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Department of History, Geography, and Political Science
American History Survey

Introduction
Examination Study Guides
General U.S. History
Early American History
Civil War and Reconstruction
New West, New South, New Nation, 1865-1929		Depression, New Deal, and World War II
The U.S. since 1945
African-American History
U.S. Women's History
Constitutional History of the U.S.

 Introduction

This web page is for students. Almost all undergraduate students at TSU take both parts of the American history survey (HIST 2010 and 2020), and our faculty is committed to ensuring that this is a great experience. Individual faculty members bring their own personalities, interests, and expertise to their classes, but we are also working together to create and offer a history course that is worthwhile, exciting, and meaningful for all students. This page is an expression of that effort.

The most "practical" thing that this page provides is a set of links to study guides for the common midterm and final exams for HIST 2010 and 2020. Most students who visit the site probably go straight to those, and that's very reasonable. Passing exams is obviously important, and the study guides basically reflect what we hope students will know, understand, and think about.

Further down the page, though, you will also find a portal to a larger online world of American history, and we hope you will spend some time there as well. We hope that these links can be at least a small part of your own personal exploration of the past, as well as perhaps resources for your work on assignments in the course.

If you have suggestions for improving this site or the course, please pass these on to your instructor or the head of our academic department. The teaching of the American history survey is by far our largest single responsibility, and we are committed to doing it well.

Examination Study Guides

General U.S. History

  • The American People Textbook Website
    http://wps.ablongman.com/long_nash_apbrief_5
    This companion website for The American People provides online primary sources, quizzes, essay questions, and links for each chapter. See also the link to the companion website for the African American Lives textbook below.
  • History Matters
    http://historymatters.gmu.edu
    This excellent website provides primary source documents on nearly any subject for American history.
  • AMDOCS: Documents for the Study of American History http://history.cc.ukans.edu/carrie/docs/amdocs_index.htm
    This site connects to a full-text electronic library through the University of Kansas and provides links to a wide array of documents arranged chronologically.
  • Digital History
    http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/
    This site includes annotated primary sources on United States, Mexican American, and Native American history, and slavery.
  • The Avalon Project
    http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/avalon.htm
    The Avalon project website, in association with Yale University, offers researchers an interesting way to view and compare a wide variety of historical documents.

  • American Journeys
    http://www.americanjourneys.org/index.asp
    Funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Wisconsin State Historical Society, and National History Day, American Journeys is a website which provides a large collection of primary documents and images about the exploration and settlement of the North American continent.

  • American Memory
    http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amhome.html
    American Memory, in connection with the Library of Congress, offers a tremendous amount of information in the area of American history. The information, in the form of pictures, text, and audio clips, is easily accessed.   

  • American Studies
    http://xroads.virginia.edu
    From the University of Virginia, this site offers many categories of Hypertexts, including full-length autobiographies, slave narratives, and 19th century popular fiction. Other strengths include its Cultural Maps and Museum Exhibits.

  • An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera
    http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/rbpehtml/pehome.html
    An American Time Capsule brings together a great collection of advertisements, leaflets, proclamations, timetables (train schedules for example), and many other printed sources from American history.

  • From Revolution to Reconstruction . . . and what happened afterwards
    http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/D/index.htm
    This user-friendly database, from the University of Goningen, references a number of historical documents ranging from the Magna Carta to President George W. Bush's inaugural speech.

  • The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
    http://www.gilderlehrman.org/
    This website contains a wide range of useful resources that include primary documents, high quality pictures, timelines, detailed maps, and a recommended readings list. The site focuses on instructing students in the proper use of archives, databases, primary and secondary sources, and other history resources. The activities are group-oriented to encourage teamwork.

  • 100 Milestone Documents from the United States National Archives and Records Administration
    http://www.ourdocuments.gov/content.php?page=milestone
    This website is part of the extensive catalog and holdings of the National Archives. These milestone documents include such items as the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation, treaties, Supreme Court decisions, and congressional acts.

  • United States Historical Documents Archive
    http://www.ushda.org
    This site presents material not only by time period but also by topic/subject. Subjects include, but are not limited to, the Federalist Papers, Speeches and Songs, Inaugural and Farewell addresses, the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution.

Early American History

Civil War and Reconstruction

  • Documenting the American South
    http://docsouth.unc.edu/index.html
    This is a database filled with primary documents and images from the colonial period of the South until World War I. With a plethora of first-hand accounts, the site encourages scholars to explore issues from the viewpoint of African Americans, Euro-Americans, women, and men.

     

  • The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War
    http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/
    An innovative site that examines the Civil War era through the historical experiences of two communities in close proximity, one northern and the other southern, told through primary source documents.

     

  • The Freedmen's Bureau Online
    http://www.freedmensbureau.com/
    This site contains records of the Freedmen's Bureau.

New West, New South, New Nation, 1865-1929

Depression, New Deal, and World War II

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library
    http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu
    A user friendly website that provides a treasure trove of primary sources covering the FDR presidency (1933-1945). Maintained by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Marist College, and IBM.


