An essay question directing students to consider how many different perspectives there are on the incursion and settlement of the American frontier by American colonists and settlers.

In this activity students read two letters (one from Hoover, one from FDR) to determine different political beliefs that guided the presidents in their responses to the Great Depression.

Poster showing horse-drawn ploughing, soldiers on the battlefield, and men in line to purchase Liberty bonds. Copyright H.F. Rawll, 303 Hudson Street, N.Y. City. No. 3608N4

For many years scholars have recognized that late nineteenth-century Durham, North Carolina makes an ideal case study for examining emancipation, industrialization, immigration, and urbanization in the context of the New South. "With its tobacco factories, textile mills, black entrepreneurs, and new college," the historian Syd Nathans observes, "Durham was a hub of enterprise and hope." By the early twentieth century, Durham became renowned for its vibrant entrepreneurial spirit. Both W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington wrote articles for the national press about their visits with members of Durham's African-American community. After his visit in 1910, Booker T. Washington dubbed Durham the "City of Negro Enterprises." The Digital Durham website offers students, teachers, and researchers a range of primary sources with which they can investigate the economic, social, cultural, and political history of a post-bellum southern community. Letters from mothers to daughters, parents to children, and husbands and wives give insight into the domestic lives of some of Durham's elite citizens. Entries from Atlas Rigsbee's general store ledger together with data from the 1880 census provide a view into the social experience of those Durham citizens who have not left written documents. Taken together the new materials on Digital Durham touch on over 600 topics including African American business enterprise, the emergence of textiles, tobacco production and marketing, child labor, prohibition, evangelical revivalism, nineteenth-century medical practices, women's experience of childbirth, and public and private education. The holdings of the website provide access to a wide range of manuscript and printed materials from the 1870s through the 1920s. The site also features a new collection of maps that depict Durham from the late 1860s to the present day. Digital Durham offers its users a selection of manuscript letters taken from the Southgate-Jones family papers and James Southgate papers, accounts from Atlas M. Rigsbee's general store ledger, photographs, ephemera, census data, printed works as well as a rich collection of maps. The site also includes audio postcards created by Duke students in an undergraduate research seminar on the history of Durham and the New South. Additionally, the site includes resources for K-12 educators--a reference section with glossary of terms used in the 1880 census and lesson plans that tie to the North Carolina Standard Course of Study.

In collaboration with two multi-ethnic Filipino families and the Smithsonian Institute Asian Pacific American Center (APAC), resource creators have developed zines that present a personal history of how these families lived in Washington State through oral histories, family trees, interviews, family photographs, and a celebrated family recipe. The zines begin a conversation of how these families' histories connect with larger conversations of identity and belonging — a groundbreaking K-12 curriculum resource on Filipino American history.

The Confederate leaders are portrayed as a band of competing opportunists led by South Carolina governor and secessionist Francis Pickens (far left). The artist criticizes the January 1861 secession of five states from the lower South, following the lead of South Carolina, which had formally declared its independence a month before. Armed with a whip and a pistol, Pickens sits on the back of a young slave, pronouncing, "South Carolina claims to be file leader and general whipper in of the new Confederacy, a special edict! Obey and tremble!" The other leaders are also armed. Pickens's tyranny is met by expressions of self-interest from the other confederates. The nature of these individual interests are conveyed pictorially and in the text. Leaders from Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia sit on bales of cotton, while Florida and Louisiana sit on a wrecked ship's hull and a barrel of sugar respectively. Florida (represented by a bearded man, possibly Stephen R. Mallory, senator and later secretary of the Confederate navy ): "We want it distinctly understood that all the lights on the Coast will be put out, in order to facilitate wrecking business." Alabama (William L. Yancey): "Alabama proclaims that CĚ_Ąotton is King,' and the rest of the Confederacy "must obey" that Sovereign. Mississippi (Jefferson Davis): "We came in, with the understanding that we shall issue bonds to an unlimited extent, with our ancient right of repudiation when they became due." Georgia (Governor Joseph E. Brown): "Georgia must have half the honors, and all the profits, or back she goes to old Pluribus Unum.'" Louisiana (a mustachioed man): "A heavy duty must be levied on foreign sweetening in order to make up for what we have sacrificed in leaving the Union, otherwise we shall be like a PĚ_Ąelican in the wilderness!'" Although Texas, which seceded on February 1, is not represented here, the print probably appeared at the time of the Montgomery convention in early February when the Confederate States of America was formed, but before Jefferson Davis assumed its presidency. Texas did not attend that convention.|Published by Currier & Ives, 152 Nassau St. N.Y.|Title appears as it is written on the item.|Gale, no. 1730.|Weitenkampf, p. 128.|Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1861-6.

