National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Making It, Making of African American Identity: V. 3
Excerpts from a novel and an interview that illustrate where the success of the civil rights movement left some middle class African Americans. They explore the obstacles the civil rights movement had to overcome and the movement's...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Mutual Benefit, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Four documents establishing black mutual assistance and self-help organizations from the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. A link to each document is provided.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Artists, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
The artwork of four nineteenth-century free blacks expressed in portraits, landscapes, sculpture, and photography. Links to works from Joshua Johnson, Robert Scott Duncanson, Edmonia Lewis, and Augustus Washington are provided.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Soldiers: Making of African American Identity: 1500 1865
Photographs of and letters from black soldiers-both enslaved and free-from the late-eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries that examine military experience for African Americans.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Citizenship, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Public addresses, letters, and narratives about the absence of and the need for citizenship rights for African Americans. Links to resources used to lobby for equal rights are provided at the top of the page.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Emancipation, 1864 1865
Letters and narratives of slaves freed at the end of the Civil War. An interesting look at the confusion and eagerness which confronted these newly freed Americans.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Buying Freedom, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Narratives from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries depicting the struggle by blacks to purchase their own freedom and the impediments they faced.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Emancipation: Civil War Ii: Soldiers
Photographs of and letters from slaves and former slaves who fought for the Union or were forced to fight for the Confederacy during the Civil War.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: W. E. B. Du Bois, Making of African American Identity: V. 2
Chapter in which W. E. B. Du Bois examines the state of African Americans between 1861 and 1872. He reviews the period from 1861 to 1872 as the "dawn of freedom," focusing on the Freedmen's Bureau, its promise, achievements, and doom.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Freedom: Charles W. Chesnutt: African American Identity
Short story that explores the cultural and linguistic resources that sustained African Americans in the first years of freedom. This resource focuses on Charles Chesnutt and the influence he achieved by writing about race for a white...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Reconstruction: African American Identity: 1865 1917
An interview, government reports, two paintings, and a work song that explore the constraints placed upon African American freedom in the late-nineteenth century as a result of reconstruction.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: The Making of African American Identity: Vol. Ii, 1865 1917: Migration
Congressional testimony and a letter that explore late nineteenth-century black migration from the South. Links to both resources are provided within this site.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: The Triumph of Nationalism: House Dividing: America, 1815 1850
A collection of forty-four primary resources including historical documents, literary texts, visual images, and maps, illuminated and contextualized by notes, thematic questions, and text-specific discussion questions for classroom...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Triumph of Nationalism: Culture of the Common Man
A collection of twelve primary resources, primarily from American literature, that addresses questions about how the United States could function as a democracy, and differences between the concepts of the North and the South concerning...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Andrew Jackson: Triumph of Nationalism: America, 1815 1850
A presidential message detailing Jackson's view that the Bank of the U.S. is unconstitutional and is a monopolistic threat to common citizens. A link to this message is provided as well as questions for discussion.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Mark Twain, Triumph of Nationalism: America, 1815 1850
Two chapters from Huckleberry Finn that offer portraits of "ordinary folks" during the Jacksonian era.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Thomas W. Dorr, an Address to the People of Rhode Island, 1834
An 1834 speech that calls citizens to rise up against anti-democratic values in Rhode Island including property requirement to vote.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Mechanics/workers, Triumph of Nationalism: America, 1815 1850
Two statements issued by workers' groups advocating greater equality for all who labor.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Culture of the Common Man: R. Allen & D. Walker
National Humanities Center collection of primary source material includes selection by Richard Allen, Confession of John Joyce, 1808, and excerpts from David Walker's Appeal, 1830. With questions for discussion.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Culture of the Common Man: Nathaniel Hawthorne
Primary source material from Nathaniel Hawthorne's, My Kinsman, Major Molineux, 1831. With questions for discussion.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: James F. Cooper: Triumph of Nationalism: America, 1815 1850
Essays written during the Age of the Common Man from James F. Cooper that question how much democracy can be relied upon as an effective political system. Primary source material and questions for discussion.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Walt Whitman, Triumph of Nationalism: America, 1815 1850
Whitman's poem celebrating the integrity and industry of the masses within a democratic culture.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Cult of Domesticity: Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
Read this mid-nineteenth century short story that raises questions about the roles of women as wives and mothers. Discussion questions are included.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Cult of Domesticity: Caroline Gilman: The Planter's Bride
A Northern author who moves with her husband to South Carolina and reflects in this chapter on the domestic roles of women. Through this text, Caroline Gilman examines one woman's definition of a fulfilling life.