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17th -18th - 19th century > America, USA
Timeline in articles and pictures
Rear Admiral Dewey's flagship "Olympia." Lithograph by Kurz & Allison, 1898.
Digital ID: pga 01940 Source: digital file from original print Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-pga-01940 (digital file from original print) , LC-USZ62-5336 (b&w film copy neg.) , LC-USZ62-28011 (b&w film copy neg.) Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/i?pp/PPALL:@field(NUMBER+@band(cph+3a08644)) Pictorial Americana Selected Images from the Collections of the Library of Congress SPANISH AMERICAN WAR AND PHILIPPINE INSURRECTION http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/picamer/paSpanAmer.html - broken link https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/picamer/paSpanAmer.html
Klondike Gold Rush 1896-1899
Klondikers ascending to the summit of Chilkoot Pass, Alaska. 1898.
Photograph: University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections
The Age of Gold and Daguerreotypes NYT Jan. 23, 2018
https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/
The Klondike Gold Rush was a migration by an estimated 100,000 prospectors to the Klondike region of the Yukon in north-western Canada between 1896 and 1899.
Gold was discovered there by local miners on August 16, 1896, and, when news reached Seattle and San Francisco the following year, it triggered a stampede of prospectors.
Some became wealthy, but the majority went in vain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klondike_Gold_Rush
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klondike_Gold_Rush
Spanish-American war 1898
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Promises.JPG
https://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/
http://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/intro.html
http://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/trask.html
https://www.loc.gov/collections/
https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/picamer/paSpanAmer.html
http://web-static.nypl.org/exhibitions/spanexhib/index.html
https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1998/spring/spanish-american-war-1.html
https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1998/spring/spanish-american-war-2.html
https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1998/spring/spanish-american-war-marines-1.html
https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1998/spring/spanish-american-war-marines-2.html
https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/february-15/
Thomas Edison
Kinetoscope / Phonograph August 31, 1897
https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/august-31/
https://www.loc.gov/collections/
Laura Ingalls Wilder
A Journey from South Dakota to Missouri 1894
https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/eyewitness/html.php?section=23
Votes for women
Susan Brownell Anthony 1820-1906
champion of the women's movement in the U.S.
https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/03/08/
Votes for Women
The Struggle for Women's Suffrage
Selected Images From the Collections of the Library of Congress http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/076_vfw.html
https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/076_vfw.html
https://www.npr.org/2020/02/14/
"Huddled Masses Yearning to Breathe Free"
Ellis Island / Immigration / Immigrants ca. 1880-1920
https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/070_immi.html
https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/january-01/
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/28/
Ulysses S. Grant 1822-1885
Brady-Handy Photograph
Photograph: Collection/Library of Congress
Grant’s First Tomb Ulysses S. Grant, inaugurated as president 150 years ago today, missed a chance to reconstruct the South economically as well as politically. NYT March 4, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/
Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant; April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885) was an American soldier and politician who served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877.
Before his presidency, Grant led the Union Army as Commanding General of the United States Army in winning the American Civil War. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_S._Grant - November 7, 2020
Grant’s inauguration felt like the beginning of a new era of reform and revitalization.
For nearly four years, Americans had suffered through the tumultuous presidency of Andrew Johnson, who drove the nation to political crisis with his virulent racism, erratic behavior and leniency toward the defeated secessionists.
Grant, by contrast, backed the rights and privileges of freed black Americans.
He supported the 15th Amendment to the Constitution (ratified in 1870) extending voting rights to black men and deployed federal troops against vigilante groups like the Ku Klux Klan (whose first grand wizard, Nathan Bedford Forrest, was a former battlefield foe).
But the laudable commitment from Grant and the Republican Congress to the political rights of the former slaves was fatally undermined by their indifference to the vast social and economic inequality of the postwar South.
Unable to see past an ideology of “free labor” and “free soil,” they also couldn’t grasp how slavery and racial stigma gave black Americans a fundamentally different relationship to economic life.
The result was actions that ultimately sowed seeds for new relationships of race hierarchy in the South and the nation at large.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/presidents/
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/23/
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/
The Rock Springs massacre, also known as the Rock Springs riot, occurred on September 2, 1885, in the present-day United States city of Rock Springs in Sweetwater County, Wyoming.
The riot, and resulting massacre of immigrant Chinese miners by European immigrant miners, was the result of racial prejudice toward the Chinese miners, who were taking jobs from the existing miners.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
https://www.npr.org/sections/planet-money/2024/11/26/
The Statue of Liberty June 19, 1885
On 28 October 1886, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi unveiled the Statue of Liberty in front of a crowd of around 1m people.
It became the tallest structure in New York City.
Photograph: Library of Congress
Ken Burns’s photographic history of America – in pictures
The acclaimed documentarian has assembled a book called Our America: A Photographic History which contains some of his favorite photographs of the US and the people within it. ‘I’ve needed 45 years of telling stories in American history, of diving deep into lives and moments, places and huge events, to accrue the visual vocabulary to embark on this book,’ he said G Fri 4 Nov 2022 05.03 GMT
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2022/nov/03/
http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/sheetmusic/a/a20/a2069/
words and music by Ted S. Barron, 1916. Illustration Historic American Sheet Music,1850-1920
A landmark at the entrance to New York Harbor since 1886, the Statue of Liberty is a national and international symbol with multiple meanings.
Intended as a sign of friendship between the United States and France and as a monument to political liberty in both nations, it has come to represent a broader vision of freedom and democracy and the promise of a better life for the millions of immigrants who passed by her as they entered the country.
Although the French proposed the statue as a gift to the United States, the project became a joint effort of the two countries, with France responsible for the statue and the Americans for its pedestal and base.
The French commissioned sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi to create the statue, and he hoped to complete it for the US centennial in 1876 in recognition of France's assistance in winning the Revolutionary War. http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/immigration/statueofliberty.html
https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/june-19/ https://library.harvard.edu/collections/immigration-united-states-1789-1930 https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/statue-of-liberty/timeline/ https://www.nps.gov/stli/learn/historyculture/joseph-pulitzer.htm
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/07/07/
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/nov/22/
First skyscrapers
Illustration Sketch For A Skyscraper, 1923
Executed by Michael Goodman (J.R. Miller & T.L. Pflueger Architects) graphite, charcoal on paper 14 x 8"
http://www.wirtzgallery.com/
1893
Supreme Court decision
Fong Yue Ting v. United States
The Supreme court ruling held that the government’s power to deport foreigners, whether here legally or not, was as “absolute and unqualified” as the power to exclude them http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/nyregion/30chinese.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/nyregion/
Rutherford Birchard Hayes (October 4, 1822 – January 17, 1893) was the 19th president of the United States from 1877 to 1881, after serving in the U.S. House of Representatives and as governor of Ohio.
A lawyer and staunch abolitionist, he had defended refugee slaves in court proceedings during the antebellum years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutherford_B._Hayes - Ovember 7, 2020
With the future of Reconstruction on the ballot, the presidential election of 1876 was hard fought.
