In 1927, responding to the seemingly overpowering claims of advertisers and mass marketers, engineer Frederick Schlink and economist Stuart Chase published Your Money's Worth, which argued for an "extension of the principle of buying goods according to impartial scientific tests rather than according to the fanfare and triumphs of higher salesmanship." Your Money's Worth became an instant best-seller, and the authors organized Consumers' Research, a testing bureau that provided information and published product tests in a new magazine, Consumers' Research Bulletin. The 1929 stock market crash heightened suspicion of consumer capitalism, and the magazine had 42,000 subscribers by 1932. In 1933, Schlink and Arthur Kallet (executive secretary of Consumers' Research) published 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs: Dangers in Everyday Foods, Drugs, and Cosmetics. The book struck a responsive chord in depression-era America--it went through thirteen printings in its first six months and became one of the best-selling books of the decade. The book's first chapter ("The Great American Guinea Pig"), gave a flavor of their vigorous arguments.

The deadly lung disease silicosis is caused when miners, sandblasters, and foundry and tunnel workers inhale fine particles of silica dust--a mineral found in sand, quartz, and granite. In 1935, approximately 1,500 workers--largely African Americans who had come north to find work--were killed by exposure to silica dust while building a tunnel in Gauley Bridge, West Virginia. Ordinarily, silicosis takes a several years to develop, but these West Virginia tunnel workers were falling ill in a matter of months because of exposure to unusually high concentrations of silica dust. The crisis over silicosis suddenly became a national issue, as seen in this article in the radical newspaper Peoples' Press . In 1936 congressional hearings on the Gauley Bridge disaster, it was revealed that company officials and engineers wore masks to protect themselves when they visited the tunnel, but they failed to provide masks for the tunnelers themselves, even when the workers requested them.

Several special fighting forces from the United States, made up of single ethnic groups, made significant contributions during World War II, including the African American Tuskegee Airmen and the Navajo Code Talkers. The 442nd Regimental Combat Team was made up solely of Japanese Americans, some of whom were recruited directly from internment camps. (Some Japanese American men who would later become leaders, such as Senator Daniel Inouye, were members of the 442nd.) The images in this group provide a look at the lives and sacrifices of the men of the 442nd, the most highly decorated American unit in WWII. The photographs in this group were all taken for the government-run War Relocation Authority (WRA) and are meant to portray the proud patriotism of the men and their families. One photo shows three women holding their babies, with photographs of their enlisted husbands. Another is a portrait of an older couple who had five sons in the 442nd. Other photographs reflect the training the soldiers of the 442nd received, their life in the battlefield, and their triumphant homecoming. Other documents in this group show a more personal side of the men of the 442nd. One soldier's photo album depicts his personal experiences as a member of the combat team. A 50-page booklet, The Story of the 442nd Combat Team, compiled by members of the team, has this quote from Franklin D. Roosevelt on the dedication page: "Americanism is a matter of the mind and heart; Americanism is not and never was a matter of race and ancestry." On a more poignant note, oil paintings by Japanese American artist Henry Sugimoto reflect the emotions, pain, and suffering these individuals and their families experienced as a result of the war. In Senninbari (Thousand Stiches), a woman holds a scarf of remembrance as a ghostly Nisei soldier looks down from the sky. And in Send Off Husband at Jerome Camp, an internee family stays behind the camp gates as their soldier father/husband goes off to fight for the United States.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, stunned virtually everyone in the U.S. military: Japan's carrier-launched bombers found Pearl Harbor totally unprepared. In this 1991 interview, conducted by John Terreo for the Montana Historical Society, serviceman Orville Quick, who was assigned to build airfields and was very near Pearl Harbor on December 6, 1941, remembers the attack. He also provided a vivid, and humorous, account of the chaos from a soldier's point of view.

'The Word' with commentary by professor and historian A.B. Spellman focuses on the pardon and immunity granted to President Richard M. Nixon, based on a plea of depression. Spellman compares this to the treatment given to African Americans facing time in jail.

