Abigail Adams Reminds John Adams to "Remember the ladies"
Gender and Sexuality
In this famous letter, Abigail Adams shares wartime news and opinions with her husband. Already planning for the war's successful conclusion, she admonishes him to consider the rights of women when developing laws for a newly independent nation.
Abigail Adams
Abigail Adams, "Abigail Adams to John Adams, March 31, 1776," letter, in <em>Adams Family Correspondence</em>, eds. L.H. Butterfield et al. (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1963), vol 1: 369-371; from Massachusetts Historical Society, <em>Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive</em>, http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1776
676
English
Diary/Letter
Revolution and New Nation (1751-1815)
Alice Paul Hangs the Ratification Banner at Suffrage Headquarters
Gender and Sexuality
Social Movements
After Congress approved the 19th Amendment in June 1919, the amendment had to be ratified by three fourths of the states. Fortunately, suffragists were well organized at the local level to pressure state legislatures into approving the amendment. To keep track of the amendment’s progress, the National Women’s Party created a “ratification flagâ€, sewing on a star for each state that ratified the amendment. When Tennessee became the 36th state to approve the amendment—and the final of the necessary three-fourths of the states—triumphant suffragists, led by Alice Paul, hung the flag in Washington, D.C on August 18, 1920.
National Photo Company
National Photo Company, When Tennessee the 36th state ratified, Aug 18, 1920, Alice Paul, National Chairman of the Woman's Party, unfurled the ratification banner from Suffrage headquarters, in The Suffragist, Vol. 8, No. 8, (September 1920); from Women of Protest: Photographs from the Records of the National Woman's Party, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1920
1799, 1696
English
Modern America (1914-1929)
An Ordinary Georgian "Wants Lights!"
The sign on this car is addressed to the head of the Rural Electrification Agency (REA), which developed electrical infrastructure (power lines, hydroelectric dams) and cooperatives for farmers to buy electricity and electric appliances. Only about 10% of rural Americans had electric power in the early 1930s, compared to 90% of urban Americans. Utility companies had argued that it was too expensive to set up power grids in sparsely populated areas. Business leaders and some Congressmen feared that government-run programs like the REA were unfair, possibly socialist interventions in the economy. However, as the photographer noted, when power expanded outward from REA projects like the Tennessee Valley Authority, it “created a desire for electricity in all adjacent areas.”
Unknown
"Car with Message for John Carmody," circa 1938, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, available from the New Deal Network, http://newdeal.feri.org/library/photo_details.cfm?PhotoID=5678&ProjCatID=10082&CatID=5&subCatID=1016.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1938 (Circa)
English
Great Depression and World War II (1929-1945)
Anti-Federalists Oppose Slavery Provisions in Constitution
Slavery and Abolition
Slavery was one of the most divisive issues in the debates over whether or not to ratify the Constitution. Although the constitution banned the importation of slaves beginning in 1808, it did not restrict the continued use and ownership of slaves, or the slave trade within the southern states. Many in the North were appalled by what they saw as the inherent hypocrisy in the Constitution's enshrining of slavery into law; even Virginian George Mason declared ominously that the issue would "bring the judgment of Heaven on a country." The three authors of this article, published in a western Massachusetts newspaper, cite the provisions that allowed slavery to continue as among the primary reasons for their dissent to the Massachusetts Convention, which had ratified the Constitution on February 6th.
Consider Arms, Malachi Maynard, Samuel Field
Herbert J. Storing, ed., <em>The Complete Anti-Federalist</em>, vol. 6 (University of Chicago Press, 1981), 259-265.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1788
English
Newspaper/Magazine
Revolution and New Nation (1751-1815)
Chief Justice Taney's Majority Opinion in <em>Dred Scott v. Sanford</em>
Slavery and Abolition
Civil Rights and Citizenship
In <em>Dred Scott v. Sanford</em>, Supreme Court judges considered two key questions: did the citizenship rights guaranteed by the Constitution apply to African-Americans, and could Congress prohibit slavery in new states? The first excerpt below addresses the citizenship question, and the second excerpt addresses the slavery question. The Supreme Court decided the case by a 7 to 2 decision.
Chief Justice Taney
Paul Fink, Dred Scott V. Sandford<em>: A Brief History with Documents</em> (Boston: Bedford, 1997). Full text available at http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0060_0393_ZO.html
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1857
English
Laws/Courts
Antebellum America (1816-1860)
Claiming We the People: Political Participation in Revolutionary America
Civil Rights and Citizenship
In this activity students will learn about how groups without political power—African Americans, women, and working-class men—sought to expand their political power in the Revolutionary era. Students will analyze primary sources to determine the methods by which non-voting groups made their claims on being part of "We the People".
American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning
American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning, 2010.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
2010
Copyright American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning
<div><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License</a>.</div>
1671
English
Revolution and New Nation (1751-1815)
Congress Passes the First Immigration Law
Immigration and Migration
In March 1790, the newly-formed Congress passed a law establishing the rules for becoming a citizen. Under the law, only "free white persons" who had been in the United States for at least two years were eligible for citizenship, thus excluding free and enslaved African-Americans, indentured servants, Native-Americans, and later Asian-Americans. Citizenship was further limited to persons of good moral character who had to attest to their good character in front of a state court and take an oath of allegiance to support the Constitution of the United States. In 1795, a new act was passed increasing the amount of required residence for naturalization from two to five years in the United States.
U.S. Congress
Statutes at Large, Ist Congress, 2nd Session, Ch. III, 1790; Library of Congress, <em>A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1875</em>, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwsl.html
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1790
English
Laws/Courts
Revolution and New Nation (1751-1815)
Congress Signs An Act Respecting Alien Enemies
The Act Respecting Alien Enemies was one of four Alien and Sedition Acts that Congress passed and president Adams signed into law in 1789. The laws were controversial in that they challenged the authority of the Constitution, specifically the Tenth Amendment, which stipulates that "powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." The Alien and Sedition Acts gave Congress rights over perceived "enemy aliens" residing in the states, and compelled states to turn such residents over to the federal government. This was protested by many as unconstitutional, and the laws expired three years after they were enacted.
U.S. Congress
Yale University Law School, The Avalon Project: United States Statutes at Large, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/statutes.asp.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1798
English
Laws/Courts
Revolution and New Nation (1751-1815)
Differing Federal Responses to the Great Depression: Letter Analysis
In this activity students read two letters (one from Hoover, one from FDR) to determine different political beliefs that guided the presidents in their responses to the Great Depression.
American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning
American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning, 2009.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
2009
Copyright American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning
<div><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/"></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License</a>.</div>
English
Great Depression and World War II (1929-1945)
Graph of Federal Spending (in millions of dollars), 1929-1945
When President Franklin D. Roosevelt entered office in 1933, unemployment hovered around 25%. The private sector, including factories and service industries, remained mired in an intractable depression: no one was spending money and no one was hiring. Proponents of federal spending argued that only the government had the spending power to stimulate the economy; by spending on various relief and employment programs, the government would put people to work and put money back in circulation. Despite doomsday criticisms about the cost of New Deal programs, this graph demonstrates that federal spending in Roosevelt’s first two terms was relatively low compared to the spending associated with World War II.
American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning
Adapted from “Table 1.1—Summary of Receipts Outlays, and Surpluses or Deficits (-): 1789—2009,” from Budget of the United States Government: Historical Tables Fiscal Year 2005, http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy05/hist.html.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
2010
Copyright American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning
<div><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/"><img style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/3.0/88x31.png" alt="Creative Commons License" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License</a>.</div>
English
Great Depression and World War II (1929-1945)