The complete Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress consists of approximately 20,000 documents. The collection is organized into three "General Correspondence" series which include incoming and outgoing correspondence and enclosures, drafts of speeches, and notes and printed material. Most of the 20,000 items are from the 1850s through Lincoln's presidential years, 1860-65. Treasures include Lincoln's draft of the Emancipation Proclamation, his March 4, 1865, draft of his second Inaugural Address, and his August 23, 1864, memorandum expressing his expectation of being defeated for re-election in the upcoming presidential contest. The Lincoln Papers are characterized by a large number of correspondents, including friends and associates from Lincoln's Springfield days, well-known political figures and reformers, and local people and organizations writing to their president. In its online presentation, the Abraham Lincoln Papers comprises approximately 61,000 images and 10,000 transcriptions

Abraham Lincoln’s Crossroads is an educational game based on the traveling exhibition Lincoln: The Constitution and the Civil War, which debuted at the National Constitution Center in June 2005. The online game is intended for advanced middle- and high-school students. It invites them to learn about Lincoln’s leadership by exploring the political choices he made. An animated Lincoln introduces a situation, asks for advice and prompts players to decide the issue for themselves, before learning the actual outcome. At the end of the game, players discover how frequently they predicted Lincoln’s actions. A Resources Page keyed to each chapter provides links to relevant Websites on Lincoln and the Civil War, permitting students to explore issues in more depth

In November 1865 a group of 52 black delegates met in Charleston's Zion Church to formulate a position regarding their future in the still uncertain world of the post-emancipation South. Their address invoked the language of the Declaration of Independence to claim full rights of citizenship for themselves, rights that were endangered by widespread southern "Black Codes." The Black Codes were a series of laws introduced in the months after the war by the reconstituted state legislatures of the South. These laws were enacted to restrict the movements and employment possibilities of blacks regardless of whether they had been free or enslaved before the war?in essence to replace the constrictions of slavery.

The collection African American Perspectives: Pamphlets from the Daniel A.P. Murray Collection, 1818-1907, contains pamphlets and other materials, most of which were written by African American authors about pressing issues of the day. In this lesson, students use the collection's Timeline of African American History, 1852-1925 to identify problems and issues facing African Americans immediately after Reconstruction. Working in small groups on assigned issues, students search the collection for documents that describe the problem and consider opposing points of view, and suggest a remedy for the problem. Students then present the results of their research in a simulated African American Congress, modeled on a congress documented in the collection's special presentation, Progress of a People.

Isabelle Van Wagenen was born enslaved in New York State and became a well-known abolitionist speaker under the name Sojourner Truth after gaining her freedom in 1827. She moved to New York City where she engaged in evangelical and other reform activities; at various points she also lived in several utopian communities. Truth supported herself by traveling and speaking on abolitionist and women's rights subjects, taking the name Sojourner Truth in 1843. She often faced opposition at her speaking engagements. Truth made this extemporaneous speech in Akron Ohio in 1851 at a women's rights meeting. No direct record of the speech exists, but Frances Gage, a white activist and author who was presiding over the meeting, recalled it over a decade later. While some historians have questioned Gage's accuracy in reconstructing the syntax and even the exact language of Truth's oration, the power and charismatic force of her argument about the equality of women remains evident.

This course surveys art of America from the colonial era through the post-war 20th century. The student will consider broad stylistic tendencies in various regions and periods and examine specific artists and works of art in historical and social contexts, with emphasis on the congruent evolution of contemporary American multi-cultural identity. Overarching issues that have interested major scholars of American art and its purview include the landscape (wilderness, Manifest Destiny, rural settlement, and urban development); the family and gender roles; the founding rhetoric of freedom and antebellum slavery; and notions of artistic modernism through the 20th century. Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to: Understand the historical (geographic, political) formation of the present United States of America; Be familiar with renowned influential American artists from the 18th through the 20th century; Be conversant in common stylistic designations used in Western art of the 17th through 20th centuries; Recognize subjects and forms in American art through history that mark its distinction; Be able to engage specific images, objects, and structures from different critical perspectives to consider their functions and meanings. (Art History 210)

This course provides a basic history of American social, economic, and political development from the colonial period through the Civil War. It examines the colonial heritages of Spanish and British America; the American Revolution and its impact; the establishment and growth of the new nation; and the Civil War, its background, character, and impact. Readings include writings of the period by J. Winthrop, T. Paine, T. Jefferson, J. Madison, W. H. Garrison, G. Fitzhugh, H. B. Stowe, and A. Lincoln.

