After their arrival, the Puritan migrants to Massachusetts Bay quickly dispersed into a series of settlements around Boston and then moved inland. Colonists formed clustered towns where they could secure land for their families and churches for their worship. One such community was Concord, Massachusetts, founded by Simon Willard, a fur trader with the local Indians. In his history of New England, entitled The Wonder-Working Providence, woodworker and local historian Edward Johnson recorded an account "of the manner how they placed downe their dwellings in this Desart Wildernesse." Johnson emphasized the providential (God-given) nature of the Puritan mission, one that saw the eastern woodlands, a region that the English and Indians shared in the first decades of settlement, as a wilderness.

In 1981, the U.S. medical community noticed a significant number of gay men living in urban areas with rare forms of pneumonia, cancer, and lymph disorders. The cluster of ailments was initially dubbed Gay-Related Immune Disease (GRID), but when similar illnesses increased in other groups, the name changed to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). The mid-1980s saw a number of advances toward understanding and treating the disease, but no vaccine or cure was forthcoming. Gay advocacy and community-based organizations began providing services and pressuring government to increase funding for finding a cure and helping victims. In the following 1983 testimony before a congressional committee, three representatives of social service organizations sharply criticized the Reagan administration's limited response to the AIDS crisis, advocated increased federal funding, and warned that AIDS was a societal "time bomb" likely to have grave consequences beyond the gay community. In 1995 AIDS became the leading cause of death for Americans aged 25 to 44. By mid-2002, while the annual rate of new HIV cases dropped in the U.S. to 40,000 (from a 1980s high of 150,000), more than 20 million people worldwide had died from the disease, and 40 million were living with HIV.

Charles Ball was born a slave around 1785 in Calvert County, Maryland. When he was four years old, his family was broken up by the sale of his mother. As a young man he was separated from his wife and children and sold to a slave trader. The journey described here occurred after that sale. Ball carefully observed his route and later used that knowledge to escape from a South Carolina cotton plantation and return to his family in Maryland. After his escape, Ball lived as a free man in Maryland and Washington, D.C. When his wife died, he remarried, established a new family, and farmed his own property near Baltimore. This period of happiness, however, did not last. Ball and his family were captured, separated, and dragged back into slavery. Although Ball managed to escape again, his family did not. He dictated this memoir while living in Philadelphia, free, but still fearful of recapture.

The movement between 1916 and 1921 of a half million African Americans from the South to cities in the North and West was known as the Great Migration. Black migrants told their stories in many forms from letters to poems to paintings. Music offered one of the most original forms in which the migration narrative was told."Times Is Gettin Harder" (a 1940 recording of an older blues tune by Lucious Curtis) described various incidents from racial injustice to economic hardship that prompted one man's journey away from the land of "cotton and corn."

The 1883 adoption of four standard time zones did not come easily. Many Americans, particularly those who continued to mark the passage of time by the natural rhythms of the sun, resisted the efforts of railroad officials and scientists to impose standard time on the nation. William F. Allen, the first secretary of the railroad companies' General Time Convention (GTC), wrote and spoke tirelessly in his efforts to secure time standardization. To minimize opposition, the GTC's proposed new time zones deviated very little from existing norms: most changes were kept to half an hour or less. Sunday, November 18, 1883--known as the "day of two noons" because people were required to stop what they were doing and reset their clocks anywhere from two to thirty minutes--was remarkably orderly. This New York Times article described the scene in the nation's largest city. Local and state laws soon ratified the new standard, but as late as 1915, citizen challenges to the time standard were still being considered by the courts.

This 1921 cartoon from the Chicago Tribune newspaper prescribes good old fashioned hard work" as the cure for the 1920-21 economic depression. While this artist attributed unemployment to lack of motivation

The "Monroe Doctrine" of 1823 warned European powers to stay out of Latin America, including Central America, which had a particular importance to the United States because of its proximity. By the early 20th century, U.S. companies dominated the economies of Central American republics, including Nicaragua, controlling most of the banana production, railroads, port facilities, mines, and banking institutions. The United States intervened in Nicaragua repeatedly to protect U.S. economic interests. In 1912 U.S. marines landed once again to maintain a pro-American government; this occupation lasted until 1925. Augusto Csar Sandino, a nationalist and leader of Nicaraguan peasants and workers, refused to accept the U.S.-sponsored peace treaty that kept U.S. influence and economic power intact. He organized an army of peasants, workers, and Indians to resist thousands of U.S. marines and the U.S.-trained Nicaraguan National Guard. Sandino's 1933 proclamation called upon all the nations of Central America to oppose U.S. imperialism. From 1927 to 1933 Sandino waged a successful guerrilla war against the United States with support from Mexican and other Latin American anti-imperialists.