Tilden decisively defeated Hayes in the popular vote by about 250,000 votes, but in four states — Florida, Louisiana, Oregon, and South Carolina — both parties claimed to have won electoral votes.
At that point, Tilden needed only one more electoral vote to win, so any of the four would suffice.
However, Republicans still controlled the election canvassing boards and governorships in the three southern states, which led to the manipulation of vote counts and the subsequent awarding of electoral votes to Hayes.
Democrats refused to give up and sent competing slates of electors for Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina to Congress.
In addition, the Democrats challenged the eligibility of one of Oregon’s electors, a fail-safe that would lead to a Tilden win even if Hayes claimed victory in the three Southern states.
In January 1877, Congress convened a special Electoral Commission to resolve the disputes, and the Commission broke 8 to 7 in favor of Hayes in all four of the contested states.
Democrats, undeterred, tried to delay the counting of the electoral votes before the joint session of Congress on Feb. 28, which would deny Hayes a majority and send the election to the House of Representatives.
The inauguration was only four days away, and there was a real danger of both parties trying to have their candidate take the oath of office.
Enter Samuel Randall.
As the newly appointed speaker of the House, Randall refused to allow members of his party to delay the vote count, which they had sought to do by producing yet another competing slate of electors of dubious origins from the state of Vermont.
When Randall rejected these efforts, one of his fellow Democrats tried to physically attack him, and others began reaching for their guns.
Randall had to call the sergeant-at-arms to restore order.
Remarkably, Randall halted the delaying tactics that would have increased the likelihood of dueling inaugurations and subsequent violence.
His actions brought the count to a nonviolent end on March 2, just two days before the inauguration.
Upon becoming speaker, Randall had pledged “absolute fairness to both sides … in exercising the parliamentary powers of the chair.”
With his decisive action in resolving the disputed election of 1876, he kept that promise, even when doing so required decisions not in his party’s interest.
In the end, Democrats acquiesced to the election of the Republican Hayes over their own candidate, Tilden, on the condition that Hayes agree to remove federal troops from the Southern states.
Hayes’s elevation to the presidency effectively ended Reconstruction and changed the trajectory of American history, but in the months between the election and the inauguration, a nonviolent resolution was far from certain. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/03/us/samuel-randall-1876-election.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutherford_B._Hayes - November 7, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/03/
May 6, 1882
The first significant law restricting immigration into the United States is passed by Congress and signed by President Chester A. Arthur
(...)
The Chinese Exclusion Act was the first major law restricting immigration to the United States.
It was enacted in response to economic fears, especially on the West Coast, where native-born Americans attributed unemployment and declining wages to Chinese workers whom they also viewed as racially inferior.
The Chinese Exclusion Act, signed into law on May 6, 1882, by President Chester A. Arthur, effectively haltedChinese immigration for ten years and prohibited Chinese from becoming US citizens.
Through the Geary Act of 1892, the law was extended for another ten years before becoming permanent in 1902.
After the Gold Rush of 1849, the Chinese were drawn to the West Coast as a center of economic opportunity where, for example, they helped build the first transcontinental railroad by working on the Central Pacific from 1864 to 1869.
The Chinese Exclusion Act foreshadowed the immigration-restriction acts of the 1920s, culminating in the National Origins Act of 1929, which capped overall immigration to the United States at 150,000 per year and barred Asian immigration. http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/immigration/exclusion.html
https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=old&doc=47
https://library.harvard.edu/collections/
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/03/
http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/06/16/
http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/05/05/
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/04/24/
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/nyregion/
1876
The Battle of the Little Bighorn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
The Compromise of 1877
The Compromise of 1877 was an informal agreement between southern Democrats and allies of the Republican Rutherford Hayes to settle the result of the 1876 presidential election and marked the end of the Reconstruction era. https://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/compromise-of-1877 - UPDATED:NOV 27, 2019
https://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/compromise-of-1877 - UPDATED:NOV 27, 2019
presidential election 1876
The highly polarized political climate in the years leading up to the 1876 election had many fearing armed conflict.
Photograph: The New York Historical Society/Getty Images
In the Messiest Contested Election, One Man Saved the System From Itself Samuel Randall went against his own party’s wishes to keep the U.S. political system from falling apart. NYT Nov. 6, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/03/
the Republican nominee, Rutherford B. Hayes, and the Democratic nominee, Samuel J. Tilden, each presented themselves as the lawfully elected president of the United States.
(...)
of voter disenfranchisement, election fraud and extreme partisanship, the Hayes-Tilden dispute was a political maelstrom for which the U.S. Constitution had no specific remedy.
The Constitution leaves significant discretion in the hands of officials who are tasked with facilitating the selection of the president.
This discretion was often misused, and the years leading up to 1876 would set the stage for such abuse.
The social, economic and political unrest of the 1870s created the ideal conditions for an election meltdown.
The Panic of 1873 triggered an economic depression that led to widespread job losses and business failures.
Because of the bad economy, voters repudiated the Republican Party at the polls.
The Democrats took the majority in Congress and were unwilling to extend Reconstruction policies designed to protect the civil and political rights of African-Americans.
From 1874 to 1876, Democrats began to “redeem” state governments in the South, displacing Republican Party control and disenfranchising African-Americans through fraud and violence.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/03/
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/03/
Martha Coffin Wright 1806-1875
American feminist and abolitionist
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/30/
The Panic of 1873
Since the end of the Civil War, railroad construction in the United States had been booming.
Between 1866 and 1873, 35,000 miles of new track were laid across the country.
Railroads were the nation's largest non-agricultural employer.
Banks and other industries were putting their money in railroads.
So when the banking firm of Jay Cooke and Company, a firm heavily invested in railroad construction, closed its doors on September 18, 1873, a major economic panic swept the nation.
Jay Cooke's firm had been the government's chief financier of the Union military effort during the Civil War.
The firm then became a federal agent in the government financing of railroad construction.
The railroad industry involved a huge amount of money — and risk.
Building tracks where land had not yet been cleared or settled required land grants and loans that only the government could provide.
The nation's first transcontinental railroad had been completed in 1869.
Entrepreneurs planned a second, called the Northern Pacific.
Cooke's firm was the financial agent in this venture, and poured money into it.
On September 18, the firm realized it had overextended itself and declared bankruptcy.
Mirroring the firm's collapse, many other banking firms and industries did the same.
This collapse was disastrous for the nation's economy.
A startling 89 of the country's 364 railroad crashed into bankruptcy.
A total of 18,000 businesses failed in a mere two years.
By 1876, unemployment had risen to a frightening 14 percent.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/
1872
Mining law
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/
1872
Woman suffrage
Victoria Claflin Woodhull - the first woman to run for president
http://www.npr.org/templates/
1872
Woman suffrage
Susan B. Anthony at the Voting Polls
https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/eyewitness/html.php?section=3
1870
extends the right to vote to former male slaves
"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
In 1870 the 15th Amendment was ratified, which provided specifically that the right to vote shall not be denied or abridged on the basis of race, color or previous condition of servitude.
