Preface for Instructors

Reading the American Past is a collection of compelling documents that represent political, social, and cultural experiences critical to students’ understanding of the scope and diversity of United States history. Created by people who shaped American history in ways both large and small, these primary sources reveal the views of the authors, the historical context in which they were written, and the major developments and controversies of their era. The documents give depth, breadth, and variety to textbook discussions of important developments in our nation’s past. Organized chapter by chapter to parallel The American Promise: A History of the United States in all its editions — full-length, value, compact, and brief, this wide-ranging set of documents offers teachers many pedagogical choices for discussion, analysis, writing assignments, and examinations. Above all, Reading the American Past seeks to ignite the sparks of historical imagination that every teacher hopes to see in students’ eyes.

Reading a textbook discussion of Columbus’s arrival in the New World, for example, gives students basic, up-to-date information that has been collected, sorted out, and synthesized over the past five hundred years. But reading the words Columbus wrote in his log shortly after he stepped ashore in the Western Hemisphere recaptures as no textbook can that moment of profound, mutual surprise when fifteenth-century Europeans and the people they called Indians first encountered one another. As every historian knows, primary sources bridge the gap from the present, when they are read, to the past, when they were written. They encourage students to venture across that span connecting present and past and to risk discovering a captivating and unexpected world.

FEATURES OF THIS BOOK

Three basic principles guided my selection of documents. First and foremost, the sources highlight major events and significant perspectives of a given historical era. Second, I chose and edited documents to be accessible, interesting, and often surprising to students. Third, I sought sources that lend themselves to analysis in classroom discussion and writing assignments — documents that vividly portray controversies marking a particular historical moment and that offer multiple avenues of interpretation.

User-friendly editorial features help students read and interpret the sources. Introductory headnotes and follow-up questions to aid students’ reading and discussion accompany each document. Unfamiliar words are defined when they are necessary to understand a document. Editorial intrusions have been kept brief, providing just enough information to allow students to explore the sources and make their own discoveries. By minimizing editorial interventions, I hope to encourage students to focus on the documents and to become astonished, perplexed, and invigorated by what they read.

Documents new to the fifth edition. This new edition incorporates the insights and suggestions of teachers who have used Reading the American Past. Guided by their classroom experiences, I have replaced one document per chapter (and two in the last chapter) in order to diversify the historical voices from each era and to give students and teachers fresh choices for investigating major developments.

In all, thirty-two new documents provide greater attention to the global context of American history, as well as offer more coverage of the viewpoints of ordinary Americans — women and men, immigrants and natives, minorities and majorities, workers and bosses. A Native American participant in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 in New Mexico explains why it happened Document 3.5. A woman captured by the Seneca during the Seven Years’ War describes her life in captivity Document 6.1. A South Carolina planter’s wife reports her encounters with slave women on her husband’s rice plantation Document 13.3. A homesteader’s wife describes her new life on the Nebraskan prairie Document 17.2. A suffragist ridicules arguments used by opponents of voting by women Document 21.4. A Vietnam veteran denounces the Vietnam War Document 29.5. And many more.

Diverse perspectives and sources. The documents assembled here provide students a generous cross-section of the diverse experiences that comprise the American past. The reflections of politicians and thieves, generals and privates, reformers and reprobates can be found here, along with those of the nation’s countless ethnic and religious minorities. Barack Obama’s 2010 speech in Cairo Document 31.5 joins classic sources such as John Winthrop’s Arbella sermon Document 4.1, George Washington’s Farewell Address Document 9.5, and George Kennan’s “Long Telegram” Document 26.2, which disclose the perspectives of influential leaders. The no-less-significant views of common people are revealed by such documents as the memoir of an Englishwoman who became an indentured servant in eighteenth-century New York Document 5.1, the letter from a slave to President Thomas Jefferson demanding that the president live up to his criticisms of slavery Document 10.3, twentieth-century letters from American soldiers at war Document 22.3 and Document 25.4, and an interview with a Mexican American migrant farmworker Document 24.4. Diaries and court cases convey the immediacy of history as lived experience. Reminiscences and oral histories illuminate the past with memories of participants. Speeches, manifestos, congressional testimony, and White House tape recordings spotlight the ends and means of political power. Essays, addresses, and passages from books offer the considered opinions of cultural leaders, whether captains of industry, novelists, or social critics.