     

  • The New Deal Network
    http://www.newdeal.feri.org
    This website includes photographs, primary documents (letters, newspaper articles, speeches, etc.), and political cartoons that provide insight into the politics, culture, and economy of the 1930s and 1940s.


     

  • The Great Depression and World War II http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/features/timeline/depwwii/depwar.html

    This site features many documents related to the 1930s and 1940s, including information on race relations, reactions to the Great Depression, FDR and the New Deal, photographs of the Dust Bowl, and primary sources about women in WW II industry and Japanese internment.


     

  • After the Day of Infamy: Interviews Following the Attack on Pearl Harbor
    http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/afcphhtml/afcphhome.html
    This website offers approximately twelve hours of contemporary opinions from everyday Americans across the nation concerning the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Included are audio clips that present a candid picture of the political and social ramifications of the impending war, as well as many other postwar issues such as civil rights, and public welfare.

The U.S. since 1945

  • The National Security Archives
    http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/
    This site provides digital images, primary documents, audio/visual releases, and well-written, well-researched essays on a wide variety of topics on post-World War II events.

African-American History

 

 

  • African American Lives Textbook Website
    http://wps.ablongman.com/long_carson_aal_1/
    This companion website for African American Lives provides online primary sources, quizzes, essay questions, and links for each chapter.

  • The African-American Mosaic
    http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/introduction.html
    This site covers nearly 500 years of the black experience in the western hemisphere through books, periodicals, prints, photographs, music, film, and recorded sound. It includes information on colonization, abolition, migrations, and slave narratives collected by the WPA.


     

  • The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship
    http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/exhibit/aointro.html
    This site has gathered together over 200 years of African-American experiences in a collection of material that addresses slavery, abolition, the Civil War, World War I and Postwar Society, and Civil Rights.


     

  • Africans in America: Journey Through Slavery
    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/home.html
    The information on this site is separated into four main sections, The Terrible Transformation: 1450-1750, Revolution: 1750-1805, Brotherly Love: 1791-1831, and Judgment Day: 1831-1865. Each of these four sections contains historical Narrative, a Resource Bank (people, events, and historical documents), and a Teacher's Guide with links to primary documents.


     

  • Civil Rights Oral History Interviews: Spokane, Washington
    http://www.wsulibs.wsu.edu/holland/masc/xcivilrights.html
    From Washington State University, this website focuses on the civil rights movement of the 1960s and features interviews conducted with individuals that had ties to the movement. This site contains many audio clips on such topics as comparing the civil rights movement in Spokane and Alabama, racial prejudice in the 1960s, the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and civil rights demonstrations. Because this site focuses on oral histories in the form of audio clips, Real Player will need to be installed on the computer.


     

  • Freedmen and Southern Society Project: The Black Military Experience
    http://www.history.umd.edu/Freedmen/
    Brought to you by the University of Maryland and grants from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission and the National Endowment for the Humanities, this site has collected some 50,000 plus documents describing the black experience from slavery to the beginning of Reconstruction.

  • From Slavery to Freedom: The African-American Pamphlet Collection, 1824-1909
    http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aapchtml/aapchome.html
    This website offers an excellent source of primary documents representing multiple views of slavery, including abolitionists and those who attempted to justify slavery.


     

  • The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition
    http://www.yale.edu/glc
    Site contains many primary documents pertaining to slavery, slave resistance, and the abolitionist movement.


     

  • Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project
    http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/
    Maintained by Stanford University, this site brings together a great collection of Martin Luther King, Jr. resources in one place. This project presents historical documents on King and the social movements in which he participated.

U.S. Women's History

  • American Civil War Women
    http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/women/cwdocs.html
    Maintained by Duke University, this website grants access to diaries, letters, and photographs and prints that describe the experiences of women during the American Civil War.

  • American Women: A Gateway to Library of Congress Resources for the Study of Women's History and Culture in the United States
    http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/awhhtml/
    Through various types of hyperlinks and full-text searching, one is able to navigate easily through information in the Library's history.

  • The Internet Women's History Sourcebook (North America) http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/women/womensbook.html#North%20America

    This site provides collections of public domain and copy-permitted historical texts by and about women in the United States.


     

  • Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1775-2000
    http://womhist.binghamton.edu/

    This site contains over 1,000 documents, nearly 400 images, and almost 400 links to other websites concerning women's history.


     

  • Documents from the Women's Liberation Movement
    http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/wlm/

    The materials in this on-line archival collection document various aspects of the Women's Liberation Movement in the United States, and focus specifically on the radical origins of this movement during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Constitutional History of the U.S.

  • A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1873
    http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lawhome.html
    This easy-to-navigate site presents records from the Constitutional Congress, the Constitutional Convention, and the 1st through 42nd Congresses: 1771-1873. Not limited to a simple search, one can also search specific titles like the Elliot Records, House Journals, Senate Journals, etc. 

  • Core Documents of U.S. Democracy
    http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/locators/coredocs/
    This easy-to-use website primarily offers Congressional and Presidential Documents.



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