US Department of State
American Life: Discontent and Reform
This article from the US Department of State, "USA History in Brief," reviews the reasons for and results of Progressivism in the early 20th century.
Independence Hall Association
U.s. History: Eugene v. Debs and American Socialism
Read about the growth of the Socialist Party in America under the leadership of Eugene V. Debs. Find out about the strikes he led, his political activities, and his arrest for sedition in 1918. Read also about the radical union,...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Memory: Civil War Memory and American Nostalgia: Influence of Lincoln
An excerpt from Jane Addams' autobiography "Twenty Years at Hull House" that describes how Abraham Lincoln inspired her urban reform efforts.
Department of Defense
Do Dea: Ap Us History: Unit 6: Becoming a Modern Nation
This extensive learning module examines the role of large-scale industrialization, urbanization, and mass migrations in creating new demands on government and social organizations to design reforms, and looks at the global and domestic...
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Primary Source Set: The Great Migration
This collection uses primary sources to explore the Great Migration.
Other
Women in History: Jane Addams
Click here to see a photo of Jane Addams & read her biography. Read about her dedication the Hull House, a settlement house in Chicago.The first female to win the Nobel Peace Prize, Addams was also known for her support of women's...
Siteseen
Siteseen: American Historama: Works Progress Administration
Discover interesting facts and information about the Works Progress Administration established in April 1935 to provide light construction jobs for millions of unskilled workers.
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Primary Source Set: Women and the Blues
This collection uses primary sources to explore the impact of women blues performers.
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Primary Source Set: Negro League Baseball
A collection that uses primary sources to explore Negro League Baseball.
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Primary Source Set: Blackface Minstrelsy in Modern America
This collection uses primary sources to explore blackface minstrelsy in modern America.
Library of Congress
Loc: Found Poetry With Primary Sources: The Great Depression
Students explore poetry using American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940 collection of American Memory, which covers personal stories collected by the Works Progress Administration. In particular,...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: The Gilded and the Gritty: America, 1870 1912
Ninety-four primary sources-historical documents, literary texts, and visual images-that explore the challenges, opportunity, and turmoil of late-nineteenth-century America. They examine the economic expansion in an America re-united...
Country Studies US
Country Studies: The Reform Impulse
This site discusses the birth of the Progressive movement came about when the ascension of Theodore Roosevelt to the presidency after the assassination of William McKinley and the new face of American politics that sought to reform...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: The West, the Gilded and the Gritty: America, 1870 1912
Four nineteenth-century landscape paintings that suggest the meaning of the West in American life.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Memory, the Gilded and the Gritty: America, 1870 1912
Twelve primary sources - historical documents, literary texts, and visual images - that explore ways in which the memory of the Civil War affected American life in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Power: Taming the Octopus: The Image of the Octopus
Six versions of the octopus, a pervasive image in late-nineteenth-century America, that illustrate the extensive and corrosive power held by corporations over American political and economic life. Reading guide with discussion questions.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Power: Taming the Octopus: Theodore Roosevelt, the New Nationalism
Theodore Roosevelt's speech in 1910 arguing for the vigorous involvement of government in American life.
Library of Congress
Loc: Child Labor and the Building of America
Young scholars are immersed in primary source materials that relate to child labor in America from 1880-1920 to gain a personal perspective of how work affected the American child within a rapidly growing industrial society. This project...
Khan Academy
Khan Academy: Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives, Knee Pants
The images Jacob Riis captured of the living conditions in New York tenements in the late 1800s would shock the conscience of Americans and instigate societal changes. View his pictures and read about his work in this essay.
University of California
The History Project: Ideas and Strategies of the Woman Suffrage Movement
Although the campaign for Woman Suffrage in the United States began with the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, six decades later the leaders of the movement could claim victories in only four, sparsely-populated Western states, Colorado,...
PBS
Pbs: Independent Lens: Strange Fruit: Protest Music Past and Present
Listen to audio clips of songs of protest from eight eras of U.S. history. Explore the lyrics, learn about the songwriters, and gather background information on the music that served and continues to serve as a catalyst for thought,...
Other
D Archives: Alice Stone Blackwell, Objections Answered
Read this 1915 essay by Alice Stone Blackwell, who outlines the basic reasons women should be granted equal voting rights in the U.S.
Library of Congress
Loc: America at Work & Leisure: Motion Pictures 1894 1915
The Library of Congress provides a glimpse into work, school, and leisure activities in the United States from 1894 to 1915.
The Newberry Library
Newberry Library: Chicago Workers During the Long Gilded Age
Learning module in which students use primary source material to examine the plight of workers in Chicago during the 19th and 20th Centuries, their efforts to make changes to working conditions and public response to those efforts.