This superseded state laws that had directly prohibited black voting.
Congress then enacted the Enforcement Act of 1870, which contained criminal penalties for interference with the right to vote, and the Force Act of 1871, which provided for federal election oversight http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/vot/intro/intro_a.php
https://guides.loc.gov/15th-amendment
https://www.justice.gov/crt/
February 14, 1870
Utah
Women in Utah became the first to vote under an equal suffrage law on Feb. 14, 1870
Women in the Wyoming territory had been enfranchised a few months earlier, but Utah had an election first.
On Valentine's Day in 1870, the women of Utah started voting.
Women's suffrage — and voting rights in general — did not extend to most of the Native Americans in Utah for decades.
https://www.npr.org/2020/02/14/
https://www.npr.org/2020/02/14/
Transcontinental railroad completion May 10, 1869
East and West Shaking Hands at Laying of Last Rail, 1869
Western Union offered coverage direct from the scene, the first major news event carried ‘live’ from coast-to-coast.
Telegraph wires were attached to one of the ceremonial spikes and as it was gently tapped with a silver maul, the ‘strokes’ were heard across the country
Photograph: Andrew J Russell/courtesy Union Pacific Railroad Museum
The transcontinental railroad at 150 – in pictures East and West Shaking Hands at Laying of Last Rail, 1869.
In a new travelling exhibition, the significance of the transcontinental railroad, finished in 1869, will be celebrated in a series of images capturing its arduous construction through to its triumphant completion.
The Race to Promontory: The Transcontinental Railroad and the American West exhibition is now at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts in Salt Lake City G Wed 6 Feb 2019 07.00 GMT
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2019/feb/06/
May 10, 1869
First transcontinental railroad
Officials and workers of the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific railways held a ceremony on Promontory Summit, in Utah Territory —approximately thirty-five miles away from Promontory Point, the site where the rails were joined— to drive in the Golden Spike on May 10, 1869.
The spike symbolized completion of the first transcontinental railroad, an event that connected the nation from coast to coast and reduced a journey of four months or more to just one week. https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/may-10/
https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/may-10/
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2019/feb/06/
On Dec. 25, 1861, America almost went to war with Britain
https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/24/
The American West
Railroads
The history of immigration and emigration in the United States is closely linked to the history of railroads.
Immigrants were not only integral to the construction of the transcontinental railroads that facilitated western expansion, but they also used the railroad to migrate west and to form new immigrant settlements in western states and territories.
Work on the first transcontinental railroad began after President Abraham Lincoln approved the Pacific Railway Act of 1862, a landmark law that authorized the federal government to financially back the construction of a transcontinental railroad.
Due to the American Civil War, work was delayed for several years.
By 1866, however, the great race was on between the Central Pacific Railroad, which was charged with laying track eastward from Sacramento, and the Union Pacific Railroad, which started laying track westward from Omaha, to see which railroad company could lay the most miles of railroad track before the two railroad lines joined up.
Because the federal government subsidized at least $16,000 for each mile of railroad laid as well as generous land grants along the track, each company had a strong financial incentive to lay track as quickly as possible. http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/immigration/railroads.html
https://library.harvard.edu/collections/
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/gallery/2018/
Locomotive and passengers on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, near Oakland, Maryland, about 1860.
Photograph: Unknown
Early American photography – in pictures G Fri 2 Mar 2018 07.00 GMT
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/gallery/2018/mar/02/
The American West Photographs 1860-1920
Over 30,000 photographs, drawn from the holdings of the Western History and Genealogy Department at Denver Public Library
The Continental Summit, Denver
Louis Charles McClure, photographer, between 1904 and 1913. History of the American West, 1860-1920 http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/oct20.html http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/hawp:@field(NUMBER+@band(codhawp+00071617
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html
Homesteaders poster
Millions of acres. Iowa and Nebraska. Land for sale on 10 years credit by the Burlington & Missouri River R. R. Co. at 6 per ct interest and low prices ... Buffalo. N. Y. Commercial advertiser printing house [1872].
http://memory.loc.gov/ http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/rbpe:@field(DOCID+@lit(rbpe13401300 http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/rbpehtml/pehome.html
A wagon train of American homesteaders moves westward across the open plains, circa 1885.
Photograph: American Stock/Getty Images
Fewer Americans Choose to Move to New Pastures NYT MAY 24, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/25/
The Homestead Act of 1862
President Abraham Lincol signed the Homestead Act on May 20, 1862.
On January 1, 1863, Daniel Freeman made the first claim under the Act, which gave citizens or future citizens up to 160 acres of public land provided they live on it, improve it, and pay a small registration fee.
The Government granted more than 270 million acres of land while the law was in effect.
https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/
https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/
African American Odyssey The African American mosaic
Daniel A. P. Murray Pamphlet Collection Black Ohio from 1850 to 1920
Time Line of African American History 1852-1880
Lynching and Race Riots in the United State 1880-1950
jazz
A Terrible Blot on American Civilization.3424 Lynchings in 33 Years [detail], 1922. An American Time Capsule
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=rbpe&fileName=rbpe20/rbpe208/20803600/rbpe20803600 http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/apr07.html
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/ http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/exhibit/aointro.html http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/intro.html http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aap/aaphome.html http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/ohshtml/aaeohome.html http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aap/timeline.html http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/oct11.html http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/apr07.html https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/jazz http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/till/peopleevents/e_lynch.html https://teachersinstitute.yale.edu/curriculum/units/1979/2/79.02.04.x.html http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aap/aapmob.html http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/05/10/lynching.exhibit/
When Anti-Immigration Meant Keeping Out Black Pioneers
In the 1850s, Midwestern states used harsh laws to deny free African-Americans wealth and property.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/20/
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/20/
Andrew Johnson (1808-1875)
17th president of the United States 1865-1869
Johnson, a Tennessee Unionist and ardent proponent of white supremacy, had hoped to restore a version of the antebellum status quo, with white planters taking the reins of black labor with as little federal intervention as possible.
He quickly brought secessionist states back into the Union and gave ex-Confederates a free hand in directing the South, which they used to impose slavery-like conditions on the formerly enslaved.
He vetoed civil rights bills and condoned racist violence against black Americans seeking equal political rights.
His disregard for the sacrifices of the war put him in fierce conflict with the Radical Republicans in Congress.
Eventually, the House impeached him, and while he wasn’t removed from office — the Senate fell one vote short — Republicans had neutered him as a political force.
Democrats declined to nominate him for re-election, and an openly contemptuous Grant refused to ride with him to the inauguration.
He left Washington in disgrace.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/
https://www.nytimes.com/topic/person/
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/
https://www.npr.org/2019/02/25/
http://www.nytimes.com/1865/05/05/
Scandinavian Immigration late 19th century
Liv Ullmann on THE EMIGRANTS/THE NEW LAND Video Criterion 5 February 2016
THE EMIGRANTS and THE NEW LAND, the incredible pair of films made by Swedish director Jan Troell in the early 1970s, remain two of the most authentic and powerful cinema portrayals of the mid-nineteenth-century wave of emigration from Europe to the United States.
