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The Declaration of Sentiments
Elizabeth Cady Stanton served for twenty years as the president of the National Woman Suffrage Association. She committed her life to the cause of political equality between men and women, which emerged out of her work as an abolitionist. The [...]
Chief Justice Taney's Majority Opinion in Dred Scott v. Sanford
In Dred Scott v. Sanford, 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 [...]
An Abolitionist Speaks Forcefully for Women's Rights
Women and African Americans were demanding the rights of citizenship in the 1850s. At an 1851 women's rights convention in Akron, Ohio Sojourner Truth rose and asked the president, "May I say a few words?" She then conveyed to the audience a [...]
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Preserves Mexicans' Rights in the Southwest
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War in 1848, ceded 525,000 square miles--55% of--Mexican territory to the United States. In exchange, the United States paid approximately $15 million in damages to pay for [...]
Angelina Grimke Argues for Women's Political Rights
In this letter Angelina Grimke, abolitionist and women's rights advocate, argues for the right of propertied women to participate in government through petitions despite their lack of enfranchisement. This letter was a part of a series of essays [...]
Background Essay on the LGBTQ+ Community and the Military
This essay outlines broad trends in LGBTQ+ American history and traces the evolution of LGBTQ+ people’s involvement in and relationship with the United States military.
Plans for Central Park (1858)
This 1857 map depicts plans for Central Park by landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. The red rectangle denotes the area of Seneca Village, which spanned 82nd street to 89th street in New York City. Founded in 1825, Seneca [...]
Andrew Williams’ Affidavit of Petition (1856)
Founded in 1825, Seneca Village was a New York City settlement of mostly African Americans, many of whom were landowners. Irish and German immigrants also began to move into the community throughout the 1840s. By the 1850s, residents of the [...]