In 1966, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale formed the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in Oakland, California, taking their identifying symbol from an earlier all-black voting rights group in Alabama, the Lowndes County Freedom Organization. Two years later, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover called the Black Panthers "the greatest threat to the internal security of the United States." Created, in Newton's words, "to serve the needs of the oppressed people in our communities and defend them against their oppressors," the Panthers patrolled black areas of Oakland with visible, loaded firearms--at the time in accordance with the law--to monitor police actions involving blacks. The organization spread throughout Northern California in the form of small neighborhood groups. They came to national prominence in May 1967, when they arrived armed at the California State legislature in Sacramento to protest a bill banning loaded guns in public places. In October 1967, Newton was wounded in a gun battle with police and charged with killing an officer. His three-year incarceration became a cause celebre for many young African Americans, and chapters of the Party rapidly opened throughout the country. The Panthers initiated community social programs, such as free breakfasts for children, issued a newspaper, and trained recruits with guns, lawbooks, and texts advocating world revolution. In the following years, police and FBI agents arrested more than 2,000 members in raids on Panther offices that resulted in a number of deaths. Although the Panthers became involved in electoral politics in the 1970s, the Party died out by the end of the decade due to repression and internal strife. The following 10-Point Platform and Program, culminating with the opening paragraphs of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, was issued in October 1966.

The issue of protective legislation for women and mothers has divided reformers, labor unionists, legislators, courts, the military, and feminists since the end of the 19th century when a number of states passed statutes to limit women's work hours. At issue--equal treatment versus biological difference. During the Cold War era, this question informed the debate on the role of women in the military. Although the Women's Armed Services Integration Act of 1948 established a permanent presence for women in all branches of the armed forces, a new Army regulation in October 1949 required the discharge of female servicewomen with children under the age of 18. To guarantee passage of the Armed Forces Reserve Act of 1952, during the Korean War, a provision was dropped that would have reversed this regulation. Thus mothers of dependent children were ineligible to enlist in reserve units and were discharged after childbirth or adoption. In the following Congressional session, the Senate passed S. 1492, allowing the reinstatement of women with dependent children. The bill, however, died in the House Committee on Armed Services and failed to become law. In the following testimony to the Senate subcommittee on S. 1492, Alba C. Thompson, a former servicewoman, pointed out that the present policy discriminated unjustly against women with children and entailed a squandering of valuable resources. Furthermore, she argued, the army had no right "to dictate the terms of motherhood." In the 1970s, Congress finally passed a law that allowed women with dependent children to enlist.

In the following interview, Pete Tijerina, the first executive director of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), discussed the origins of the organization. A trial lawyer with experience handling discrimination cases and encouraging organized political participation among Mexican Americans, Tijerina had been a State Civil Rights Chairman for the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), an organization he joined in 1946. Because his efforts with LULAC were limited by funding and the demand for aid to individuals in localized cases, Tijerina and others realized the need for broad legal precedents to successfully erase widespread discriminatory practices and implement social and economic changes. MALDEF, with a $2.2 million grant in 1968 from the Ford Foundation (including $250,000 for the education of Mexican American lawyers), was set up initially in five southwestern states. It was patterned after the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), formed in 1940 by Thurgood Marshall to pursue initiatives in the courts to gain opportunities long denied to African Americans. MALDEF successfully argued in court for inclusion of Mexican Americans on Texas juries, integration of schools, bilingual and bicultural educational programs, equal opportunity in employment, and amendments to the Voting Rights Act.

This collection uses primary sources to explore Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

In 1937, the Supreme Court reversed a position taken in 1923 that a state minimum wage law was unconstitutional. The following year, the Fair Labor Standards Act was signed into law outlawing child labor and guaranteeing covered workers a minimum wage of 40 cents an hour and a maximum 40-hour work week. Although more than 22 million workers benefited, conservative forces in Congress saw to it that the Act exempted many others from its provisions. Due to the persistence of low wages during the Depression, the Federal government charged three agencies, including the Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor, to recommend procedures to determine cost-of-living budgets so that adequate minimum wage legislation could be written. In the following document, the Women's Bureau devised budgets for self-supporting women without dependents living in a variety of states and defined a "minimum-adequate standard of living" distinct from a subsistence or luxury standard. In doing so they took into consideration specific cultural, sociological, and psychological factors. They reasoned that wage standards should enable "conformity with group-approved habits or behavior patterns" in the area in which an individual lives so that persons affected can feel that they "belong" to their group. The document was included in the record of Senate hearings in 1949 to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Free labor provided possibilities for emancipation for some enslaved people. The most industrious and the most skilled of the enslaved could take greater advantage of these opportunities. Venture Smith had been born in the 1720s, the son of a West African prince who named him Broteer Furro. Slave traders captured him at the age of six, spirited him away to the coast, and transported him to a life of enslavement in Long Island and eastern Connecticut. After several changes of ownership, he was able to purchase his freedom by his labors at the age of 31. Those labors, along with his entrepreneurial activities such as fishing, working on a whaler, and agricultural activities, made possible the purchase of his son, daughter, and wife's liberty. Near the end of the 18th century he related his life history to Elisha Niles, a schoolteacher and Revolutionary war veteran. Published in 1798, A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, a Native of Africa: But Resident above Sixty Years in the United States of America, Related by Himself recounted his successful negotiation of the slavery economy and recognition of free labor as the key to a free identity.