Exhibit poster, text only, calling for the extension of veterans benefits to all injured and disabled citizens. Exhibit of the Red Cross Institute for Crippled and Disabled Men and the Red Cross Institute for the Blind.

Three men at left, one saying, "Verily friend Darg since we have returned thee thy money, I claim the reward of $1000 - Brother Barney Corse was merely my agent, verily!" Another "Yea verily I was but thy instrument Brother Hopper as Brother Ruggles here knoweth!" Man at right, brandishing chair and holding bag marked $6908, rails at their impudence and tells them to "get out of the house."|Copyright by H.R. Robinson.|Title appears as it is written on the item.|Forms part of: American cartoon print filing series (Library of Congress)

The cartoonist mocks the opportunism evident in Winfield Scott's endorsement of both the abolitionist cause and the Missouri Compromise. Scott, in military uniform, is seated at a table with a plate of soup before him. He lifts his spoon from the plate and finds in it a kneeling black man, with arms outstretched saying, "Dis poor nigger am like Jonah, when de men would'nt let him stay in de Ship; and de whale would'nt let him stay in de water." Scott observes, "Here's a predicament! first I shall have to swallow this nigger to please the north & then take a compromise emetic and deliver him up to please the south. Faugh! what a dose of Ginger, but I am anxious to serve the country at $25,000 pr Annum so down he goes." Appearing from out of the steam is a Southern planter who remarks, "I should think from the flavor of the Generals last plate of Soup that my darkey had tumbled into it. I've heard of 'Green Turtle' and 'Mock Turtle' but that would be a pretty Strong dish of 'Black Turtle." For the origin of the perennial joke about Scott's "hasty plate of soup," see "Distinguished Military Operations" (no. 1846-15). The style of "A Dish of Black Turtle" is similar to that of John L. Magee's "A Magnificent Offer to a Magnificent Officer" (no. 1852-27), and is probably by the same artist.|For sale No. 2 Spruce St. N.Y.|Probably drawn by John L. Magee.|Pub. by P. Smith [i.e., Nathaniel Currier] N.Y.|Title appears as it is written on the item.|Weitenkampf, p. 109.|Forms part of: American cartoon print filing series (Library of Congress)|Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1852-28.

The satire apparently perceives President Polk's reinstatement of Winfield Scott over Zachary Taylor as commander of U.S. forces in the Mexican War in November 1846 as an attempt to squelch the extreme personal popularity won by Taylor through dazzling early victories at Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, and Monterey. Scott (center) is shown emptying a large tureen of soup onto Taylor, saying "Take that! you're my subordinate!" The "hasty bowl of soup" was a recurring jibe which haunted Scott throughout the rest of his public career. (See also "Battle of Cerro Gordo" and "Battle of Churubusco," nos. 1847-2 and 1847-3.) It originated in Scott's opening comment in a May 25, 1846, letter to Secretary of War William L. Marcy protesting his removal as commander, "Your letter of this date, received at about 6 p.m., as I sat down to take a hasty plate of soup . . ." Here Scott is urged on by Polk (right), who says, "That's right Scott, we must Smother him [i.e., Taylor]!" Scott asks Taylor, "Where were you when I was ordering my hasty plate of Soup?" Taylor, in his customary wide-brimmed hat and simple civilian coat, is in marked contrast to the elegantly uniformed Scott. As a troop of soldiers at attention looks on, Taylor bears the indignity, responding, "Please your Excellency and Commander in Chief I was at the Pallo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, & Monterey." One of the soldiers adds, punning on Taylor'a name, "Aye Aye, the People will put him right, although he's a Taylor he "leads" to danger and dont "follow" suit." Although unsigned the print is quite close in drawing, if not in political bias, to Edward Williams Clay's pro-Scott "Santa Anna Declining a Hasty Plate of Soup at Cerro Gordo" (no. 1847-4). The similarity between the portraits of Scott in the two prints is especially convincing evidence of Clay's authorship.|Drawn by Edward Williams Clay, 1846 or early 1847.|H.R. Robinson's Lith. 142 Nassau St. N.Y.|Title appears as it is written on the item.|Weitenkampf, p. 94.|Forms part of: American cartoon print filing series (Library of Congress)|Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1846-15.

Highlights from the past and present of the District of Columbia, from the rich online collections of the Library of Congress.

