This is an affordable two-volume anthology for introductory American history courses in which instructors use primary source materials to supplement the main textbook. A balanced collection, it features readings from a variety of fields of history, including economic, political, cultural, and social. Each volume contains approximately 75 pieces, including traditional political treatises, songs, diaries, orations and speeches, and journals. Chapter introductions accompany the selections.

CHAPTER 1 ~ Toward Distant Horizons

1 ~ Thorvald Goes to Wineland

2 ~ Articles of Agreement, April 17, 1492

3 ~ Sunday, October 21, 1492

4 ~ Literature of Discovery

5 ~ Sir Francis Drake on the California Coast, 1579

6 ~ Spanish Adventurers

CHAPTER 2 ~ Plantation Colonies

1 ~ The Second Charter of Virginia; May 23, 1609

2 ~ Capture of Olaudah Equiano

3 ~ Information Relative to Taking up Land in New Netherland

4 ~ “They Live Well in the Time of their Service”

5 ~ The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, March 1, 1669

6 ~ George Washington and Tobacco

CHAPTER 3 ~ Religious Worlds and Encounters

1 ~ Natives of New England

2 ~ A Model of Christian Charity, 1630

3 ~ The First Thanksgiving Proclamation, June 20, 1676

4 ~ The Dangers Threatening Canada

5 ~ The Selling of Joseph

6 ~ De Anza into California

CHAPTER 4 ~ British North Americans

1 ~ An Account of West Jersey and Pennsylvania, 1698

2 ~ The Duties of Husbands and Wives

3 ~ The North Carolina Biennal Act, 1715

4 ~ Surviving a Spanish Invasion

5 ~ Regulations at Yale College, 1745

6 ~ Indentured Servants

7 ~ A Lottery Scheme

CHAPTER 5 ~ Storm Clouds

1 ~ Treasure by Foreign Trade

2 ~ Bacon's Declaration in the Name of the People, 1676

3 ~ Freedom of the Press

4 ~ Letter to London Merchants

5 ~ Pitt's Speech on the Stamp Act

6 ~ John Adams Defends Captain Preston

CHAPTER 6 ~ Patriots

1 ~ Statue of John Parker

2 ~ George Washington on Raising an Army

3 ~ Deserters

4 ~ To The People of America

5 ~ Recruiting Loyalist Troops

6 ~ Retribution in War

7 ~ Mary Jemison Remembers

CHAPTER 7 ~ Confederacy

1 ~ Original Design of the Great Seal of the United States, 1782

2 ~ The North West Ordinance, 1787

3 ~ A Little Rebellion Now and Then

4 ~ James Bowdoin on Shay's Rebellion

5 ~ Promises to Native Americans

6 ~ Defeating the Indians

7 ~ Political Cartoons

CHAPTER 8 ~ A More Perfect Union

1 ~ Federal Judiciary Act, 1789

2 ~ The Treaty of Holston, July 1791

3 ~ Pestilence in Philadelphia

4 ~ The Education of Women

5 ~ Patent for the Cotton Gin, 1794

6 ~ The Sedition Act

7 ~ Amendment XII

CHAPTER 9 ~ The Empire of Liberty and the Liberty for Empires

1 ~ The Naturalization Act of 1795

2 ~ Jefferson's Secret Message to Congress Regarding Exploration of the West

3 ~ Jeffersons Recommendation to Native Americans

4 ~ The Battle of New Orleans

5 ~ The Missouri Compromise

6 ~ The Monroe Doctrine

CHAPTER 10 ~ Pathways to Progress

1 ~ Laws of Commerce: Gibbons v. Ogden

2 ~ Rochester Population 1812-1865

3 ~ Canal Reminiscences

4 ~ Charles Dickens visits Lowell, Massachusetts

5 ~ Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne, and Chicago Railroad

6 ~ The Camel Corps

CHAPTER 11 ~ Popularizing Democracy

1 ~ Land Law of 1820

2 ~ Massachusetts High School Law, 1827

3 ~ John Quincy Adams Wins the Presidency

4 ~ Electors for Jackson

5 ~ The Great Whig Meeting

6 ~ President Andrew Jackson's Message to Congress "On Indian Removal," 1830

7 ~ South Carolina Nullification

CHAPTER 12 ~ Of Power and Pillars

Southern Population, 1860

A Plantation Layout

John Crawford Remembers

Frederick Douglass Awakens

John Floyd and Slavery in Virginia

The Amistad and Justice

Teaching Slave Children to Read

CHAPTER 13 ~ Lone and Assembled Stars

1 ~ Report on Fort Atkinson

2 ~ Being Young in Frontier Iowa

3 ~ Whaling the World

4 ~ Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 1848

5 ~ Sarah Sprenger Remembers Oregon, 1852

6 ~ The Wild West: Vigilantes in San Francisco

CHAPTER 14 ~ Purity

1 ~ The Second Great Awakening

2 ~ The Best Protector Any Woman Can Have

3 ~ Resolutions at Seneca Falls

4 ~ Anti-Colonization

5 ~ The Brook-Farm Constitution

6 ~ The Know-Nothing Platform, 1856

CHAPTER 15 ~ Bleeding Kansas

1 ~ Resolutions of the Nashville Convention

2 ~ Organizing the Territories

3 ~ Bleeding Kansas

4 ~ In Defense of Honor

5 ~ Dred Scotts Case

6 ~ John Brown's Final Address to the Court

CHAPTER 16 ~ His Terrible Swift Sword – the Civil War

1 ~ Declaration of Causes

2 ~ A Dairy from Dixie

3 ~ Lincolns Orders

4 ~ New Jersey Recruitment Poster

5 ~ General Uuysses S. Grant to President Abraham Lincoln

6 ~ The Battle Hymn of the Republic

7 ~ Robert E. Lee, General Order, No. 9