Classroom flexibility. The selections in Reading the American Past allow instructors to choose documents that best serve their teaching needs. Teachers might, for example, ask students to read documents in preparation for lectures, then refer to the assigned selections as they explain, say, the encounter between Europeans and Native Americans, the tensions that led to the Civil War, or the origins and consequences of the Cold War. An instructor might devote a class to explicating a single source, such as Richard Frethorne’s letter describing his life as an indentured servant at Jamestown, Virginia Document 3.1, or Walter Wyckoff’s observations about socialists and anarchists in 1890s Chicago Document 19.4, or Joseph Stiglitz’s article that blamed the economic meltdown of 2008 on the deregulation of the financial system since the Reagan years Document 31.4.

All the documents are ideally suited for provoking discussions during lecture sessions or in section meetings. Students can be asked to adopt and defend the viewpoint of a given source, to attack it from the perspective of a historical contemporary, to dissect its assumptions and evasions, or to compare and contrast it with other sources. Selections might also be used for quizzes, brief writing assignments, longer papers, or examinations. The documents open these and many other avenues for inspiring students to investigate the American past.

Tips for reading documents. A short introduction for students at the outset of each volume explains the significance of documents for understanding history and outlines the basic questions that students should ask themselves in order to decipher any primary source. It encourages students to consider the historical context, author, date, audience, and language of the sources they are about to read.

Just the right amount of context. A brief paragraph begins each chapter, setting the documents in the larger historical context detailed in the corresponding chapter of the textbook. A headnote precedes every document, identifying its source, explaining when and by whom it was produced, and highlighting why it presents a revealing point of view. Rather than cluttering documents with numerous explanatory notes, I have assumed that students will — and they should — refer to a textbook for basic information about the people and events that appear in the sources, though notes are provided for more obscure words and people.

Thought-provoking questions. To guide students toward key passages and central ideas, “Questions for Reading and Discussion” follow each document. They are intended to help students identify fundamental points, analyze what a document means, and think about its larger historical significance. “Comparative Questions” at the end of each chapter ask students to ponder some of the similarities and differences among the chapter’s documents, and to consider how the ideas, observations, and viewpoints expressed reveal the major historical developments of the time.

To see more clearly along the many angles of historical vision offered by the documents, students rely on the guidance, insight, and wisdom of their teachers. Reading the American Past gives instructors numerous opportunities to entice students to become active collaborators in the study of American history. Ideally, these documents will help persuade students that the American past is neither frozen in time nor entombed in books, but instead shapes their present and prefigures their future. Ideally, they will come to see that they do not simply read American history; they live it.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For help with this edition of Reading the American Past I am indebted to many people, but to none more than the following historians who have shared their professional insights and classroom experiences to suggest ways to make the documents more useful and informative for students and teachers throughout the country: James Barrera, South Texas College; Kevin Brown, Lansing Community College; Tonia M. Compton, Columbia College; Luke E. Harlow, Oakland University; Matthew Harper, University of Central Arkansas; Diana K. Honey, Kennesaw State University; Arlene Lazarowitz, California State University, Long Beach; Matthew Mason, Brigham Young University; Brian Jeffrey Maxson, East Tennessee State University; Suzanne L. McFadden, Austin Community College; Sandy Moats, University of Wisconsin-Parkside; Jeffrey P. Moran, University of Kansas; Maureen Murphy Nutting, North Seattle Community College; Robert O’Brien, Lone Star College-CyFair; Thomas Sabatini, Kent State University at Trumbull; Donald J. Schwegler, SUNY Orange; Jeffrey Smith, Lindenwood University; Judith Spraul-Schmidt, University of Cincinnati; T.J. Tomlin, University of Northern Colorado; and Janet A. Wiita, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

I have also relied, as usual, on my coauthors of The American Promise — James L. Roark, Patricia Cline Cohen, Sarah Stage, and Susan M. Hartmann — for advice and suggestions. Although I have benefited from the support of all of these colleagues, I am nonetheless solely responsible for the final selection of documents and edited passages in this volume.

Many others contributed their energy and creativity to this project. From the outset, Joan Feinberg and Chuck Christensen have enthusiastically supported the publication of a collection of American history documents that aspired to the high standards readers have come to expect from Bedford/St. Martin’s. As always, Mary Dougherty, Bill Lombardo, and Jane Knetzger brought their benevolent and constructive stewardship to the project. Jennifer Jovin combined enthusiasm and good editorial judgment to digest reviewers’ comments and improve this edition throughout. Andrea Cava, Joe Ford, and Linda DeMasi skillfully steered the book through the production process, while Kalina Ingham and Carolyn Evans handled permissions.

Overall, this book represents the constructive efforts of teachers, students, colleagues, editors, and publishers, all enlisted in the common cause of helping students better understand our collective history. I am the grateful beneficiary of their generosity, intelligence, and insight.