In this lecture, historian Mary Beth Norton examines the original court documents from the Salem witchcraft trials; she places these well-known events in the context of the Indian wars and other witch trials in New England. The trials, she concludes, were driven more by politics than by superstition.
Harriet Tubman was born into slavery in Maryland in 1820. After her escape to the North in 1849, she returned to the South more than a dozen times to ferry other slaves along the Underground Railroad. She later helped John Brown recruit men for his Harper's Ferry raid; and during the Civil War, Tubman served as a Union spy. In this lecture, historian Catherine Clinton details not only Tubman's life but also the quest to uncover new information on Tubman.
What were the causes of the American Revolution?
Textbooks tend to emphasize a political and military story that makes the American Revolution seem like a unified, logical, and inevitable event.
Primary sources reveal the diversity and complexity of the revolutionary movement. There was no single American Revolution, but many different American revolutions.
Historians emphasize the diversity of participants, contradictions among their motives, and the variety of long-term causes of the American Revolution.
Most elementary and middle school American history textbooks continue to portray the coming of the American Revolution in terms of a series of discrete political and military events that culminated, more or less inevitably, in the separation of the North American colonies from Great Britain. Little attention is given to underlying social conditions, the diversity among participants, and the wide variety of intellectual traditions that contributed to the revolutionary movement. By ignoring the insights of new scholarship, textbooks fail to convey a sense of the long-term causes of the Revolution, the movement's tremendous complexity, or its limitations as well as its achievements.
This combined archive and exhibit offers a selection of 448 photographs from the Library's National Woman's Party (NWP) collection that "document the National Woman's Party's push for ratification of the 19th Amendment as well as its later campaign for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment." Photographs span the years 1875 to 1938, but most date from 1913 to 1922. Visitors can browse photographs by title or subject or search the descriptive information. The site has a photo gallery of more than 50 photographs depicting NWP activists who were arrested and imprisoned for their role in suffrage protests. Additionally, the site provides a timeline of the National Woman's Party from 1912 to 1997 that places it in historical context. The site also provides three essays: on the tactics and techniques of the National Woman's Party suffrage campaign, a historical overview of the NWP, and on leaders of the NWP.
A collection of 10 exhibits documenting aspects of the local history of Austin, TX. Each exhibit contains approximately 40 images and essays from 1,000 to 3,000 words in length. Topics include working in the city, the suffrage movement, life in the city during World War II, Victorian houses, city streets, the erection of the state capital building, landscaping, the historic suburban Hyde Park area, and memorable "firsts" in Austin.
The site links to the main local history site for the Austin Public Library—the Austin History Center—which provides a 2,400-word student essay on Austin's growth during its first 100 years, a chronology of the city from 18301900, and links to other relevant sites, including one presenting hundreds of historic postcards of the city. Useful for those studying Texas, urban, and western history.
In commemoration of Women's History Month, the Library of Congress' Veterans History Project organized a panel discussion composed of four female veterans of the Persian Gulf War. Each woman's experience in the conflict was equally as diverse as her background. The speakers range from Commander Darlene Iskra—who was the first woman in American history to command a ship in the U.S. Navy—to Juanita Mullen—who served stateside during the conflict, and was among the first Native American woman to serve in the U.S. Air Force. Each woman also describes her personal experiences as a female veteran in the years following the Gulf War.
From the Library of Congress Webcasts site:
"On May 1, 1893, the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago opened its gates to an expectant public eager to experience firsthand its architectural beauty, technological marvels and vast array of cultural treasures gathered from all over the world. Among the most popular of the fair's attractions was the Woman's Building, a monumental exhibit hall filled with the products of women's labor, including more than 8,000 volumes of writing, by women and collected by women—the first important library of its kind. Hundreds of thousands of women visited the library and took what they learned to develop local libraries."
From Colonial Williamsburg: Past and Present Podcasts
"Sharp quills did the bidding of the even sharper intellects of the Revolution's founding mothers. Listen to the words of Mercy Otis Warren and Abigail Adams, voiced by Abigail Schumann."
The Colonial Williamsburg site also has an informative essay that offers interested readers more information on Abigail Adams.
This exhibit, based on an exhibit at the William and Anita Newman Library of the City University of New York, explores the history of the Beechers, a New England family influential in religious, abolitionist, and women's rights movements. The site provides 500-word biographies, photographs, and excerpts from letters for seven members of the Beecher family, beginning with patriarch Lyman Beecher, Presbyterian minister and President of Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati. It also profiles Lyman's two wives; five of his children, including Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin and more than 30 other works; and his great-granddaughter Charlotte Perkins Gilman, women's rights activist and author of Women and Economics. The site also offers links to six related websites and a bibliography of six related scholarly works. It is a good resource for those researching abolitionism, women's rights, or the lives of the Beechers.
A presentation of more than 25 "of the most treasured documents in the holdings of the National Archives" with 10 contextual essays of up to 300 words in length. Arranged in chronological sections, corresponding to eras suggested by the National Standards for History, this site provides facsimile reproductions of important documents relating to diplomacy, presidents, judicial cases, exploration, war, and social issues. Includes the Treaty of Paris ending the American Revolutionary War (1783); receipts from the Lewis and Clark expedition (1803); the judgment in the Supreme Court's Dred Scott Decision (1857); Robert E. Lee's demand for the surrender of John Brown at Harper's Ferry in 1859; the Treaty of 1868 with the Sioux Indians; an 1873 petition to Congress from the National Woman Suffrage Association for the right of women to vote, signed by Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton; and a 1940 letter from student Fidel Castro to Franklin D. Roosevelt asking for a ten-dollar bill. Provides links to teaching suggestions for two of the documents. A good site for introducing students to a variety of the forms of documentation accumulated in the collections of the Archives.