For our release of these films, we were fortunate to have the chance to speak with Ullmann, who recounted her experience making the film.
In the clip below, watch the actor reflect on Troell’s filmmaking genius, as revealed in one the film’s most poignant scenes.
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQ4UvOczjnw
Immigration to the US from the Scandinavian countries of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland increased dramatically in the late 19th century, due to mounting economic pressures and overpopulation.
In the late 1860s, for example, Sweden was struck by crop failures and famines that stimulated massive emigration.
High unemployment and a lack of open land for new farms caused increasing numbers of Norwegians and Danes to emigrate to the US.
The Homestead Act of 1862, which gave free land to settlers who developed it for at least five years, was a particular magnet for Norwegians, Danes, and Swedes.
Facing internal political instability as well as persecution by the Russian government, Finns in large numbers began to emigrate to the US at the beginning of the 20th century. http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/immigration/scandinavian.html
https://library.harvard.edu/collections/
https://www.criterion.com/boxsets/
July 1, 1862
The Pacific Railway Act
signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on July 1, 1862.
This act provided Federal government support for the building of the first transcontinental railroad, which was completed on May 10, 1869. http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/PacificRail.html
https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/
1855
Benjamin Silliman's "Report on Rock Oil, or Petroleum, from Venango County, Pennsylvania" indicates the wide range of useful products that could be made from petroleum.
Silliman's report lends credence to the idea that oil could be a profitable commodity. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/extremeoil/history/1850.html
https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/extremeoil/history/1850.html
March 31, 1854
The Treaty of Kanagawa
Setting the Stage for Japanese-American Relations
https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-documents/
Civil War and Reconstruction 1850-1877
https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/
The Chinese in California
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/07/13/
1848
Seneca Falls Convention in New York
one of the nation’s first organized events for women’s rights.
Back then, about 300 people gathered for the two day convention in upstate New York and more than 100 women and men signed the manifesto, declaring it time for women to claim their rights in society.
One, albeit low down on the list, was the right to vote.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/02/09/
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/02/09/
California Gold Rush 1848-1858
Unidentified prospectors, circa 1860
Lebart continues: ‘I once read a letter written by Samuel Morse after he visited Louis Daguerre in March 1839, in which he described the work of his French colleagues as perfected Rembrandts’
Go for gold! Vintage portraits of California prospectors – in pictures G Fri 16 Feb 2018 07.00 GMT
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2018/feb/16/
The great California gold rush began on January 24, 1848, when James W. Marshall discovered a gold nugget in the American River while constructing a sawmill for John Sutter, a Sacramento agriculturalist.
News of Marshall’s discovery brought thousands of immigrants to California from elsewhere in the United States and from other countries.
The large influx of "'49ers," as the gold prospectors were known, caused California's population to increase dramatically.
In San Francisco, for example, the population grew from 1,000 in 1848 to over 20,000 by 1850.
California's overall population growth was so swift that it was incorporated into the Union as the 31st state in 1850 —just two years after the United States had acquired it from Mexico under the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War. http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/immigration/goldrush.html
An estimated 300,000 people flocked to California between 1848 and 1854, hoping to find their fortune
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2018/feb/16/
https://library.harvard.edu/collections/immigration-united-states-1789-1930 https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/goldrush/ https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/picamer/paGold.html
https://www.loc.gov/collections/
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2018/feb/16/
https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/
Early California History
1847-1848
Discovery of Gold
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cbhtml/cbgold.html http://memory.loc.gov/learn/features/women/women.html http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cbhtml/cbhome.html https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/january-24/
https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/
1846-1847
The United States and California
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cbhtml/cbstates.html
https://www.loc.gov/collections/
May 24, 1844
Samuel F. B. Morse dispatches the first telegraphic message over an experimental line from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/may-24/
https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/may-24/
1843
John C. Frémont
Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains
https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/eyewitness/html.php?section=22
Irish emigrants
The Story of Irish Immigration to America during the 19th century
Ireland’s 1845 Potato Blight
Anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic sentiments
Racial tensions
"Potato crop fails in Ireland sparking the Potato Famine that kills one million and prompts almost 500,000 to immigrate to America in the next five years." http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/features/immig/irish8.html
https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/
1850-1920
Emergence of advertising in America
https://repository.duke.edu/dc/eaa
Manifest Destiny / John L. O'Sullivan 1840's
".... the right of our manifest destiny to over spread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federaltive development of self government entrusted to us.
It is right such as that of the tree to the space of air and the earth suitable for the full expansion of its principle and destiny of growth." (Brinkley 352)
George Armstrong Custer 1839-1876
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Armstrong_Custer https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-west/ https://www.loc.gov/item/2005686078/ https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/june-25/
https://www.npr.org/2015/10/29/
April 21, 1836 Texas The Battle of San Jacinto
(fought) in present-day Houston, Texas, was the decisive battle of the Texas Revolution.
Led by General Samuel Houston, the Texan Army engaged and defeated General Antonio López de Santa Anna's Mexican army in a fight that lasted just 18 minutes. - May 21? 2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_San_Jacinto
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_San_Jacinto
Texas’ war for independence from Mexico
Battle of The Alamo
Texans or Texians, according to some sources, began fighting for independence from Mexico in 1835.
By December the small Texas army had captured the important crossroads town of San Antonio de Bexar and seized the garrison known as the Alamo.
Mexican General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna recaptured the town on March 6, 1836, after a thirteen-day siege; the Mexican army suffered an estimated 600 casualties.
Of the official list of 189 Texan defenders, all were killed.
(...)
The defense of the Alamo is well-known for those who fought for Texas.
David Crockett, James (Jim) Bowie, and William Barret Travis were among those remembered by the "Remember the Alamo" reported to be yelled at the victory at San Jacinto. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/mar06.html
https://www.history.com/topics/mexico/alamo https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/march-06/
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/16/
May 28, 1830
Indian Removal Act
The Indian Removal Act was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830, authorizing the president to grant unsettled lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for Indian lands within existing state borders.
A few tribes went peacefully, but many resisted the relocation policy.
During the fall and winter of 1838 and 1839, the Cherokees were forcibly moved west by the United States government.
Approximately 4,000 Cherokees died on this forced march, which became known as the "Trail of Tears."
https://guides.loc.gov/indian-removal-act
https://guides.loc.gov/indian-removal-act#:
https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racial-justice/2020/06/23/
Andrew Jackson 1767-1845
Seventh President of the United States 1829-1837
The quintessential self-made man, Andrew Jackson, the son of poor Irish immigrants, rose from his humble background to become a national military icon and the 7th President of the United States.
During his terms as president, Jackson confronted some of the defining issues facing a nascent nation still searching for its identity.
