Preface
Why This Book This Way
We are delighted to publish the second edition of Exploring American Histories. Users of the first edition have told us our book gives them and their students opportunities to actively engage with both the narrative of American history and primary sources from that history in a way previously not possible. Our book offers a new kind of U.S. history survey text, one that makes a broad and diverse American history accessible to a new generation of students and instructors interested in a more engaged learning and teaching style. To accomplish this, we carefully weave an unprecedented number of written and visual primary sources, representing a rich assortment of American perspectives, into each chapter. We measure our success as teachers and authors by how well students demonstrate that they understand this rich complexity.
We know that students in the introductory survey course often need help in developing the ability to think critically about sources. Accordingly, in this second edition we have done even more to ensure students can move easily and systematically from working with single and paired sources to tackling a set of documents from multiple perspectives. We have also strengthened our digital tools and instructor resources so faculty have more options for engaging students in active learning and assessing their progress, whether it be with traditional lecture classes, smaller discussion-oriented classes, “flipped” classrooms, or online courses.
A Unique Format That Places Sources at the Heart of the Story
Students learn history most effectively when they read historical narrative in conjunction with primary sources. Sources bring the past to life in ways that narrative alone cannot, while the narrative offers the necessary framework, context, and chronology that documents by themselves do not typically provide. We believe that the most appealing entry to the past starts with individuals and how people in their daily lives connect to larger political, economic, cultural, and international developments. This approach makes history relevant and memorable.
Throughout our teaching experience, the available textbooks left us unsatisfied, compelling us to assign additional books, readers, and documents we found on the Web. However, these supplementary texts raised costs for our students, and too often students had difficulty seeing how the different readings related to one another. Simply remembering what materials to bring to class became unwieldy. So we decided to write our own book that would provide everything we would want to use in class, in one place. Many texts include some documents, but the balance between narrative (too much) and primary sources (too few) was off-kilter, so we carefully crafted the narrative to make room for us to include more documents and integrate them in creative ways that help students make the necessary connections and that spur them to think critically. Exploring American Histories is comprehensive in the essentials of American history, but with a carefully selected amount of detail that is more in tune with what instructors can realistically expect their students to comprehend. Thus, the most innovative aspect of Exploring American Histories, is its format, which provides just the right balance between narrative and primary sources.
Abundant Sources Woven Throughout the Narrative. In Exploring American Histories, we have selected an extensive and varied array of written and visual primary source material—more than 250 sources in all—and we have integrated them at key points as teaching moments within the text. In this second edition we are underscoring the importance of documents by opening each chapter with a facsimile of some portion of a primary source that appears subsequently within the chapter. These “Windows to the Past” are designed to pique students’ curiosity for working with sources.
To help students move seamlessly between narrative and sources, we embed Explore prompts at key junctures in the narrative, which describe what the sources illuminate. Such integration is designed to help students make a firm connection between the narrative of history and the evidence upon which it is built. These documents connect directly with discussions in the narrative and give a real sense of multiple viewpoints that make history come alive. By integrating sources and narrative, we help students engage divergent experiences from the past and give them the skills to think critically about sources and their interpretation. Because of our integrated design, every source flows from the narrative, and each source is clearly cross-referenced within the text so that students can easily incorporate them into their reading as well as reflect on our interpretation.
Progression in Source Work. We are excited to offer a new building-blocks approach to the primary sources. Each chapter contains 8–9 substantial, featured sources—both written and visual—with a distinctive pedagogy aimed at helping students make connections between the documents and the text’s major themes. In every chapter we offer a progression of primary sources that moves from a single source with guiding annotations to paired sources that lead students to understand each source better through comparison, and then to an individual source for students to use to hone their skills. Finally, each chapter culminates with what we call a “Document Project”—a set of interrelated documents that address an important topic or theme related to the chapter. Instructors across the country confirm that with Exploring American Histories we have made teaching the breadth of American history and working with primary sources easier and more rewarding than ever.
