuation (1942)   
23-4 | Fighting for Democracy and Civil Rights at Home and Abroad
LULAC NEWS, Editorial (1945)
  
23-5 | Women and the War Effort
Women’s Safety Garments (1943)  
 
23-6 | President Explains Use of Atomic Bomb to End War
Harry Truman, Statement by the President Announcing the Use of the A-Bomb at Hiroshima (1945)  
 
COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS  
 
PART 7 DOCUMENT SET: Defining American Identities in a Globalizing Age, 1890–1945    

P7-1 | Lower East Side Residents Condemn Immigration Commissioner
Citizens Committee of Orchard, Rivington, and East Houston Streets, New York City to William Howard Taft (1912)  
 
P7-2 | Advocating Cultural Pluralism
Horace Kallen, Democracy Versus the Melting Pot (1915)
  
P7-3 | Suffragists Bring Battle to the President
Woman Suffrage in Washington, District of Columbia (c. 1917–1918)    
P7-4 | Conservative Minister Defines Antimodern Identity
W. B. Riley, The Faith of the Fundamentalists (1927)   
P7-5 | African American Soldier Stands Up to Racial Discrimination
Private Charles F. Wilson to Franklin D. Roosevelt (1944)
 
P7-6 | Labor Organizer Describes Latino Plight in America
Luisa Moreno, Caravans of Sorrow (1940)
  
COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS  
 
Part 8: The Modern State and the Age of Liberalism (1945–1980)   
CHAPTER 24: Cold War America, 1945–1963   
24-1 | Containing the Communist Threat
George Kennan, “Long Telegram” to James Byrnes (1946)  
 
24-2 | Challenging Truman’s Containment Policy
Walter Lippmann, Cold War: A Study in U.S. Foreign Policy (1947)   
24-3 | Cultural Cold War
FELIX BELAIR JR., “United States Has Secret Sonic Weapon—Jazz” (1955)   
24-4 | Investigating the Communist Threat
Charlotte Oram, Testimony Before the Senate Committee on Investigations (1954)  
 
24-5 | Secretary of State Announces Cold War Defense Policy
John Foster Dulles, The Evolution of Foreign Policy (1954)  
 
24-6 | Finding Security in an Age of Anxiety
“Get the Feel of a Fallout Shelter” (c. 1950s)  
 
COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS  
 
Chapter 25: Triumph of the Middle Class, 1945–1963
  
25-1 | Congress Passes GI Bill of Rights
Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (1944)  
 
25-2 | Teen Culture in the Fifties
1950s Rock ’n’ Roll Dancers (c. 1950)  
 
25-3 | Evangelical Calls America to Christ
Billy Graham, Our Right to Require Belief (1956)
  
25-4 | Doctor’s Advice on Raising Healthy Children
Benjamin Spock, Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care (1946)
  
25-5 | National Concerns About the Corruptions of Youth
Comic Books and Juvenile Delinquency: Interim Report of the Committee on the Judiciary (1955)  
 
25-6 | The Pros and Cons of Subrubia
J. R. EYERMAN, Photograph of Los Angeles Development Boom (1952) AND MALVINA REYNOLDS, “Little Boxes” (1962)  
 
COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS  
  
Chapter 26: Walking into Freedom Land: The Civil Rights Movement, 1941–1973   

26-1 | Southern Girl’s Introduction to Racism
Lillian Smith, Killers of the Dream (1949)  
 
26-2 | Southern Congressmen Issue Manifesto Against Brown v. Board Decision
Declaration of Constitutional Principles (1956)  
 
26-3 | Civil Rights Activist Challenges Racial Discrimination
FANNIE LOU HAMER, Testimony Before the Credentials Committee of the Democratic National Convention (1964)  
 
26-4 | Civil Rights Movement Takes a More Militant Turn
Malcolm X, The Ballot or the Bullet (1964)  
 
26-5 | Native Americans Claim Alcatraz Island
Indians of All Tribes, Proclamation: To the Great White Father and All His People (1970)  
 
26-6 | Chicano Civil Rights
La Raza Peace Moratorium Flyer, (1970)  

COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS  
 
Chapter 27: Uncivil Wars: Liberal Crisis and Conservative Rebirth, 1961–1972
 
27-1 | President’s Vision for America
Lyndon Baines Johnson, The Great Society (1964)  
 
27-2 | Vietnam Vet Questions America’s War in Asia
John Kerry, Testimony Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (1971)  

27-3 | Feminists Push for Equal Rights
JOHN OLSON, Women’s Rights March (1970)
  
27-4 | Mexican American Labor Leader Seeks Peaceful Path to Worker Rights
Cesar Chavez, Letter from Delano (1969) 