By moving beyond the politics and ideologies set in place by the Founding Fathers, Andrew Jackson became one of the most striking, polarizing, and influential figures in American history. http://www.pbs.org/kcet/andrewjackson/alife/
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/ https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-west/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/30/
https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racial-justice/2020/06/23/
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/06/
John Quincy Adams 1767-1848
Sixth President of the United States 1825-1829
In foreign affairs Adams demonstrated a true genius, favoring a measured policy that eschewed foreign entanglements and missionary zeal but advocated a strong military to protect the fledgling nation from the predations of European powers.
As secretary of state under President James Monroe, he deftly negotiated a treaty with Spain that ceded Florida to the United States and relinquished to America any lingering Spanish claims to lands north of latitude 42 degrees.
In exchange, Spain got clear title to Texas and lands south of the 42-degree boundary.
This accomplishment, he confessed to his diary, induced in him a rare feeling of “involuntary exultation.”
He also conceived the audacious diplomatic warning that became known as the Monroe Doctrine.
In domestic matters he fully embraced the philosophy that became the bedrock of Henry Clay’s Whig Party — a strong central government dedicated to federal public works like roads, canals and dams;
a national bank to serve as repository for federal monies;
sale of federal lands in the West and South at high prices to pay for the federal government’s expansive programs;
tariff levels designed to protect domestic manufacturers;
a governmental commitment to the “moral, political and intellectual improvement” of American citizens.
He also became one of the country’s most formidable moral critics of slavery — “the acutest, the astutest, the archest enemy of Southern slavery that ever existed,” as one fierce opponent described him.
Ralph Waldo Emerson speculated that he “must have sulfuric acid in his tea.” http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/books/review/john-quincy-adams-by-fred-kaplan.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/books/review/
The North American Indian by Edward S. Curtis
one of the most significant and controversial representations of traditional American Indian culture ever produced.
Issued in a limited edition from 1907-1930 http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award98/ienhtml/curthome.html - broken URL
https://www.loc.gov/item/2003557114/
American Indians of the Pacific Northwest
https://www.loc.gov/item/2001562057/
American Natives / Indians
Destroying the Native American Cultures
The national atlas of the United States of America
Indian tribes, Cultures
Indian reservations
History of the American West 1860-1920
Bureal [i.e. Burial] of the dead at the battlefield of Wounded Knee S.D.
copyrighted Jan 1st 1891, N.W. Photo Co Chadron Neb. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/hawp:@field(NUMBER%2B@band(codhawp%2B10031292)) http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?10031292%2BX-31292
"When European settlers arrived on the North American continent at the end of the fifteenth century, they encountered diverse Native American cultures —as many as 900,000 inhabitants with over 300 different languages.
These people, whose ancestors crossed the land bridge from Asia in what may be considered the first North American immigration, were virtually destroyed by the subsequent immigration that created the United States." http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/features/immig/native_american.html
Kno-Shr, Kansas Chief (1853) a daguerreotype by John H. Fitzgibbon.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Met Museum Acquires Gilman Trove of Photos By Randy Kennedy, Published: March 17, 2005
The Gilman Paper Company Collection is widely considered to be the most important private photography collection in the world. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/17/arts/design/17gilm.html
https://americanindian.si.edu/
https://www.loc.gov/collections/century-of-lawmaking/
NARA Indians/Native Americans
https://www.archives.gov/research/alic/reference/
1828-1900
Railroad maps of the United States
https://www.loc.gov/collections/
James Madison 1751-1836
Fourth president of the United States 1809-1817
Madison was the rarest of American politicians:
He understood the nitty-gritty of democratic government and was skillful in engineering legislation through the most difficult circumstances, yet always tried to make sense of what he was doing; he wrote some of the most incisive essays on politics that we have.
Not only was hethe major architect of the Constitution, but he was also one of the strongest proponents in American history of the rights of conscience and religious liberty, as well as the co-author of “The Federalist Papers,” surely the most significant work of political theory in American history.
(...)
He worked with Gov. Thomas Jefferson for several months in 1779, and, Madison said, “an intimacy took place” that began a lifelong friendship between the two Virginians.
It became the most important political friendship in American history.
The two men shared a liberal passion not just for toleration but for full religious freedom.
In the mid-1780s Madison shepherded through the Virginia legislature Jefferson’s famous bill neutralizing the state in religious matters.
From this success he went on to engineer the calling of the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and the writing of the Virginia Plan that scuttled the Articles of Confederation and became the working model for the new federal Constitution.
The Confederation had been a league of 13 independent states held together by a treaty not much different from those undergirding the European Union today.
Madison’s 1787 Constitution created a very different kind of national government, not a union of states but a real government that operated directly on individuals. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/books/review/james-madison-by-lynne-cheney.html
http://www.npr.org/2017/03/28/
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/
1826
The Capitol
https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/uscapitol/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
The War of 1812
For two and a half years, Americansfought against the British, Canadian colonists, and native nations.
In the years to come, the War of 1812 would be celebrated in some places and essentially forgotten in others.
But it is a war worth remembering —a struggle that threatened the existence of Canada, then divided the United States so deeply that the nation almost broke apart.
Some of its battles and heroes became legendary, yet its blunders and cowards were just as prominent. http://www.pbs.org/wned/war-of-1812/
The War of 1812 enflamed Andrew Jackson's life-long hatred of the British and rekindled his dreams of military glory.
Though he had already achieved much, it was his military successes in the next five years that captured the imagination of the nation and put him on the path to the presidency. http://www.pbs.org/kcet/andrewjackson/alife/war_hero.html
Mohawk people, from one of the six American Indian nations in the Iroquois Confederacy, have hunted, fished and lived by the St. Lawrence River for hundreds of years.
But after the War of 1812, their sovereign territory known as Akwesasne was bisected in two when the United States and Great Britain drew a line on a map, creating today's northern border between New York state and Canada.
http://www.npr.org/2017/10/28/
https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/1812/ https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/war_1812.html https://blogs.loc.gov/teachers/2012/05/picturing-the-war-of-1812/ https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/june-18/
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/20/
https://www.npr.org/2017/10/28/
The American West (1750 onwards)
The Frontier
https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/
https://www.loc.gov/programs/teachers/
Alexis de Tocqueville 1805-1859
Democracy in America
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Thomas Jefferson 1743-1827
3rd President of the United States 1801-1809
In national lore, no Revolutionary leader except George Washington looms larger than Jefferson.
''People seem to think that if not for Jefferson, we would not be created equal and we wouldn't have inalienable rights,'' said Pauline Maier, a historian at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
But the Declaration was hardly Jefferson's solitary work.
He drafted it as part of a five-man committee.
John Adams and Benjamin Franklin edited his version, and the Continental Congress substantially revised the document (to Jefferson's irritation), excising a fierce condemnation of slavery.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/29/
https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/ https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/jeffwest.html https://www.loc.gov/collections/thomas-jefferson-papers/about-this-collection/ https://www.loc.gov/collections/thomas-jefferson-papers/about-this-collection/ https://founders.archives.gov/ https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/eyewitness/html.php?section=1
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/04/
http://www.npr.org/2017/06/28/
http://www.npr.org/2017/02/20/
http://www.npr.org/2016/07/04/
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/04/
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/02/
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/29/
Thomas Paine 1737-1809
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/jefffed.html
Lewis and Clarke expedition / American Indians 1804-1806
https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/lewisandclark/
https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/lewis-clark/
Alexander Hamilton 1755 or 1757-1804
This Founding Father came to America alone at age 15.