The Printed Ephemera collection at the Library of Congress is a rich repository of Americana. In total, the collection comprises 28,000 primary-source items dating from the seventeenth century to the present and encompasses key events and eras in American history. An American Time Capsule, the online presentation of the Printed Ephemera collection, comprises 17,000 of the 28,000 physical items. More are scheduled to be digitized in the future. While the broadside format represents the bulk of the collection, there are a significant number of leaflets and some pamphlets. Rich in variety, the collection includes proclamations, advertisements, blank forms, programs, election tickets, catalogs, clippings, timetables, and menus. They capture the everyday activities of ordinary people who participated in the events of nation-building and experienced the growth of the nation from the American Revolution through the Industrial Revolution up to present day. A future final release will include thousands of oversize items in the collection.

Since at least the 1830s, New York working women endured low pay, long hours, and difficult working conditions. Concerned observers noted that some were even forced to turn to prostitution to supplement their meager incomes. During the Civil War, poor men flocked to the army (wealthier men could purchase substitutes for $300). The women left behind were now responsible for supporting families on their own. While wartime production created additional opportunities for women to work, it also led to even greater exploitation as factory owners pushed their workers to turn out more goods. Under these conditions, some women, such as this one, suggested that collective action might provide a solution.

This site consists of tens of thousands of pieces of sheet music registered for copyright during the post-Civil War era. Included are popular songs, piano music, sacred music and secular choral music, solo instrumental music, method books and instructional materials, and music for band and orchestra. This first release of the online collection consists of over 22,000 musical compositions registered for copyright during the years 1870 to 1879.

provides examples of brass band music that flourished in the U.S. during the 1850s and remained popular through the 19th century. It includes 700 musical compositions, 8 full-score modern editions, and 19 recorded examples.

The Five Points was a notorious mid-nineteenth century New York City slum. Located just east of the fashionable stores, columned banks, and well-dressed crowds of Broadway, its squalor served to remind New Yorkers of the destitution that so closely underlay the city's surging wealth. The neighborhood included the infamous "Old Brewery," which had once been a real brewery but by mid-century had degenerated into a miserable tenement dwelling for the very poor. In the early 1850s the New York Ladies Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church purchased the "Old Brewery," demolished it, and built a mission on the site. The women of the Home Missionary Society made children their first concern, as, increasingly, did many other reformers of this period. While in this selection these Protestant missionary women showcase the children's gratitude, many Irish-Catholic immigrant families resented the missionaries' assumption of superiority and regarded their proselytizing as antagonistic to their own desire to pass on their religious beliefs to their children.

This site offers 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 photos of former slaves. The collection can be searched by name, city, state, topic, or other key words. These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA).

This guide was written to help you bring to life the human struggle that was endured in the Campaign for Vicksburg. The guide can help you bring a complex subject to your students. You and your students will probably come up with new and different ways to see the Park. We hope this guide will give you a few new tools to teach and enlighten your class. After all, the Campaign for Vicksburg was more than generals and maps, it was the common soldier, sailor and civilian who witnessed a lifetime in 47 days. Invite your students to experience those times and see beyond the hills to the people.

After the Civil War began, slaves were sometimes seized from their masters and forced into service for the Confederate army. This illustration from a May 1862 issue of Harper's Weekly depicted one way that the institution of slavery contributed to the Confederacy's war effort. According to the caption, the northern newspaper artist observed this struggle between two Negroes and a rebel captain" through a telescope. The captain "insisted upon their loading a cannon within range of [Union] Sharpshooters. . . . [He] succeeded in forcing the Negroes to expose themselves

Americans were not prepared for the ravages of modern warfare. Early in the war, artists often drew highly romantic and very inaccurate pictures. Soldiers in the field viewed such feats as firing from the saddle with great amusement; they enjoyed seeing illustrations of their exploits almost as much as they enjoyed criticizing their inaccuracies. As the war continued and the carnage mounted, increasingly realistic battlefield sketches conveyed the horrors of war to the northern public.

The political landscape in the South underwent significant change during the twentieth century. Political and social change in Southern states was directly connected to some of the landmark events of American history, particularly the Civil Rights Movement. An understanding of the role of politics in the South is essential to comprehension of the history and culture of the region.

The oral histories in this site illuminate changes in Southern politics from the end of the Civil War up to the present day. The recollections and opinions of the important political figures interviewed in these oral histories help form an impression of the role of Southern politics in the tumultuous events of the twentieth century in America. Listen as eyewitnesses recount the effects of politics and changing political beliefs on the story of the American South.

This site examines archeological techniques used to explore these two battle sites. These battles, fought in Missouri and Arkansas in 1861 and 1862, helped keep Missouri in the Union and set the stage for the Union to gain control of most lands west of the Mississippi by 1863.

Integrates creative writing with Social Sciences and enhances knowledge of the effects of the Civil War on people.