Variety of Sources and Perspectives. Because the heart of Exploring American Histories is its primary sources, we carefully selected documents from which students can evaluate the text’s interpretations and construct their own versions of history. These firsthand accounts include maps, engravings, paintings, illustrations, sermons, speeches, translations, letters, diaries, journals, memoirs, newspaper articles, political cartoons, laws, wills, court cases, petitions, advertisements, photographs, and blogs. In selecting documents, we have provided manifold perspectives on critical issues, including both well-known sources and those that are less familiar. In all time periods, some groups of Americans are far better represented in primary sources than others. Those who were wealthy, well educated, and politically powerful produced and preserved many sources about their lives, and their voices are well represented in this textbook. But we have also provided documents by American Indians, enslaved Africans, colonial women, rural residents, immigrants, working people, and young people. Moreover, the lives of those who left few sources of their own can often be illuminated by reading documents written by elites to see what information they yield, intentionally or unintentionally, about less well-documented groups. The questions that we ask about these sources are intended to help students read between the lines or see beyond the main image to uncover new meanings.
In weaving a wide variety of documents into the narrative, we challenge students to consider diverse viewpoints. For example, in chapter 5, students read contradictory testimony and examine an engraving to analyze the events that became known as the Boston Massacre. In chapter 10, they compare the views on Texas independence of an abolitionist and a defender of the Alamo. In chapter 18, students have to reconcile two very different views by a Chinese immigrant and a Supreme Court justice concerning the status of Chinese Americans in the late nineteenth century. In chapter 26, we ask readers to contrast the depiction of the 1960s as a radical time period with a statement proclaiming the creation of a young conservative movement.
Flexibility for Assignments. We recognize from the generous feedback reviewers have offered us that instructors want flexibility in assigning primary sources. Our book easily allows faculty to assign all the documents in a chapter or a subset depending on the activities they have planned. With this range of choices, instructors are free to teach their courses just as they like and to tailor them to their students. Even if not featured on specific course assignments, these sources expose students to the multitude of voices from the past and hammer home the idea that history is not just a story passed on from one person to another but a story rooted in historical evidence. For instructors who value even more options, we make available with the second edition a new companion primary source reader that provides an additional document project for each chapter. This reader, Thinking through Sources for Exploring American Histories, can be packaged with the book at no additional cost to students.
Narrative Approach: Diverse Stories
Recent historical scholarship has transformed our vision of the past, most notably by dramatically increasing the range of people historians study, and thus deepening and complicating traditional understandings of change over time. The new research has focused particularly on gender, race, ethnicity, and class, and historians have produced landmark work in women’s history, African American history, American Indian history, and labor history.
Throughout the narrative we acknowledge recent scholarship by highlighting the theme of diversity and recognizing the American past as a series of interwoven stories made by a great variety of historical actors. We do this within a strong national framework that allows our readers to see how the numerous stories fit together and to understand why they matter. Our approach to diversity also allows us to foreground the role of individual agency as we push readers to consider the many forces that create historical change. Each chapter opens with a pair of American Histories, biographies that showcase individuals who experienced and influenced events in a particular period, and then returns to them throughout the chapter to strengthen the connections and highlight their place in the larger picture. These biographies cover both well-known Americans—such as Daniel Shays, Frederick Douglass, Andrew Carnegie, and Eleanor Roosevelt—and those who never gained fame or fortune—such as the activist Amy Kirby Post, labor organizer Luisa Moreno, and World War II internee Fred Korematsu. Introducing such a broad range of biographical subjects illuminates the many ways that individuals shaped and were shaped by historical events. This strategy also makes visible throughout the text the intersections where history from the top down meets history from the bottom up, and the relationships between social and political histories and economic, cultural, and diplomatic developments.
Helping Students Work with Primary Sources
New to the second edition, we have placed the chapter documents in the following regular progression so that students can increase their confidence and skills in analyzing primary sources through a building-blocks approach:
Each chapter begins with Guided Analysis of a textual or visual source, with a headnote offering historical context and questions in the margins to help students consider a specific phrase or feature and analyze the source as a whole. These targeted questions are intended to guide students in reading and understanding a primary source. A Put It in Context question prompts students to consider the source in terms of the broad themes of the chapter.
Next, each chapter contains Comparative Analysis, a paired set of documents that show contrasting or complementary perspectives on a particular issue. This task marks a step up in difficulty from the previous Guided Analysis by asking students to analyze sources through their similarities and differences. These documents are introduced by a single headnote and are followed by Interpret the Evidence and Put It in Context questions that prompt students to analyze and compare the items and place them in a larger historical framework.