27-5 | Conservative Rebirth of the Republican Party
Barry Goldwater, Acceptance Speech at the Republican National Convention (1964)  

COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS  
 
Chapter 28: The Search for Order in an Era of Limits, 1973–1980   
28-1 | Experiencing America’s Energy Dependence
JOSEPH FARRIS, “Let OPEC Tighten the Screws. The Larned A. Corys are Ready.” (1979)   

28-2 | Steel Town Faces Challenge of Deindustrialization
Robert Howard, Youngstown Fights Back (1979)  
 
28-3 | Abortion Case Highlights Divisions
Supreme Court Decision in Roe v. Wade (1973)  
 
28-4 | Conservative Response to Equal Rights Amendment
Phyllis Schlafly, Statement Opposing the ERA (1977)  
 
28-5 | Diagnosing the “National Malaise”
Jimmy Carter, The Crisis of Confidence (1979) 

28-6 | Evangelicals on the Rise
CHRISTIANITY TODAY, An Interview with the Lone Ranger of American Fundamentalism (1981)  
 
COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS  
 
PART 8 Document Set: America’s Economic and Military Engagement with the World, 1945–1980   
 
P8-1 | Creating the National Security State to Fight the Cold War
NSC-68 (1950)  
 
P8-2 | U.S. Diplomat Defines America’s Interest in Guatemala
John D. Peurifoy, Letter to John M. Cabot, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs (1953)  
 
P8-3 | A “Peace Race” Proposal for Nuclear Disarmament
John F. Kennedy, Address to the United Nations General Assembly (1961)   
P8-4 | Diplomatic Impasse in Vietnam
Letters Between Lyndon Johnson and Ho Chi Minh (1967)  
 
P8-5 | Africa on America’s Cold War Radar
charles sanders, Kissinger in Africa (1976)   

P8-6 | America’s Crisis in Iran
Iranian Demonstrators Burn an Effigy of Uncle Sam (1979)  
 
COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS  
 
Part 9: GLOBALIZATION AND THE END OF THE AMERICAN CENTURY (1980–THE PRESENT)  

Chapter 29: Conservative America in the Ascent, 1980–1991   
29-1 | Reagan Lays Out the Conservative Challenge
Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference Dinner (1981)  
 
29-2 | Reagan Insider Describes Supply-Side Economics
David Stockman, The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed (1986)  
 
29-3 | The 1980s Culture of Greed
Wall Street (1987)
  
29-4 | Exposing Reagan’s Latin American Policies
Robert J. Henle, The Great Deception: What We Are Told About Central America (1986) 
 
29-5 | Civil Rights Leader Urges Referendum on Reagan Years
Jesse Jackson, Common Ground and Common Sense (1988)  
 
29-6 | America Reacts to Gulf War Victory
DON EMMERT, A Navy A-7 Corsair Jet Is Pulled Down Broadway (1991)   
COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS  
 
Chapter 30: Confronting Global and National Dilemmas, 1989 to the Present   
30-1 | Protesting the World Trade Organization
Alesha Daughtrey, Interview by April Eaton (2)  
 
30-2 | Backlash Against Immigrants
California Proposition 187 (1994)  

30-3 | American Ambassador Defines U.S. Interests in Post–Cold War World
Madeleine Albright, Realism and Idealism in American Foreign Policy Today (1994)  
 
30-4 | President Responds to 9/11 Attacks
George W. Bush, Address to Congress (2001)  

30-5 | Democratic Presidential Candidate Confronts the Issue of Race
Barack Obama, A More Perfect Union (2008)  

30-6 | Protesting Trump
JAKE GREEN, Trump Protests—Michigan (2017)   
 
COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS  
 
PART 9 Document Set: Work, Exchange, and Technology in America’s Global Economy 1980 to the Present          
P9-1 | Free-Market Fundamentalism Defines the Conservative Movement
Irving Kristol, Two Cheers for Capitalism (1978)  
 
P9-2 | Steelworker Explains Industry’s Collapse
LeRoy Mcclelland Sr., Interview with Bill Barry (2006)  
 
P9-3 | President Champions Promise of Free Trade
Bill Clinton, Remarks on Signing the North American Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act (1993)  
 
P9-4 | Retail Giant Dominates Global Marketplace
Charles Fishman, The Wal-Mart You Don’t Know (2003)  
 
P9-5 | Globalization’s Middle-Class Squeeze
Kevin Clarke, Outsourcing Around (2004)  

P9-6 | Mobilizing for a Higher Minimum Wage
SHANNON STAPLETON, Fast-Food Workers Rally for Higher Wages (2015)

COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS