National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Power: Taming the Octopus: The Image of the Octopus
Six versions of the octopus, a pervasive image in late-nineteenth-century America, that illustrate the extensive and corrosive power held by corporations over American political and economic life. Reading guide with discussion questions.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Power: Taming the Octopus: Standard Oil
Excerpt from Ida Tarbell's magazine expose of Standard Oil's manipulation of the American oil industry contrasted with excerpts from John D. Rockefeller's autobiography in which he defends the practices of his company.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Power: Taming the Octopus: The Octopus in the West
A reading guide and discussion questions for Frank Norris' novel, "The Octopus," which outlines the unbridled power of the American railroads.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Pullman Strike, the Gilded and the Gritty: America, 1870 1912
An article that describes the Utopian factory town George Pullman built for his workers, a statement of the grievances that led them to strike against the company, the Pullman Company's response, and an editorial speculating on the...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: "The Slot," the Gilded and the Gritty: America, 1870 1912
A short story by Jack London that examines unrest between capital and labor in early-twentieth century San Francisco.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Power: Taming the Octopus: The Boss and the Reformer
Political boss George Washington Plunkitt explains how big city politics work, and reformer Lincoln Steffens, in an excerpt from The Shame of the Cities, attacks the corruption Plunkitt represents.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Big City Politics, the Gilded and the Gritty: America, 1870 1912
Ash Can School artist John Sloan's painting Election Night captures the exuberance of urban politics in the early-twentieth century, and artist Henry Glitkencamp's illustration Voting Machines suggests its corrupting power. Both pieces...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Taming the Octopus: Social Policy: Social Darwinism vs. Social Gospel
Two Protestant clergymen discuss the morality of wealth: William Graham Sumner defends it and the practices that create it, while Walter Rauschenbusch questions its impact on society and calls for its Christianization.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Power: Taming the Octopus: Theodore Roosevelt, the New Nationalism
Theodore Roosevelt's speech in 1910 arguing for the vigorous involvement of government in American life.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: African Americans, the Gilded and the Gritty: 1870 1912
A speech by Mary Church Terrell, a letter by Booker T. Washington, a letter by W.E.B. DuBois, and the Niagara Movement's Declaration of Principles describe African American civil rights strategies in the early-twentieth century.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Women, the Gilded and the Gritty: America, 1870 1912
Arguments by women for and against the extension of the vote to women. This resource primarily focuses on, "If Men Were Seeking the Franchise," by Jane Addams, used to project domestic values upon government and the state.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Frontier, the Gilded and the Gritty: America, 1870 1912
Arguably the most famous essay every written about the impact of land on American history, Frederick Jackson Turner's "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" explains how Americans' relationship with the environment shaped...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: "Yellow Sky," the Gilded and the Gritty: America, 1870 1912
This resource by the National Humanities Center features a short story, "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky", by Stephen Crane about the closing of the American frontier.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: "Red Men," the Gilded and the Gritty: America, 1870 1912
Photographs of Native Americans and an essay that notes just how assimilated Native Americans had become in Christian America.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Buffalo Bill, the Gilded and the Gritty: America, 1870 1912
A program from the Buffalo Bill Wild West show that depicts the thrills of the American West and illustrates how American influence was spreading beyond the nation's borders.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Manifest Destiny and Beyond: Theodore Roosevelt and the Strenuous Life
Theodore Roosevelt's speech to a Chicago men's club in which he advocates a vigorous and assertive relationship between America and other parts of the world.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: "Burden," the Gilded and the Gritty: America, 1870 1912
This site includes poems and editorials, some of which that praise, others that harshly condemn what Rudyard Kipling asserted was the "White Man's Burden."
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Mark Twain, the Gilded and the Gritty: America, 1870 1912
Two essays by Mark Twain that condemn American foreign expansion and the immorality of imperialism. Includes questions for discussion.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Two Wars, the Gilded and the Gritty: America, 1870 1912
A political cartoon depicting a Union and a Confederate veteran united in support for the Spanish-American War. A painting entitled Twelve-Inch Gun depicting elegant officers and ladies aboard a battle ship, civilizing gentility and the...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Contact, American Beginnings: 1492 1690
Thirty one primary sources including historical documents, literary texts, and visual images from which to explore European reactions to the land and the people of the New World and the Natives' responses to European contact and conquest.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Contact: First Impressions
English, Spanish, and Portuguese maps and letters of about the voyages of Christopher Columbus, John Cabot, and Portuguese explorer, Gaspar Corte Real, which describe impressions of the lands explored.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Response, American Beginnings: 1492 1690
Five literary responses to exploration and discovery-poems, fictional accounts, a play, and journal entries-that reflect European desire, frustration, and enchantment with the New World.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Atlantic Coast, American Beginnings: 1492 1690
Primary resources for U.S. history and literature offer a French and a Norse account of the earliest documented exploration on the Atlantic coast of North America and encounters with native peoples. Includes questions for discussion.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Pacific Coast, American Beginnings: 1492 1690
Primary resources for U.S. history and literature offer two excerpts from the explorations of the Pacific coast by Sir Francis Drake and Vitus Bering as well as maps drawn to reflect those journeys. Includes questions for discussion.