Toward the end of each chapter a Solo Analysis appears, a single document that encourages students to further practice working with sources. In addition to furnishing another perspective to engage with the narrative, it requires students to analyze a source without the guidance of annotations or specific comparisons. This document is accompanied by an informative headnote and concludes with Interpret the Evidence and Put It in Context questions.
Finally, a Document Project at the end of every chapter provides the capstone of our integrated primary-sources approach. Each Document Project brings together four or five documents focused on a critical issue central to that chapter. It is introduced by a brief overview and ends with Interpret the Evidence and Put It in Context questions that ask students to draw conclusions based on what they have learned in the chapter and read or seen in the sources.
We understand that the instructor’s role is crucial in teaching students how to analyze primary-source materials and develop interpretations. Instructors can use the primary sources in many different ways—as in-class discussion prompts, for take-home writing assignments, and even as the basis for exam questions—and also in different combinations with documents throughout or across chapters being compared and contrasted with one another. The instructor’s manual for Exploring American Histories provides a wealth of creative suggestions for using the documents program effectively. As authors of the textbook, we have written a new section, entitled “Teaching American Histories with Documents,” which provides ideas and resources for both new and experienced faculty. It offers basic guidelines for teaching students how to analyze sources critically and suggests ways to integrate selected primary sources into lectures, discussions, small group projects, and writing assignments. We also suggest ideas for linking in-text documents with the opening biographies, maps, and illustrations in a particular chapter and for using the Document Projects to help students understand the entangled histories of the diverse groups that comprise North America and the United States. (See the Versions and Supplements description on pages 000–000 for more information on all the available instructor resources.)
In the second edition, we have also increased support for teaching with documents by providing an expanded Guide to Analyzing Primary Sources. This 2-page checklist at the front of the book gives students a quick and efficient lesson on how to read and analyze sources and what kinds of questions to ask in understanding them. We know that many students find primary sources intimidating. Eighteenth and nineteenth century sources contain spellings and language often difficult for modern students to comprehend. Yet, students also have difficulty with contemporary primary sources because in the digital age of Facebook and Twitter they are exposed to information in tiny fragments and without proper verification. Thus, the expanded checklist will guide students in how to approach documents from any era and what to look for in exploring them.
Helping Students Understand the Narrative
We also know that students need help making sense of their reading. As instructors, all of us have had students complain that they cannot figure out what’s important in the textbooks we assign. For many of our students, especially those just out of high school, their college history survey textbook is likely the most difficult book they have ever encountered. Also, students come to the U.S. history survey with different levels of preparation. We understand the challenges our students face, so in addition to the extensive document program, we have included the following pedagogical features designed to help students get the most from the narrative:
New Learning Objectives in the chapter openers prepare students to read the chapter with clear goals in mind.
Clear chapter overviews and conclusions preview and summarize the chapters to help students identify central developments.
Review and Relate questions help students focus on main themes and concepts presented in each major section of the chapter.
Key terms in boldface highlight important content. All terms are explained in the narrative as well as defined in a glossary at the end of the book.
A full-page Chapter Review lets students review key terms, important concepts, and notable events.
In addition, whenever an instructor assigns the LaunchPad e-book (which is free when bundled with the print book), students get full access to LearningCurve, an online adaptive learning tool that promotes mastery of the book’s content and diagnoses students’ trouble spots. With this adaptive quizzing students accumulate points toward a target score as they go, giving the interaction a game-like feel. Feedback for incorrect responses explains why the answer is incorrect and directs students back to the text to review before they attempt to answer the question again. The end result is a better understanding of the key elements of the text. Instructors who actively assign LearningCurve report their students come to class prepared for discussion and their students enjoy using it. In addition, LearningCurve’s reporting feature allows instructors to quickly diagnose which concepts students in their classes are struggling with so they can adjust lectures and activities accordingly. The LaunchPad ebook with LearningCurve is thus an invaluable asset for instructors who need to support students in all settings, from traditional lectures to hybrid, online, and newer “flipped” classrooms. See “Versions and Supplements” following this preface for more details.
Helping Instructors Teach with Digital Resources for the Classroom
The second edition of Exploring American Histories also offers flexibility in formats, including easy-to-use digital resources that can make an immediate impact in their classrooms. Exploring American Histories is offered in Macmillan’s premier learning platform, LaunchPad, an intuitive, interactive e-book and course space. Ready to assign as is with key assessment resources built into each chapter, instructors can also edit and customize LaunchPad as their imaginations and innovations dictate. Free when packaged with the print text, LaunchPad grants students and teachers access to a wealth of online tools and resources built specifically for our text to enhance reading comprehension and promote in-depth study.
