Doing Oral History
A collection of 17 oral histories conducted by secondary students focusing on topics relating to "The American Century": World War II; the Cold War; Vietnam; the "rights revolution"; immigration; education; and science and technology. Each oral history entry contains a biography of the interviewee, historical contextualization and evaluation essays, and bibliography.
The site provides tools for teachers to use in designing oral history courses: release form for interviewees, pre-interview worksheet, "do's and don'ts," guidelines for transcribing and editing interviews, how to analyze the historical value of an interview, grading rubrics, and student feedback. Also offers a 36-title bibliography, including 24 links to related sites. Of interest to teachers preparing oral history courses and for those studying selected 20th-century American history topics.
Roosevelt spoke these words on March 4, 1933, in his First Inaugural Address— which also included his famous phrase "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." In this speech, FDR first assured the American people that he had faith that the Constitution and current understandings of constitutionally-acceptable presidential power were sufficient to overcome the crisis posed by the Great Depression. He then went on to note that, if necessary for the good of the country, he would ask Congress for executive power equivalent to that granted in wartime.
In his book Democracy in America, French thinker, writer, and politician Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), considers the strengths and weakness of the American federal system of government as it was in the early 1830s, when he visited the young country on a 9-month tour. This passage comes from chapter 8 of the book's first volume: "On the Federal Constitution." Subheading "The Federal Constitution, Part V," "Why the Federal System is Not Adapted to All Peoples" looks at the uniqueness of the Constitution and of the expectations it sets out for the people putting it into practice. 
Fiery abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879) included this condemnation of the Constitution in the December 29, 1832, issue of his abolitionist newspaper The Liberator. The article in which it appeared, titled "On the Constitution and the Union," denounced the Constitution for allowing slavery to exist in the U.S., calling it a document "dripping" "with human blood." 
Woodrow Wilson included these words in his 1913 book The New Freedom: A Call for the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People, which laid out many of the views on which he had campaigned for the presidency. Writing in 1885, in his earlier book Congressional Government, Wilson saw many problems in the United States' established form of government, arguing that the Founders' system of checks and balances obscured responsibility more than it ensured balance. Wilson saw the Constitution as a product of a certain time and place, with questionable relevance to the present day. 
