The ideology of success--the notion that anyone could make it with enough hard work--was widely promoted in Gilded Age America. One of its most famous proponents was the author Horatio Alger, whose novels showed how poor boys could move from "rags to respectability" through "pluck and luck." Between the late 1860s and his death in 1899, Alger published more than 100 of these formulaic stories about poor boys who made good more often because of fortunate accidents than because of hard work and denial. Not all Americans, however, bought into this ideology of success. Mark Twain's 1879 short story, "Poor Little Stephen Girard," took satirical aim at the poor-boy-done-good theme that permeated dozens of Alger stories.

The first great American conservation movement was born during the Progressive Era out of the concern that industrial growth and urban development threatened to extinguish America's wilderness. The era's most controversial environmental issue was the five-year struggle over federal approval for the flooding of a remote corner of federally-owned land in California's Yosemite National Park to build the Hetch Hetchy dam. The city of San Francisco, rebuilding after the devastating 1906 earthquake, believed the dam was necessary to meet its burgeoning needs for reliable supplies of water and electricity. In their 1913 testimony before the House Committee on Public Lands, former San Francisco Mayor James Phelan and Gifford Pinchot, the first Chief Forester of the United States and the most noted conservationist of his generation, put the utilitarian needs of San Francisco's citizens above the aesthetic and moral advantages of leaving Yosemite a pristine wilderness. In the end Congress chose management over aesthetics, voting 43-25 (with 29 abstentions) to allow the Hetch Hetchy dam on federal land.

The William A. Gladstone Collection of African American Photographs provides almost 350 images showing African Americans and related military and social history. The Civil War era is the primary time period covered, with scattered examples through 1945. Most of the images are photographs, including 270 cartes de visite.

Subjects of special note include Sojourner Truth, fugitive slaves, former slave children from New Orleans, and freed slaves at Seabrook Plantation in South Carolina. Military service photographs document participation in the Civil War, Indian Wars, Spanish American War, and World War I. Several photographs show Buffalo Soldiers, and one album is filled with portraits of officers of the 25th United States Colored Troops. Baseball is the theme for a group portrait from Danbury, CT, and a panoramic view of the 1924 Colored World Series opening game.

In 1995, The Library of Congress purchased this collection from William A. Gladstone.

This lesson presents the drawing and description that helped Joseph Glidden, a farmer from De Kalb, Illinois, win a patent for barbed wire in 1874. Glidden's design remains today the most familiar style of barbed wire. This site also examines the considerable impact of barbed wire on the economy, society, and politics in the West.

The quest for efficiency touched nearly every aspect of American life during World War I, including the nation's clocks. Daylight saving first appeared during the war years as an experiment to save fuel. Theoretically, people would use less artificial light in the evenings thanks to the extra hour of daylight. Urban dwellers generally delighted in the "extra hour," but protests by farmers and other rural citizens brought the experiment to an end after only one year. Farmers, rural Americans, and those whose jobs forced them to work very early hours disliked the measure intensely. They bombarded Congress with petitions, letters, and angry telegrams demanding the return to "God's time." According to farmers, city dwellers who wanted more leisure in the afternoon could just show up for work an hour earlier and leave an hour earlier.

Students examine primary resources, photographs by Dorothea Lange, and a U.S. map to understand the migrant experience during the Great Depression.

The American West's history of radical unionism at the turn of the century reflects the breadth of nineteenth-century class struggle. In Cripple Creek, Colorado, for example, violent conflict broke out in 1903 between members of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) and corporate mining interests determined to crush the union. Before it was over, thirty men were dead and the union was defeated. Though hostile to the Socialist-leaning WFM, American Federal of Labor leader Samuel Gompers issued the following June 20, 1904, statement in support of the striking miners at Cripple Creek.

The relationship between African Americans and Franklin D. Roosevelt presents something of a paradox. On the one hand, Roosevelt never endorsed anti-lynching legislation; he accepted segregation and disenfranchisement; and he condoned discrimination against blacks in federally funded relief programs. On the other hand, Roosevelt won the hearts and the votes of African Americans in unprecedented numbers. Many black Americans not only voted for Roosevelt; they made him into a hero. "Franklin," "Eleanor," "Delano," and even "Roosevelt" became popular first names for black children in the 1930s. And many African Americans hung the president's picture on their walls beside those of Christ and Lincoln. Another indication of the powerful impression that Roosevelt made in the black community was Big Joe Williams' recording of a blues tribute on the occasion of Roosevelt's death in 1945, "His Spirit Lives On."

The harmony of rural life is often romanticized, but differences among neighbors, whether ethnic, religious or political, could often lead to tension, especially as new groups emigrated west. Ezra and Dan Miller were born in a sod house in North Dakota but migrated with a group of Amish Mennonites to Montana. In this 1981 interview, conducted by Laurie Mercier for the Montana Historical Society, they described how local cowboys reacted to the influx of Amish farmers.