Developed with extensive feedback from history instructors and students, LaunchPad for Exploring American Histories includes the complete narrative of the print book, the companion reader Thinking through Sources for Exploring American Histories, and LearningCurve, an adaptive learning tool that is designed to get students to read before they come to class. With new source-based questions in the test bank and in the LearningCurve and the ability to sort test bank questions by chapter learning objectives, instructors now have more ways to test students on their understanding of sources and narrative in the book.
For the second edition we include other features to enhance active learning, including new Thinking through Sources activities inLaunchPad, which extend and enhance the additional document projects in the companion source reader. Designed to prompt students to build arguments and to practice historical reasoning, these sophisticated auto-graded exercises guide students to assess their understanding of the sources, organize those sources for use in an essay, and draw useful conclusions from them. This unique pedagogy does for skill development what LearningCurve does for content mastery and reading comprehension. This edition also includes Guided Reading Exercises that prompt students to be active readers of the chapter narrative and auto-graded primary source quizzes to test comprehension of written and visual sources. These features, plus additional primary source documents, video sources and tools for making video assignments, map activities, flashcards, and customizable test banks, make LaunchPad a great asset for any instructor who wants to enliven American history for students.
New Coverage and Updates to the Narrative
As a consequence of the constructive feedback we have received from many reviewers, in this second edition we present an even more rounded view of the history of the United States.
Enriched Diversity and Increased Focus on the West. We continue to pay significant attention to African Americans and women throughout the text and provide greater coverage on the histories of American Indians, Hispanic and Latino Americans, and Asian Americans. Also, we have incorporated more about the West, in both primary sources and visuals and in the narrative. As important, we have not confined our discussion of these subjects to a few chapters, but we have placed them throughout the book and integrated them into the narrative and sources. For example, while American Indians were already featured in Volume 1, there is additional attention to Indian-Spanish encounters in chapter 1; more about alliances among Indian nations and with Europeans in chapter 3; additional coverage of Mandan Indians leading up to and in chapter 8, which concludes with a Documents Project on interactions between Indians and the Lewis and Clark expedition; more in-depth coverage of Indian Removal in chapters 9 and 10; and more about Indians in the Civil War era. Furthermore, the coverage of Aztecs, Incas, Mexicans and Mexican-Americans has been updated in Volume 1, especially in chapters 1, 2, 10, and 12. In Volume 2 we have updated the struggles of American Indians in chapter 15, which covers Westward expansion and in chapter 22 on the Great Depression and New Deal. We have also added considerable new material on Native Americans in relationship to Progressivism (chapter 19); World War I (chapter 20); World War II (chapter 23); and the 1950s and 1960s (chapters 25 and 26). Hispanic and Latino Americans and Asian Americans are also featured in these and other chapters in Volume 2 both in additions to the narrative and the presentation of new documentary sources relating to immigration, labor, and politics. For example, Chicana feminism is compared with that of African American women in chapter 27. With the added attention to these groups, the American West now appears prominently in nearly every chapter.
New Written and Visual Sources. The second edition contains more than 250 primary sources for exploration—more than 100 of them new. We are pleased to add new visual sources, including an early world map (chapter 1), the sketch of a slave ship (chapter 3), a seventeenth-century family portrait (chapter 4), engravings of African Americans during the Patriot and British occupations of New York City (chapter 6), a 1792 painting that incorporates women and blacks into the new nation (chapter 8), an 1848 painting of Americans eagerly awaiting news from the war with Mexico (chapter 10), a banner from the 1860 presidential election (chapter 12), contrasting Civil War photographs (chapter 13), a photo of two young women flaunting conventional gender roles (chapter 16), and a anti-imperialist political cartoon (chapter 20).