He fought at Washington's side in the Revolution, helped ensure the ratification of the Constitution, and saved the fledgling United States from financial ruin.
He died in a tragic duel with his political rival, Aaron Burr. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/duel/peopleevents/pande06.html
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/
https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/
1803
The Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase is considered the greatest real estate deal in history.
The United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France at a price of $15 million, or approximately four cents an acre.
The ratification of the Louisiana Purchase treaty by the Senate on October 20, 1803, doubled the size of the United States and opened up the continent to its westward expansion. http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Louisiana.html
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/louisiana_res.html
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/louisiana5.html
The Alien and Sedition Acts 1798
The Alien and Sedition Acts were a set of four laws enacted in 1798 that applied restrictions to immigration and speech in the United States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
https://www.archives.gov/
https://www.npr.org/2024/10/19/
December 15, 1791
The new United States of America adopts the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution
Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, the right to a fair and speedy trial –the ringing phrases that inventory some of Americans' most treasured personal freedoms– were not initially part of the U.S. Constitution.
At the Constitutional Convention, the proposal to include a bill of rights was considered and defeated.
The Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution as the first ten amendments on December 15, 1791. http://archives.gov/exhibits/charters/charters_of_freedom_7.html
https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/december-15/ https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbpe.24404400/ http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html http://archives.gov/exhibits/charters/ http://archives.gov/exhibits/charters/charters_of_freedom_7.html http://archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_founding_fathers.html http://myloc.gov/exhibitions/creatingtheus/Pages/default.aspx http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/billofrights.html http://www.archives.gov/national_archives_experience/charters/bill_of_rights.html http://www.archives.gov/national_archives_experience/charters/declaration.html http://www.archives.gov/national_archives_experience/charters/constitution.html
http://www.archives.gov/national_archives_
Benjamin Franklin 1706-1790
Born in Boston on January 17, 1706, young Franklin struck out on his own in 1723, eventually finding employment as a journeyman printer in Philadelphia.
Franklin's newspaper The Pennsylvania Gazette, his Poor Richard's Almanack, and work as an inventor and scientist propelled him to the front ranks of Philadelphia society and made him a well-known figure throughout the American provinces and England.
In 1757, at age fifty-one Franklin began his career as a diplomat and statesman in London where he essentially remained until the outbreak of the American Revolution.
When Franklin returned to Philadelphia in 1775, he served as a delegate to the Continental Congress, where he was instrumental in drafting the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation.
Because of his international experience, Franklin was chosen as one the first ministers to France.
In Paris Franklin reached his peak of fame, becoming the focal point for a cultural Franklin-mania among the French intellectual elite.
Franklin ultimately helped negotiate a cessation of hostilities and a peace treaty that officially ended the Revolutionary War. http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/franklin-intro.html
https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/benjamin-franklin/ https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/franklin/ https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/franklin/loc.html https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/franklin/autobiography.html
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/nov/13/
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/apr/24/
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/apr/12/
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/09/us/
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1967/jan/26/
Timeline > 1789-1930
Key Dates and Landmarks in United States Immigration History
https://library.harvard.edu/collections/
September 29, 1789
An Act for the Establishment of Troops
On September 29, 1789, the final day of its first session, the United States Congress passed “An act to recognize and adapt to the Constitution of the United States, the establishment of the troops raised under the resolves of the United States in Congress assembled.”
The act legalized the existing U.S. Army, a small force inherited from the Continental Congress that had been created under the Articles of Confederation. https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/september-29/
https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/september-29/
Eleven years after the Declaration of Independence announced the birth of the United States, the survival of the young country seemed in doubt.
The War for Independence had been won, but economic depression, social unrest, interstate rivalries, and foreign intrigue appeared to be unraveling the fragile confederation.
In early 1787, Congress called for a special convention of all the states to revise the Articles of Confederation.
On September 17, 1787, after four months of secret meetings, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention emerged from their Philadelphia meeting room with an entirely new plan of government –the U.S. Constitution– that they hoped would ensure the survival of the experiment they had launched in 1776.
They proposed a strong central government made up of three branches:
legislative, executive, and judicial;
each would be perpetually restrained by a sophisticated set of checks and balances.
They reached compromises on the issue of slavery that left its final resolution to future generations.
As for ratification, they devised a procedure that maximized the odds: the Constitution would be enacted when it was ratified by nine, not thirteen, states.
The Framers knew they had not created a perfect plan, but it could be revised.
The Constitution has been amended twenty-seven times and stands today as the longest-lasting written constitution in the world.
On September 17, 1787, two days after the final vote, the delegates signed the engrossed parchment shown in the Rotunda's centerpiece case. http://archives.gov/exhibits/charters/charters_of_freedom_6.html
http://archives.gov/exhibits/charters/charters_of_freedom_6.html
The Federal Convention convened in the State House (Independence Hall) in Philadelphia on May 14, 1787, to revise the Articles of Confederation.
Because the delegations from only two states were at first present, the members adjourned from day to day until a quorum of seven states was obtained on May 25.
Through discussion and debate it became clear by mid-June that, rather than amend the existing Articles, the Convention would draft an entirely new frame of government.
All through the summer, in closed sessions, the delegates debated, and redrafted the articles of the new Constitution.
Among the chief points at issue were how much power to allow the central government, how many representatives in Congress to allow each state, and how these representatives should be elected--directly by the people or by the state legislators.
The work of many minds, the Constitution stands as a model of cooperative statesmanship and the art of compromise. http://archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs
The Founding Fathers Delegates to the Constitutional Convention
On February 21, 1787, the Continental Congress resolved that:
...it is expedient that on the second Monday in May next a Convention of delegates who shall have been appointed by the several States be held at Philladelphia for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation...
The original states, except Rhode Island, collectively appointed 70 individuals to the Constitutional Convention, but a number did not accept or could not attend.
Those who did not attend included Richard Henry Lee, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Samuel Adams and, John Hancock.
In all, 55 delegates attended the Constitutional Convention sessions, but only 39 actually signed the Constitution.
The delegates ranged in age from Jonathan Dayton, aged 26, to Benjamin Franklin, aged 81, who was so infirm that he had to be carried to sessions in a sedan chair. http://archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_founding_fathers.html
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs
July 6, 1785
The United States Dollar
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_dollar
John Adams
Audience with King George III 1785
On July 4, 1776, John Adams, delegate to the Continental Congress from Massachusetts, voted to adopt the Declaration of Independence, proclaiming the British King unfit to be ruler of a free people.
The King had proclaimed the rebellious colonists to be traitors.