For four years after the U.S. dropped atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II, America held a monopoly on the production of atomic weapons. During this period, debate centering on the use of nuclear bombs in future wars proliferated among government officials, scientists, religious leaders, and in the popular press. In the following article from Collier's, former Navy lieutenant commander William H. Hessler, using data from the Strategic Bombing Survey, argued that saturation bombing of urban areas during World War II, while devastating for civilians, did not achieve war aims. A future atomic war, therefore, might well destroy cities but fail to stop enemy aggression. Furthermore, with a much higher urban concentration than the Soviet Union, the U.S. had more to lose from atomic warfare. The article, while providing detailed explanations of the bomb's destructive capability, demonstrated the lack of information available regarding the long-term medical and ecological effects of radioactivity. Hessler's prose also evoked both the fascination that gadgetry of atomic warfare held for Americans of the time and the fear many felt about the risks involved in putting this technology to use. On September 24, 1949, one week after publication of this article, news that the Russians had conducted atom bomb tests shocked the nation. The following April, a National Security Council report to President Harry S. Truman advised development of a hydrogen bomb--some 1,000 times more destructive than an atom bomb--and a massive buildup of non-nuclear defenses. The subsequent outbreak of war in Korea in June 1950 justified to many a substantial increase in defense spending.

David Boeri reports on a demonstration by members of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), outside of the offices of Ray Flynn (Mayor of Boston). Boeri notes that the demonstrators were advocating for more affordable housing in Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan. Boeri's report includes footage of Peggy Jackson (ACORN demonstrator) and Neil Sullivan (Director of housing policy for the Flynn administration) debating the administration's affordable housing policy. Boeri notes that the demonstrators demanded the deed to a vacant lot in order to develop affordable housing themselves.

Faced with stiff business opposition, a conservative political climate, hostile courts, and declining membership, leaders of the American Federeration of Labor (AFL) grew increasingly cautious during the 1920s. Labor radicals viewed AFL leaders as overpaid, self-interested functionaries uninterested in organizing unorganized workers into unions. A cartoon by William Gropper published in the Communist Yiddish newspaper Freiheit (and reprinted in English in the New Masses ) caricatures delegates to a 1926 AFL convention in Atlantic City. Well

In 1981, the U.S. medical community noticed a significant number of gay men living in urban areas with rare forms of pneumonia, cancer, and lymph disorders. The cluster of ailments was initially dubbed Gay-Related Immune Disease (GRID), but when similar illnesses increased in other groups, the name changed to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). The mid-1980s saw a number of advances toward understanding and treating the disease, but no vaccine or cure was forthcoming. Gay advocacy and community-based organizations began providing services and pressuring government to increase funding for finding a cure and helping victims. As two representatives of AIDS health services organizations stated in the following 1987 testimony to Congress, AIDS spread in disproportionately high numbers throughout U.S. minority and disadvantaged communities. They advocated increased federal funding for prevention efforts targeted at minority communities and administered by community-based organizations. Despite such efforts, the number of minority AIDS cases continued to rise sharply, and by 1996, African Americans accounted for a higher percentage of reported adult cases of AIDS (41%) than did whites.

Australian aborigines visit Franklin ParkProgram focuses of the culture of Australian aborigines. Host David Crippens introduces Dighton Spooner's interview with Gulpilil (and other aborigines visiting Boston) on music, ceremonies, instruments, costuming, and the requirements for the cultural survival of Australia's aboriginal people. Interviews touch upon offers from European companies to purchase tribal lands, Australia's attempts to restore native culture, Australian rules governing 'mixed blood,' the impact of African American leaders on Australia, the creative forces behind aboriginal cultures, and the effects of European repression on native cultural tradition. Additional program segments include footage of aborigines applying body paints of clay and charcoal and performing tribal dances in Boston's Franklin Park, the 'Historical Minute' with Georgia State Representative Julian Bond, 'Bookbeat,' 'Commentary' by professor and historian A.B. Spellman on the differences between Third World and western cultures, and segment interludes with Sheryl Bibbs and Louis Wilson (of the musical group Mandrill). Produced by Marita Rivero. Directed by Conrad White.

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

David Boeri reports that William Celester (Deputy Superintendent, Boston Police Department) has been accused of sexual assault by a female employee of the Police Department. Boeri reviews the allegations. He notes that neither the department or Celester will comment on the ongoing investigation. Boeri interviews Rafe Kelly (St. John's Missionary Baptist Church). Kelly talks about the case from the victim's point of view. Boeri's report includes footage and photographs of Celester.