We have also added important and engaging new print documents. These include, in Volume 1, reports of early Spanish encounters with native people (chapter 1); petitions from indentured servants (chapter 2); Olaudah Equiano on the Middle Passage (chapter 3); a letter from a pioneering female plantation owner (chapter 4); Mary Jemison’s account of Continental soldiers’ attacks on Seneca Indians (chapter 6); women and free blacks petitioning for rights in the new United States (chapter 7); Thomas Jefferson’s response to the Haitian revolution (chapter 8), debates over Texas independence in the 1830s (Chapter 10); Frederick Douglass’ 5th of July speech (Chapter 11); and contentious responses to the Fugitive Slave Law (chapter 12). The new Volume 2 documents include an essay by Ida B. Wells criticizing policies advocated by Booker T. Washington for African-American advancement (chapter 19); a Mexican-American labor union petition to the government to protect exploited workers in the 1930s (chapter 22); a letter from the Roosevelt administration explaining why it would not approve bombing rail lines leading to concentration camps in Germany and an entry from the diary of a Japanese-American interned in the United States (chapter 23); the announcement of the blacklist of Hollywood movie personnel suspected of membership in communist organizations (chapter 24); and the manifesto of the American Indians who took over Alcatraz Island in protest of government policies (Chapter 26).
Other primary sources that are new to the second edition appear in the 7 new Document Projects. New Document Projects in Volume 1 cover encounters between Spanish explorers and native peoples (chapter 1); the development of slavery and the rise of tobacco (chapter 3); arguments for and against the adoption of the national Constitution (chapter 7); and relations between the Lewis and Clark expedition and the Indian nations it encountered (chapter 8). In Volume 2, new Document Projects explore the Supreme Court case of Muller v. Oregon (1908) (chapter19); the cultural significance of the Harlem Renaissance (Chapter 22); and the conflicts between the New Right and its critics beginning in the 1970s (chapter 27).
Updated and Expanded Coverage. We have also absorbed the most recent scholarship to ensure that the most useful and accurate textbook is placed in the hands of students. In addition to the new material on American Indians, Hispanic/
Adjustments to Chapter Organization and Focus. Based on reviewers’ comments, we also reframed and re-organized several chapters. Chapter 7 is more clearly focused around the ways that competing ideas and interests required compromises to ensure the stability of the new nation. Chapter 8 focuses on the development of “American” identities among diverse groups living in or on the margins of the United States in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Chapters 24 and 25 have been extensively reorganized: the former now traces the Cold War from 1945–1960 and the latter contains the origins of the civil rights movement and its development from 1945–1960, as well as the politics of the Truman and Eisenhower administrations.
The final chapter of a history textbook is necessarily and continuously evolving, and for this edition we have added material on President Obama’s second term; the legalization of same-sex marriage; the formation of the Black Lives Matter movement; the revelations of Edward Snowden concerning the government’s domestic spy apparatus; the clash over restricting immigration from Mexico and Central America as well as refugees from Syria; renewed conflict between the United States and Russia; and the creation of the terroristic organization Islam in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the threat it poses to democratic nations in the West and to moderate Muslims in the Middle East.
Strengthened Attention to Global Affairs. Much of the material we have added both in primary sources and the narrative, underscore the steadily evolving relationship between the United States and the rest of the world. This coverage begins with the early chapters of Volume 1, as the Americas were incorporated into and then became a driving force in major developments in Europe, Africa, and Asia. Once the United States gained its independence, its relations with Britain, France, Haiti, Mexico, China, and especially Africa and the West Indies transformed the nation in dramatic ways. Throughout U.S. history, immigrants from diverse cultures have reshaped the country in vital ways. Increasingly in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the role of the United States in global affairs has transformed the nation and the world economically, culturally, and militarily. Indeed, new technologies, new terrorist threats, environmental disasters, and international trade make it more difficult than ever to understand U.S. history without attention to the wider world. Here, too, we have incorporated multiple perspectives and diverse voices from Hernán Cortés and Gottlieb Mittelberger to Saum Song Bo and Mikhail Gorbachev.