Could Adams possibly have imagined that, after eight years of warfare, he would stand before that same King, as a respected diplomat on the world stage, presenting his credentials as the first United States Minister Plenipotentiary to Britain?
On June 1, 1785, King George formally received John Adams, representative of the fledgling nation that had dealt the British Empire a bitter defeat.
The meeting, as Adams recounted in this official account, was marked by the pomp and ceremony required by the occasion of a royal audience.
But beneath the pageantry, Adams described a strong undercurrent of emotion as the King and his former subject —who once reviled each other as bitter enemies— met face to face, as statesmen. https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/eyewitness/html.php?section=19
https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/eyewitness/html.php?section=19
https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/
Religion and the American Revolution
Religion played a major role in the American Revolution by offering a moral sanction for opposition to the British --an assurance to the average American that revolution was justified in the sight of God.
As a recent scholar has observed, "by turning colonial resistance into a righteous cause, and by crying the message to all ranks in all parts of the colonies, ministers did the work of secular radicalism and did it better."
Ministers served the American cause in many capacities during the Revolution: as military chaplains, as penmen for committees of correspondence, and as members of state legislatures, constitutional conventions and the national Congress.
Some even took up arms, leading Continental troops in battle.
The Revolution split some denominations, notably the Church of England, whose ministers were bound by oath to support the King, and the Quakers, who were traditionally pacifists.
Religious practice suffered in certain places because of the absence of ministers and the destruction of churches, but in other areas, religion flourished.
The Revolution strengthened millennialist strains in American theology.
At the beginning of the war some ministers were persuaded that, with God's help, America might become "the principal Seat of the glorious Kingdom which Christ shall erect upon Earth in the latter Days."
Victory over the British was taken as a sign of God's partiality for America and stimulated an outpouring of millennialist expectations --the conviction that Christ would rule on earth for 1,000 years.
This attitude combined with a groundswel of secular optimism about the future of America to create the buoyant mood of the new nation that became so evident after Jefferson assumed the presidency in 1801. https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel03.html
https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel03.html
John Bull and Uncle Sam
Four centuries of British-American relations
https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/british/
1776
Virginia's colonial legislature - the first to adopt a Bill of Rights
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Declaration_of_Rights
Gen. George Washington
A Threat of Bioterrorism 1775
Bioterrorism was among the many concerns that occupied Gen. George Washington in the winter of 1775, six months after taking command of the ragtag American forces in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The years of the American Revolution coincided nearly perfectly with a smallpox epidemic that spanned the North American continent claiming more than 130,000 lives from 1775 to 1782.
And Washington had reason to believe that the British were waging germ warfare by deliberately infectingAmerican troops with the highly contagious and deadly smallpox virus.
Washington knew firsthand the misery of the disease having survived a smallpox infection years earlier; he was well aware that a smallpox epidemic would ravage his fledgling armies.
It is impossible to know with certainty whether the British practiced germ warfare against the Americans or not.
However, a series of letters from Washington to Congress written in December 1775 reveal that the threat of biological warfare was sufficiently real in his mind to merit mention in his official reports.
First, his fears were based on a report that he heard and then fuelled by what he saw with his own eyes. https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/eyewitness/html.php?section=4
https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/eyewitness/html.php?section=4
Immigration to the United States 1789-1930
is a web-based collection of historical materials from Harvard's libraries, archives, and museums that documents voluntary immigration to the United States from the signing of the Constitution to the onset of the Great Depression.
Concentrating heavily on the 19th century, Immigration to the US includes over 400,000 pages from more than 2,200 books, pamphlets, and serials, over 9,600 pages from manuscript and archival collections, and more than 7,800 photographs.
By incorporating diaries, biographies, and other writings capturing diverse experiences, the collected material provides a window into the lives of ordinary immigrants. http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/immigration/
https://library.harvard.edu/collections/
George Washington 1732-1799
First President of the United States 1789-1797
In 1789, Washington became the first president of the United States, a planter president who used and sanctioned black slavery.
Washington needed slave labor to maintain his wealth, his lifestyle and his reputation.
As he aged, Washington flirted with attempts to extricate himself from the murderous institution — “to get quit of Negroes,” as he famously wrote in 1778.
But he never did.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gwhtml/gwhome.html http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gwhtml/gwtime.html https://founders.archives.gov/
https://www.npr.org/2019/01/09/
https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/02/04/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/19/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/27/
http://www.npr.org/2016/10/16/
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/03/
The Constitution of the United States
Drafts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
The Pledge of Allegiance 1892
"Old Glory" June 14, 1777
"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
"Resolved, that the Flag of the thirteen United States shall be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the Union be thirteen stars, white on a blue field, representing a new constellation."
June 14, 1777,
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/jun14.html
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/dec28.html
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/sep13.html
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/sep13.html#starspangled
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/tri005.html
History of the American Flag
On June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress passed an act establishing an official flag for the new nation.
The resolution stated: “Resolved, that the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation." http://www.pbs.org/a-capitol-fourth/history/old-glory/
https://www.pbs.org/a-capitol-fourth/history/old-glory/
Declaring independence 1776-1777
The Battle of Trenton
The Declaration of Independence 1776
Drafted by Thomas Jefferson between June 11 and June 28, 1776, the Declaration of Independence is at once the nation's most cherished symbol of liberty and Jefferson's most enduring monument.
Here, in exalted and unforgettable phrases, Jefferson expressed the convictions in the minds and hearts of the American people.
The political philosophy of the Declaration was not new;
its ideals of individual liberty had already been expressed by John Locke and the Continental philosophers.
What Jefferson did was to summarize this philosophy in "self-evident truths" and set forth a list of grievances against the King in order to justify before the world the breaking of ties between the colonies and the mother country. http://archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration.html
"When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. " http://www.usembassy.de/usa/etexts/democrac/1.htm
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/jeffdec.html http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/declara/declara1.html http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/declara/declara2.html http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/apr12.html
http://myloc.gov/Exhibitions/creatingtheus/ http://archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration.html http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/picamer/paRevol.html http://archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration.html http://myloc.gov/exhibitions/creatingtheus/Pages/default.aspx http://archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_signers_gallery.html https://www.nytimes.com/topic/subject/independence-day-us-july-4
http://www.npr.org/2016/07/04/
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/04/
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/24/
The American War of Independence
The American Revolution 1775-1783
The Minutemen
Independence Day
George Washington
The American War for Independence established a nation based on a revolutionary idea: self-rule and the inalienable rights of all its citizens.
It was a war for the people, establishing the rights of rich and poor, high born and low.
It was a war of the people, fought by old and young, black and white, men and women.
From Lexington and Concord to Yorktown, from Valley Forge to the swamps of the Carolinas, it demanded that America's citizens sacrifice and see themselves as citizens of a country, not a colony.
After the Treaty of Paris ended the war and permanently threw off the shackles of colonialism, the new nation wrote a constitution that would embody its lofty ideals.
The United States struggled to distribute powers between its three branches of government, to write just laws, to collect taxes, to defend itself, and to balance a strong centralized government with individual liberty and the rights of states.