Japan invaded China in 1931. The ruling Kuomintang Party (KMT) in China, led by Chiang Kai-shek, initially adopted a nonresistance policy toward the Japanese. Many overseas Chinese, including members of New York City's Chinese Hand Laundry Alliance (CHLA), opposed the KMT's passive position and organized "Save China" campaigns to raise money for a strong China. The CHLA sent letters and telegrams to American politicians urging them to adopt policies to support China against Japan. But the CHLA's main strategy was to appeal directly to the American public by approaching their customers, residents of New York City. This 1938 article in the Chinese Vanguard reported on the CHLA's anti-Japanese work and efforts to mobilize support for China.

Japan invaded China in 1931. The ruling Kuomintang Party (KMT) in China, led by Chiang Kai-shek, initially adopted a nonresistance policy toward the Japanese. Many overseas Chinese, including members of New York City's Chinese Hand Laundry Alliance (CHLA), opposed the KMT's passive position and organized "Save China" campaigns to raise money for a strong China. The CHLA sent letters and telegrams to American politicians urging them to adopt policies to support China against Japan. But the CHLA's main strategy was to appeal directly to the American public by approaching their customers, residents of New York City. The CHLA's flyers, which were enclosed in clean laundry packages, detailed Japanese aggression and called on Americans to urge their government to sanction Japan and support China. This 1938 editorial in the Chinese Vanguard praised their organizational energy.

Even in the late nineteenth-century American West, a notably violent region, the violence directed against Chinese immigrants was shocking. The Union Pacific railroad employed 331 Chinese and 150 whites in their coal mine in Rock Springs, Wyoming. On September 2, 1885, Chinese and white miners, who were paid by the ton, had a dispute over who had the right to work in a particularly desirable area of the mine. White miners, members of the Knights of Labor, beat two Chinese miners and walked off their jobs. That evening the white miners, armed with rifles, rioted and burned down the Chinese quarter. No whites were prosecuted for the murder of twenty-eight Chinese and $150,000 in property damage, even though the identities of those responsible were widely known. Although U.S. Army troops had to provide protection before some of the Chinese could finally return to their burned-out homes in Rock Springs, some defiantly continued to work in the Union Pacific mines into the next century. The grim story of the riot was given in the Chinese workers' own words in this "memorial" that they presented to the Chinese Consul at New York.

From smoking to skin care, advertisers rushed to identify their products with the war effort once the United States entered World War II. Using the war to pitch products was not the only way American businesses benefited from their association with the conflict. Although the government managed and regulated the wartime economy, it often did so to the benefit of large companies. The top 100 companies turned out 30 percent of the nation's manufactured goods in 1940; by war's end, those same companies held 70 percent of all civilian and military contracts. Business executives sat in many of the key posts of war production agencies, serving as dollar-a-year-men" while remaining on their company payrolls

This propaganda leaflet was dropped by German airplanes behind American lines during World War I. Nearly 370,000 African Americans were drafted into the U.S. Army starting in the fall of 1917 (they were not allowed to join the Marines, and the Navy took African Americans only as cooks and kitchen help). Although more than half of the black troops were in combat units, they remained segregated from white troops. Subjected to racist harassment (including demeaning insults from white officers), black troops were continually reminded of their second-class citizenship. By stressing racist conditions in the United States, leaflets such as this attempted to destroy morale and encourage desertion among African-American troops.

The massive growth in unemployment during the depression of the 1870s forced many urban workers to wander from town to town, looking for work. These wanderers often used the railroads to travel, which gave rise to the popular image of the rail-riding "tramp." To some Americans, the unemployed who wandered the country in this manner posed a threat to order and safety. The "tramp menace," many argued, required a repressive response--and advertisements like this exploited the pervasive fear.

This collection uses primary sources to explore the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.