Acknowledgments
We wish to thank the talented scholars and teachers who were kind enough to give their time and knowledge to help us with our revision, as well as those who provided advice in preparation for the first edition. Historians who provided special insight for the second edition include the following:
Daniel Allen, Trinity Valley Community College
Leann Almquist, Middle Georgia State University
Rebecca Arnfeld, California State University, Sacramento
David Arnold, Columbia Basin College
Brian Alnutt, Northampton Community College
John Belohlavek, University of South Florida
Jeff Bloodworth, Gannon University
Carl Bon Tempo, University at Albany - SUNY
Martha Jane Brazy, University of South Alabama
Richard Buckelew, Bethune-Cookman University
Timothy Buckner, Troy University
Monica Butler, Seminole State College of Florida
Jacqueline Campbell, Francis Marion University
Amy Canfield, Lewis-Clark State College
Michael Cangemi, Binghamton University
Roger Carpenter, University of Louisiana, Monroe
Keith Chu, Bergen Community College
Remalian Cocar, Georgia Gwinnett College
Lori Coleman, Tunxis Community College
Wilbert E. Corprew, SUNY Broome
Vanessa Crispin-Peralta, Moorpark College
David Cullen, Collin College
Gregory K. Culver, Austin Peay State University
Robert Chris Davis, Lone Star College - Kingwood
Thomas Devine California State University, Northridge
Tom Dicke, Missouri State University
Andy Digh, Mercer University
Gary Donato, Massachusetts Bay Community College
David Dzurec, University of Scranton
Susan Eckelmann, University of Tennessee, Chattanooga
George Edgar, Modesto Junior College
Taulby Edmondson, Virginia Tech
Ashton Ellett, University of Georgia
Keona K. Ervin, University of Missouri
Gabrielle Everett, Jefferson College
Robert Glen Findley, Odessa College
Tiffany Fink, Hardin-Simmons University
Roger Flynn, TriCounty Technical College
Jonathan Foster, Great Basin College
Sarah Franklin, University of North Alabama
Michael Frawley, University of Texas of the Permian Basin
Robert Genter, Nassau Community College
Dana Goodrich, Northwest Vista College
Audrey Grounds, University of South Florida
Abbie Grubb, San Jacinto College - South
Kenneth Grubb, Wharton County Junior College
Ashley Haines, Mt. San Antonio College
Dennis Halpin, Virginia Tech
Hunter Hampton, University of Missouri
Tona Hangen, Worcester State University
Stephen Henderson, William Penn University
Kimberly Hernandez, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Lacey A. Holley-McCann, Columbia State Community College
Creed Hyatt, Lehigh Carbon Community College
Joe Jaynes, Collin College
Stephen Katz, Community College of Philadelphia
Lesley Kauffman, San Jacinto College-Central
Tina M. Kibbe, Lamar University
Melanie Kiechle, Virginia Tech
Stephanie Lamphere, Sierra College
Todd Laugen, Metropolitan State University of Denver
Carolyn J. Lawes, Old Dominion University
John Leazer, Carthage College
Marianne Leeper, Trinity Valley Community College
Alan Lehmann, Blinn College - Brenham
Carole N. Lester, University of Texas at Dallas
Amanda Littauer, Northern Illinois University
Carmen Lopez, Miami Dade College
Robert Lyle, University of North Georgia
Amani Marshall, Georgia State University
Phil Martin, San Jacinto College - South
David Mason, Georgia Gwinnett College
Jason Mead, Johnson University
Robert Miller, California State University, San Marcos
Ricky Moser, Kilgore College
Alison Parker, College at Brockport, SUNY
Craig Pascoe, Georgia College
Linda Pelon, McLennan Community College
Jamie Pietruska, Rutgers University
Sandra Piseno, Clayton State University
Ray Rast, Gonzaga University
Jason Ripper, Everett Community College
Gregory L. Schneider, Emporia State University
Debra Schultz, Kingsborough Community College, CUNY
Scott Seagle, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Donald Seals, Kilgore College
Gregory Shealy, Saint John’s River State College
Cathy Hoult Shewring, Montgomery County Community College
Jill Silos-Rooney, Massachusetts Bay Community College
Beth Slutsky, California State University, Sacramento
Karen Smith, Emporia State University
Suzie Smith, Trinity Valley Community College
Troy Smith, Tennessee Tech University
David Soll, University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire
Gary Sprayberry, Columbus State University
Bethany Stollar, Tennessee State University