Allies during World War II, the U.S. and the Soviet Union disagreed over a number of issues after the war. These included control of Eastern Europe, division of Germany, atomic energy, international loans, and the Middle East. On February 9, 1946, Soviet premier Josef Stalin asserted that the continued existence of capitalism in the West would inevitably lead to war. Foreign Service senior diplomat George Kennan sent President Harry Truman, still forming a Soviet policy, a lengthy telegram advocating containment. Commerce Secretary Henry A. Wallace--Secretary of Agriculture (1933-1941) and Vice-President from (1941-1945)--was one of the few liberal idealists in Truman's cabinet. Wallace envisioned a "century of the common man" marked by global peace and prosperity. In the following excerpt from a letter dated July 23, 1946, Wallace urged Truman to build "mutual trust and confidence" in order to achieve "an enduring international order." Truman asked Wallace to resign. In March 1947, Truman asked Congress for money "to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." Thus articulated, the "Truman Doctrine" of containment served as the rationale for future American Cold War foreign policy initiatives.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965--called "the most successful civil rights law in the nation's history" by Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights--was enacted in order to force Southern states and localities to allow all citizens of voting age to vote in public elections. Although the 15th Amendment, ratified in 1870, guaranteed citizens the right to vote regardless of race, discriminatory requirements, such as literacy tests, disenfranchised many African Americans in the South. In 1965, following the murder of a voting rights activist by an Alabama sheriff's deputy and the subsequent attack by state troopers on a massive protest march in Selma, President Lyndon B. Johnson pressed Congress to pass a voting rights bill with "teeth". The Act, signed into law on August 6, applied to states or counties where fewer than half of the citizens of voting age were registered in 1964--Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Virginia, and numerous counties in North Carolina. For these areas, the law banned literacy tests, appointed Federal examiners to oversee election procedures, and, according to the Act's controversial Section 5, required approval by the U.S. Attorney General of future changes to election laws. In the following letter to a 1969 Senate subcommittee hearing on extending the Act, New Jersey Senator Harrison A. Williams, Jr., provided statistics to show the law's effect. The position described in the letter was Attorney General John Mitchell's proposal to replace Section 5 with an oversight mechanism more amenable to the white South. Ultimately, on June 22, 1970, President Richard M. Nixon signed into law a bill that extended the Act's provisions--including Section 5--for five additional years, and in addition, lowered the voting age throughout the country to 18.

"The Land of Liberty" was the ironic title of this cartoon published in an 1847 edition of the British satirical weekly Punch. As the cartoon suggests, Americans faced a number of dilemmas and crises that came to revolve around the institution of slavery and its expansion into the West. As slavery became more entrenched in Southern social and economic life, the war against Mexico, the forced removal of Native Americans from the Southeastern United States, and conflicts between rich and poor whites all highlighted the conflicts within Southern society and between the North and South about the place of slavery in a rapidly expanding republic.

Deborah Wang reports that minority workers are underrepresented in the advertising industry. Wang interviews Bink Garrison (Ingalls, Quinn and Johnson) about the lack of minority workers in the industry. Wang's report includes footage of workers in the offices of Ingalls, Quinn and Johnson (advertising firm). Wang reports that Ingalls, Quinn and Johnson is participating in industry efforts to attract students into the industry. Wang notes that the Ad Club at English High School teaches students about advertising. Wang reports that Ad Club students wrote and acted in a public service announcement last year. Wang's report includes footage of the public service announcement produced by the Ad Club. Wang's report also features footage of Pam Piligian (Ingalls, Quinn and Johnson) working with students in the Ad Club. Piligian and Michelle Wilcox (11th grade student) talk about the Ad Club. This tape includes additional footage of workers at the offices of Ingalls, Quinn and Johnson.

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 Ramayana, the famous Hindu epic, is retold here in words and illustrations by "The Golden Eagles," Loretta Hopper's Grade 2 class from Ephesus Elementary in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Created by video artist Burt Barr, 'Aeros' is an impressionistic behind-the-scenes look at the Trisha Brown Dance Company as they rehearse, stage, and perform her choreographed work in a variety of settings, including Moscow, New York, France, and Florida. Here we see members of the Tricia Brown Dance Company during a rehearsal for the performance piece.