Immigrants continued to stream in, and the nation expanded;
with the stroke of a pen, Thomas Jefferson made the Louisiana Purchase and doubled the size of the nation, ensuring "an empire for liberty." http://www.pbs.org/wnet/historyofus/web02/index.html
https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/historyofus/web02/index.html https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/july-04/ https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/july-13/ https://www.loc.gov/collections/george-washington-papers/about-this-collection/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/state/empire/rebels_redcoats_02.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/sceptred_isle/page/124.shtml?question=124
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jul/05/
Britain and America's war for independence
From 1774 to 1781, Delegates from the 13 colonies located along the eastern seaboard of British North America met in the First Continental Congress (1774) and the Second Continental Congress (1775–1781) to declare their independence from England, manage the Revolutionary War, and set the groundwork for what would become a new nation.
Following the ratification of the Articles of Confederation, which created a limited central governing structure, Delegates from the states met in the Confederation Congress (1781–1789) to chart a path forward with their newfound freedom.
When the Articles of Confederation proved unable to meet the needs of the young country, states sent Delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 to draft a new, stronger governing document, creating the United States of America and its federal legislature, including the House of Representatives.
https://history.house.gov/People/
https://www.history.com/topics/
https://www.archives.gov/research/
https://history.house.gov/People/
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/help/constRedir.html
https://www.loc.gov/collections/
1773
Boston Tea Party
To teach the rebellious colonists a lesson and to show them who was boss, George III sent soldiers to America and imposed new taxes, including a tax on tea - The Tea Tax.
So in 1773, in Boston, Massachusetts, some people decided to show King George what they thought of that tax.
They disguised themselves as Indians, climbed on a ship in Boston harbor, and threw a whole load of good English tea into the ocean
(...)
Americans called it the Boston Tea Party, but the British called it an outrage.
King George was furious.
So, in what became known as the "Intolerable Acts," he and Parliament closed down the Massachusetts legislature and shut the port of Boston, throwing half the citizens out of work.
Unable to fish, people worried that they might starve.
But now the other colonies, which had never paid much attention to one another, started to feel sorry for Boston and angry with the king. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/historyofus/web01/segment3b.html
On Dec. 16, 1773, the Sons of Liberty in Boston, disguised as Mohawks, stole aboard three British ships and tipped 342 chests of good East India Co. tea into the harbor to protest England's unjust taxation policy.
This dumping of tea leaves was the spark that accelerated the Revolutionary War, culminating in the rout of the redcoats and the triumph of red, white and blue.
(...)
The Boston Tea Party was not called by that elegant name till the 1830s.
Initially, it was known simply as "the Destruction of the Tea in Boston."
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/12/15/
https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/historyofus/
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/12/15/
March 5, 1770
Boston Massacre
A fight between soldiers and ropemakers on Friday, March 2, 1770 ignited a series of confrontations that led to the Boston Massacre the following Monday.
Crispus Attucks, a mulatto sailor, ropemaker, and runaway and the first to be killed, was one of a number of seaman and dock workers present.
In his legal defense of the soldiers, future president John Adams called Attucks the leader of "such a rabble of Negroes, &c. as they can collect together."
In his closing argument, he emphasized the roles of Attucks and "a Carr from Ireland" in an attempt to play on anti-black and anti-Irish sentiment.
The middle and upper class patriots who orchestrated the large-scale anti-British actions, and who wrote many of the more than 400 pamphlets that circulated prior to the war -- among them Samuel Adams and James Otis -- had often decried the fighting and destruction of property by mob action.
Yet the outrage generated by the Boston Massacre provided the patriot propagandists with an unparalleled opportunity to unite the colonists in common cause.
Where before they had attempted to distance themselves from the behavior of the laboring classes, they now attempted to shape it.
The men who John Adams described as "the most obscure and inconsiderable that could have been found upon the continent" were suddenly recast as sympathetic figures, as noble men, as fathers and sons.
As many as ten thousand of Boston's sixteen thousand citizens marched in the funeral procession to Faneuil Hall, that included "a long train of carriages belonging to the principal gentry in the town."
In the years that followed, the anniversary of the Boston Massacre was observed in a solemn public ceremony designed to stir revolutionary fervor and promote popular support for independence. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2p25.html
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/mar05.html http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2008661777/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2p25.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/19/
Général de La Fayette 1757-1834
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712-1778
Du Contrat social ou Principes du droit politique 1762
http://abu.cnam.fr/cgi-bin/go?contrat1
The Mason–Dixon line, also called the Mason and Dixon line or Mason's and Dixon's line, is a demarcation line separating four U.S. states, forming part of the borders of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and West Virginia (part of Virginia until 1863).
It was surveyed between 1763 and 1767 by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon in the resolution of a border dispute involving Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware in Colonial America.
The dispute had its origins almost a century earlier in the somewhat confusing proprietary grants by King Charles I to Lord Baltimore (Maryland) and by King Charles II to William Penn (Pennsylvania and Delaware).
The Mason–Dixon line along the southern Pennsylvania border later became informally known as the boundary between the free (Northern) states and the slave (Southern) states.
The Virginia portion was the northern border of the Confederacy.
This usage especially came to prominence during the debate around the Missouri Compromise of 1820, when drawing boundaries between slave and free territory was an issue.
It is still used today in the figurative sense of a line that separates the North and South politically and socially (see Dixie). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason%E2%80%93Dixon_line 1 March 2021
George III
King of Great Britain 1738-1820
r. 1760-1820
George III was the third Hanoverian king of Great Britain.
During his reign, Britain lost its American colonies but emerged as a leading power in Europe.
He suffered from recurrent fits of madness and after 1810, his son acted as regent. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/george_iii_king.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/george_iii_king.shtml
https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3889903.stm http://memory.loc.gov/learn///features/timeline/amrev/shots/address.html http://memory.loc.gov/learn//features/timeline/amrev/shots/responds.html
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/19/
The American Revolution and Its Era:
Maps and Charts of North America and the West Indies 1750-1789
https://www.loc.gov/collections/
The James Madison Papers 1723-1836
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/madison_papers/
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/madison_papers/mjmtime1.html
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/madison_papers/mjmciphers.html
Religion in Eighteenth-Century America
The Emergence of American Evangelism
https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel02.html
French Louisiana / Louis XIV
https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/bnf/bnf0005.html
America Journey through Slavery
March 1, 1692
Salem Witch Trials
https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/march-01/
America as a Religious Refuge: The Seventeenth Century
Religion and the Founding of the American Republic
https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/
Related > Anglonautes > History
20th century > USA > Civil rights
17th, 18th, 19th, 20th century
Related > Anglonautes > Vocapedia > Race relations > USA
Related > Anglonautes > Vocapedia
Related
Correspondence and Other Writings of Six Major Shapers of the United States:
George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams (and family), Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison.
Over 119,000 searchable documents, fully annotated, from the authoritative Founding Fathers Papers projects. https://founders.archives.gov/
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