Jason Stratton, Bakersfield College
Kristen Streater, Collin College
Joseph Stromberg, San Jacinto College - Central
Sarah Swedberg, Colorado Mesa University
Christopher Thrasher, Calhoun Community College
Jeffrey Trask, Georgia State University
Linda Upham-Bornstein, Plymouth State University
Mark VanDriel, University of South Carolina
Kevin Vanzant, Tennessee State University
Ramon C. Veloso, Palomar College
Morgan Veraluz, Tennessee State University
Melissa Walker, Converse College
William Wantland, Mount Vernon Nazarene University
David Weiland, Collin College
Eddie Weller, San Jacinto College-South
Shane West, Lone Star College-Greenspoint Center
Geoffrey West, San Diego Mesa College
Kenneth B. White, Modesto Junior College
Matt White, Paris Junior College
Anne Will, Skagit Valley College
John P. Williams, Collin College
Zachery R. Williams, University of Akron
Kurt Windisch, University of Georgia
Jonathan Wlasiuk, The Ohio State University
Timothy Wright Shoreline Community College
Timothy L. Wood, Southwest Baptist University
Nancy Beck Young, University of Houston
We are also grateful for those who contributed to the creation of the first edition, upon which this revised edition is built:
Benjamin Allen, South Texas College
Christine Anderson, Xavier University
Uzoamaka Melissa C. Anyiwo, Curry College
Anthony A. Ball, Housatonic Community College
Terry A. Barnhart, Eastern Illinois University
Edwin Benson, North Harford High School
Paul Berk, Christian Brothers University
Deborah L. Blackwell, Texas A&M International University
Thomas Born, Blinn College
Margaret Bramlett, St. Andrews Episcopal High School
Lauren K. Bristow, Collin College
Tsekani Browne, Duquesne University
Jon L. Brudvig, Dickinson State University
Dave Bush, Shasta College
Barbara Calluori, Montclair State University
Julia Schiavone Camacho, The University of Texas at El Paso
Jacqueline Glass Campbell, Francis Marion University
Amy E. Canfield, Lewis-Clark State College
Dominic Carrillo, Grossmont College
Mark R. Cheathem, Cumberland University
Laurel A. Clark, University of Hartford
Myles L. Clowers, San Diego City College
Hamilton Cravens, Iowa State University
Audrey Crawford, Houston Community College
John Crum, University of Delaware
Alex G. Cummins, St. Johns River State College
Susanne Deberry-Cole, Morgan State University
Julian J. DelGaudio, Long Beach City College
Patricia Norred Derr, Kutztown University
John Donoghue, Loyola University Chicago
Timothy Draper, Waubonsee Community College
David Dzurec, University of Scranton
Keith Edgerton, Montana State University Billings
Blake Ellis, Lone Star College
Christine Erickson, Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne
Todd Estes, Oakland University
Gabrielle Everett, Jefferson College
Julie Fairchild, Sinclair Community College
Randy Finley, Georgia Perimeter College
Kirsten Fischer, University of Minnesota
Michelle Fishman-Cross, College of Staten Island
Jeffrey Forret, Lamar University
Kristen Foster, Marquette University
Susan Freeman, Western Michigan University
Nancy Gabin, Purdue University
Kevin Gannon, Grand View University
Benton Gates, Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne
Bruce Geelhoed, Ball State University
Mark Gelfand, Boston College
Jason George, The Bryn Mawr School
Judith A. Giesberg, Villanova University
Sherry Ann Gray, Mid-South Community College
Patrick Griffin, University of Notre Dame
Aaron Gulyas, Mott Community College
Scott Gurman, Northern Illinois University
Melanie Gustafson, University of Vermont
Brian Hart, Del Mar College
Paul Hart, Texas State University
Paul Harvey, University of Colorado Colorado Springs
Woody Holton, University of Richmond
Vilja Hulden, University of Arizona
Colette A. Hyman, Winona State University
Brenda Jackson-Abernathy, Belmont University
Troy R. Johnson, California State University, Long Beach
Shelli Jordan-Zirkle, Shoreline Community College
Jennifer Kelly, The University of Texas at Austin
Kelly Kennington, Auburn University
Andrew E. Kersten, University of Wisconsin–Green Bay
Janilyn M. Kocher, Richland Community College
Max Krochmal, Duke University
Peggy Lambert, Lone Star College
Jennifer R. Lang, Delgado Community College
John S. Leiby, Paradise Valley Community College
Mitchell Lerner, The Ohio State University
Matthew Loayza, Minnesota State University, Mankato
Gabriel J. Loiacono, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh
John F. Lyons, Joliet Junior College
Lorie Maltby, Henderson Community College
Christopher Manning, Loyola University Chicago
Marty D. Matthews, North Carolina State University
Eric Mayer, Victor Valley College
Suzanne K. McCormack, Community College of Rhode Island
David McDaniel, Marquette University
J. Kent McGaughy, Houston Community College, Northwest
Alan McPherson, Howard University
Sarah Hand Meacham, Virginia Commonwealth University
Brian Craig Miller, Emporia State University
Brett Mizelle, California State University, Long Beach
Mark Moser, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Jennifer Murray, Coastal Carolina University
Peter C. Murray, Methodist University
Steven E. Nash, East Tennessee State University
Chris Newman, Elgin Community College
David Noon, University of Alaska Southeast
Richard H. Owens, West Liberty University
David J. Peavler, Towson University
Laura A. Perry, University of Memphis
Wesley Phelps, University of St. Thomas
Merline Pitre, Texas Southern University
Eunice G. Pollack, University of North Texas
Kimberly Porter, University of North Dakota
Cynthia Prescott, University of North Dakota
Gene Preuss, University of Houston
Sandra Pryor, Old Dominion University
Rhonda Ragsdale, Lone Star College
Michaela Reaves, California Lutheran University
Peggy Renner, Glendale Community College
Steven D. Reschly, Truman State University
Barney J. Rickman, Valdosta State University
Pamela Riney-Kehrberg, Iowa State University
Paul Ringel, High Point University
Timothy Roberts, Western Illinois University
Glenn Robins, Georgia Southwestern State University
Alicia E. Rodriquez, California State University, Bakersfield
Mark Roehrs, Lincoln Land Community College
Patricia Roessner, Marple Newtown High School
John G. Roush, St. Petersburg College
James Russell, St. Thomas Aquinas College
Eric Schlereth, The University of Texas at Dallas
Ronald Schultz, University of Wyoming
Stanley K. Schultz, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Sharon Shackelford, Erie Community College
Donald R. Shaffer, American Public University System
David J. Silverman, The George Washington University
Andrea Smalley, Northern Illinois University
Molly Smith, Friends School of Baltimore
David L. Snead, Liberty University
David Snyder, Delaware Valley College
Jodie Steeley, Merced College
Bryan E. Stone, Del Mar College
Emily Straus, SUNY Fredonia
Jean Stuntz, West Texas A&M University
Nikki M. Taylor, University of Cincinnati
Heather Ann Thompson, Temple University
Timothy Thurber, Virginia Commonwealth University
T. J. Tomlin, University of Northern Colorado
Laura Trauth, Community College of Baltimore County–Essex
Russell M. Tremayne, College of Southern Idaho
Laura Tuennerman-Kaplan, California University of Pennsylvania
Vincent Vinikas, The University of Arkansas at Little Rock
David Voelker, University of Wisconsin–Green Bay
Ed Wehrle, Eastern Illinois University
Gregory Wilson, University of Akron
Maria Cristina Zaccarini, Adelphi University
Nancy Zens, Central Oregon Community College
Jean Hansen Zuckweiler, University of Northern Colorado
We also appreciate the help the following scholars, archivists, and students gave us in providing the information we needed at critical points in the writing of this text: Lori Birrell, Leslie Brown, Andrew Buchanan, Gillian Carroll, Susan J. Carroll, Jacqueline Castledine, Derek Chang, Paul Clemens, Dorothy Sue Cobble, Kayo Denda, Jane Coleman-Harbison, Alison Cronk, Elisabeth Eittreim, Phyllis Hunter, Tera Hunter, Molly Inabinett, Kenneth Kvamme, William Link, James Livingston, Julia Livingston, Justin Lorts, Melissa Mead, Gilda Morales, Vicki L. Ruiz, Julia Sandy-Bailey, Susan Schrepfer, Bonnie Smith, Melissa Stein, Margaret Sumner, Camilla Townsend, Jessica Unger, Anne Valk, and Melinda Wallington.
We want to thank Rob Heinrich and Julia Sandy for compiling the document projects for the new companion source reader. They have paid careful attention to locating interesting and varied sources that aptly fit with the themes of the second edition of Exploring American Histories and give instructors and students compelling documents to explore. Jen Jovin at Bedford/
We would particularly like to applaud the many hardworking and creative people at Bedford/
Nancy A. Hewitt and Steven F. Lawson
Exploring American HistoriesPrinted Page xii