A satire on the Van Buren administration's involvement in New York State politics. Although the precise context of the cartoon is unclear, specific reference is made to Van Buren's alliance with postmaster general and political strategist Amos Kendall against Senator Nathaniel P. Tallmadge, leader of the conservative faction of New York Democrats. In an interior, Kendall (left) and Van Buren are at a table strewn with "discharge" papers. Kendall, seated below a painting of Andrew Jackson titled "Glory," reads the "Globe" newspaper. Van Buren sits below a portrait of "Globe" editor and administration apologist Francis Preston Blair. Van Buren: "So they've nailed that infernal Tallmadge to the counter-Whole hog fellows these eighteen-we must show our gratitude-any room in your concern Amos?" Kendall: "You're right sir we must back up the Albany Boys. Ill send every d--md whig in my department to "Jones" locker. Theres that old superanuated hero Van Ranselaer [i.e., probably, Canal Commissioner Stephen Van Rensselaer] we'll bury him decently and put a "Flagg" [State Comptroller Azariah C. Flagg] over him." Tallmadge watches from behind a curtain, saying "Those fellows can only conceive of mens souls as marketable commodities." Weitenkampf dates the print tentatively 1836, but the artist's rendering of Kendall is clearly based on Charles Fenderich's life portrait, etched by William W. Bannerman and published in the "United States Magazine and Democratic Review" in March 1838. The likeness of Tallmadge also appears to be from a Fenderich portrait copyrighted in 1839.|Printed & published by H.R. Robinson, 52 Cortlandt Street New York.|Title appears as it is written on the item.|Charles Fenderich, no. 2E7 and B2.|Weitenkampf, p. 43-44.|Forms part of: American cartoon print filing series (Library of Congress)|Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1838-2.

This is a three part assignment.  In the first two, students will read and summarize the concept of sovereignty as defined by James Madison in Federalist 46 and John C. Calhoun in the South Carolina Exposition and Protest.  In the third part of the assignment, students will be asked to compare and contrast the main arguments of each document through the lens of Popular Constitutionalism, a concept proposed by Larry Kramer, Dean of the Stanford University School of Law.

A crude nonpartisan satire, parodying all four candidates in the 1860 presidential election. A map of the United States hung on a wall is being torn apart by three of the candidates. Lincoln (far left) and Douglas tear at the western part of the country, as Breckinridge (center) attacks the South. The fourth, John Bell (right), stands on a stool trying to repair the northeastern section with a jar of "Spaldings," a widely marketed glue of the period. Several boxes of this adhesive appear, prominently labeled, at right. "Dividing the National Map" appears to be part of a series of satires by the same artist as "The Undecided Political Prize Fight" and "The Political Quadrille" (nos. 1860-22 and 1860-23).|Title appears as it is written on the item.|Weitenkampf, p. 121. |Wilson, p. 42-43.|Forms part of: American cartoon print filing series (Library of Congress)|Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1860-24.

An illustrated sheet music cover for a comic song, published "for the benefit of the Soldiers Home Fair, Milwaukee, Wis." The cover is adorned with a caricature of an obese Britannia, seated and holding a trident and shield. Printed in almost monochromatic neutral tones, the oval-format illustration imitates classical medallions or reliefs. The work expresses the abiding Northern resentment over British support of the Confederate war effort.|Signatures have evidently been obliterated, judging by the presence of scratching-out in the stone in the lower portion of the oval. |The Library's impression was deposited for copyright on June 28, 1865.|Title appears as it is written on the item.|Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1865-10.

Poster is text only. Text continues: When we think of the horrors of war - when there rises before the mind the awful panorama of the battlefield - the men are not the only pathetic figures. An equal demand has been made on those noble animals who, when guided by a rider's hand, will face the cannon's mouth! They have to fight and suffer together, but there is this difference - the horses are not free agents - they have no exhortations of patriotic duty, no visions of glory and promotion. Title from item.

Poster showing Laurette Taylor hanging a recruiting poster of a soldier with text, "Enlist to-day. He's happy and satisfied, are you?" Caption: Laurette Taylor in "Out There," her new play by J. Hartley Manners. Globe Theatre - now. Forms part of: Willard and Dorothy Straight Collection.

U.S. Marine Corps recruitment poster showing marines firing artillery from the deck of a ship.

Poster showing soldiers, both injured and those helping them, arriving on a shore. Donations large or small but send now while you think of it. Address: 1914 War Society, 28, Duke St., St. James', W. Title from item.