Synopses & Reviews
This popular reader uses both primary and secondary sources to explore social history topics and sharpen students' interpretive skills. Each chapter includes one secondary source essay and several related primary source documents. Chapter introductions tie the readings together and pose questions to consider.
About the Author
Frederick M. Binder is emeritus professor of history at CUNY, College of Staten Island. He received his Ed.D. from Columbia University in 1962 and has been widely published in the areas of early national, social, and intellectual U.S. history. David M. Reimers is emeritus professor of history at New York University. He received his Ph.D. in 1961 from the University of Wisconsin. He has published several articles and books in his research areas, which include immigration and recent U.S. social history.
Table of Contents
I. The Emergence of an Urban, Industrial Society, 1865-1920 1. Reconstruction: Triumphs and Tragedies ESSAY Mark Andrew Huddle, "To Educate a Race" DOCUMENTS A Letter "To My Old Master," c. 1865 The Knights of the White Camelia, 1868 Frederick Douglass Demands the Franchise, c. 1865 2. The Last Frontier ESSAY Jack Chen, "Linking a Continent and a Nation" DOCUMENTS California Must Be All American, 1878 Homesteading in South Dakota in the 1880s (1930) A Montana Cowtown, 1899 3. Indian Schools: "Americanizing" the Native American ESSAY Robert A. Trennert, "Educating Indian Girls at Nonreservation Boarding Schools, 1878-1920" DOCUMENTS Rules for Indian Schools, 1890 A Government Official Describes Indian Race and Culture, 1905 The Cutting of My Long Hair, c. 1885 4. Woman's Sphere: Women's Work ESSAY Bonnie Mitelman, "Rose Schneiderman and the Triangle Fire" DOCUMENTS "Is Not Woman Destined to Conduct the Rising Generation?" 1844 Only Heroic Women Were Doctors Then (1865), 1916 Women's Separate Sphere, 1872 5. Immigrant Life and Labor in an Expanding Economy ESSAY John Radzitowski, "Polish Immigrant Life in Rural Minnesota" DOCUMENTS Struggles of an Irish Immigrant, c. 1913 An Italian Bootblack's Story, 1902 6. The Triumph of Racism ESSAY Keith Weldon Medley, "The Birth of 'Separate but Equal'" DOCUMENTS A United States Senator Defends Lynching, 1907 A Call for Equality, 1905 "I Want to Come North," 1917 7. America Goes to War ESSAY Meirion and Susie Harries, "Building a National Army" DOCUMENTS German-American Loyalty, 1917 Letters from Mennonite Draftees, 1918 Racism and the Army, 1918 II. Modern American Society, 1920-Present 8. Intolerance: A Bitter Legacy of Social Change ESSAY Kevin A. Boyle, "Prosperity and Prejudice in Postwar America" DOCUMENTS The Klan's Fight for Americanism, 1926 Intelligence and Prejudice: One Professor's View, 1923 Congress Debates Immigration Restriction, 1921 9. Morals and Manners in the 1920s ESSAY John D'Emilio and Estelle Friedman, "The Sexual Revolution" DOCUMENTS Happiness in Marriage, 1926 Moving Pictures Evoke Concern, 1922 Prohibition Nonobserved, 1931 10. The Depression Years ESSAY Timothy Egan, "The Worst Hard Time" DOCUMENTS The Okies in California, 1939 Homeless Women Sleep in Chicago Parks, 1931 A Vagrant Civil Engineer, 1932 11. World War II: The Home Front ESSAY William O'Neill, "The People Are Willing" DOCUMENTS Joining the Navy (1939), c. 1991 Shipyard Diary of a Woman Welder (1940s), 1944 Conditions in the Camps (1942-1945), 1948 12. Moving to Suburbia: Dreams and Discontents ESSAY Kenneth Jackson, "The Baby Boom and the Age of the Subdivision" DOCUMENTS The Suburban Blend: African-American Residents Look for a Better Life Out There, 2005 Melting Pot Goes Suburban, 2002 13. The Black Struggle for Equality ESSAY William Doyle, "Crisis in Little Rock" DOCUMENTS Growing Up Black in the South: A Remembrance, 1977 The Southern Manifesto, 1956 Wealth and Income Inequality, 2005 14. The Sixties and Beyond: A Time of Protest ESSAY Terry Anderson, "The Movement and the Sixties Generation" DOCUMENTS Vietnam Veterans Against the War, 1971 A Native American Protest, 1969 15. The Revival of Feminism ESSAY Flora Davis, "Feminism's Second Wave: The Opening Salvos" DOCUMENTS A Woman's Right to Abortion, 1973 President George W. Bush Opposes Abortion, 2002 Working It Out, 2006 16. The New Immigration ESSAY Jennifer Gordon, "The New Immigrant Sweatshops" DOCUMENTS Asian Immigrants in California, 2005 Multiculturalism in the Workplace, 1998