Religious leaders, civic groups, educators, the press, and government officials have voiced concern since the 19th century over supposed deleterious effects on children of popular culture, from dime novels and motion pictures to comic books, and television. Anxiety over comic books grew as the pulp fiction crime and horror genre developed at the end of World War II. In 1948, psychologist Fredric Wertham advocated the prohibition of comic books to children under the age of 16, claiming that all of the delinquent children he studied had read them. Although the industry's trade organization devised a Code that year to regulate content, only one-third of the publishers subscribed to it. During the next few years many states debated, but did not adopt, bills to ban or regulate comic books, in part because of a 1948 Supreme Court decision that overturned a state statute banning the sale or distribution of crime literature. In 1954, the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency conducted hearings on comic books and warned the industry that if self-regulation did not prove to be effective, "other ways and means" would be found to protect children. The industry formed a new trade association and formulated a new Code to self-censor content. The Code symbol subsequently appeared on approved comic books, curtailing the crime and horror genre. The Code, refined in 1971 and 1989, remains a regulatory instrument for association members.

As United States foreign investments increased during the 1920s, so did the frequency of American military interventions. The 1928 Havana Pan-American Conference found President Calvin Coolidge defending U.S. intervention in Nicaraguawhich lasted from 1912 to 1933from attacks by Latin American delegates. U.S. press coverage largely ignored the controversy, preferring to herald trans-Atlantic aviator Charles Lindbergh's arrival in Havana with a message of goodwill." "How sweet it sounds in the ears of the Pan-American delegates

In his essay "Wealth," published in North American Review in 1889, the industrialist Andrew Carnegie argued that individual capitalists were duty bound to play a broader cultural and social role and thus improve the world. Some labor activists sharply differed with Carnegie's point-of-view and responded with essays of their own, such as the Pennsylvania trade unionists who protested Carnegie's gift of a library to the city of New Castle by pointing out that it had been built with the "sweat and blood of thousands of workers." Carnegie's essay, below, later became famous under the title "The Gospel of Wealth." (Click here to hear an audio version of an excerpt from that speech.)

Website description: What exactly is the ideal government? Let some of history's leading philosophers give you their take. In this government philosophy lesson, students explore how philosophers have explained the relationship between people and their governments and examine how those ideas influenced America's founding documents.

Website Description:
What's the relationship between government and power? And how do the concepts of authority, legitimacy, and sovereignty influence that relationship? In this lesson, students are introduced to these key characteristics of government, consider how governments establish and maintain them, and analyze government forms to determine if and how each characteristic exists.

Student Learning Objectives:
*Explain how governments get their power, authority, legitimacy, and sovereignty
* Analyze governments for key characteristics
* Describe the relationships power, authority, legitimacy, and sovereignty share
* Consider a government’s legitimacy

This lesson is the second part of the History's Mysteries unit, "What Makes a Good Leader?" In this lesson, students will study different situations that forced George Washington to learn leadership skills. By using George Washington as an example, students will learn that an important leadership skill is to ask for help. Using George Washington as an example, students will think of other leaders who displayed different types of leadership skills.
This lesson is part of a unit containing the following lessons:
Grade 1: Unit 2 History Mystery 1: WHAT MAKES SOMEONE A GOOD LEADER?
Grade 1: Unit 2 History Mystery 3: DO GOOD LEADERS ALWAYS DO GOOD THINGS?

This lesson is the third and final part of the History's Mysteries unit, "What Makes a Good Leader?" In this lesson, students explore that leaders often make complex decisions and don’t always display positive leadership traits. While learning about George Washington’s use of slave labor throughout his life, students realize that even leaders are rarely perfect and can make poor decisions. This difficult topic is displayed in through the use of images and pictures and discussed in vocabulary appropriate for young learners.
This lesson is part of a unit containing the following lessons:
Grade 1: Unit 2 History Mystery 1: WHAT MAKES SOMEONE A GOOD LEADER?
Grade 1: Unit 2 History Mystery 2: WHAT MADE PEOPLE THINK GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD BE A GOOD LEADER?

In this lesson, students will learn about some elements of Native sovereignty. They will learn what a Native nation is and why sovereignty is so important to a nation. The lesson focuses on why nations need land, why history is important, and how shared culture is also part of sovereignty. The lesson focuses on Native nations today because it is important to talk about Native nations today to break stereotypes that Native people only existed in the past.
This lesson is part of a Unit that includes the following lessons:
Grade 3 Unit 2 History Mystery 1: WHAT IS NATIVE SOVEREIGNTY AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
Grade 3 Unit 2 History Mystery 2: WHAT CAN DIFFERENT MAPS TELL US ABOUT NATIVE SOVEREIGNTY AND NATIVE LAND?
Grade 3 Unit 2 History Mystery 3: WHAT STRATEGIES TO NATIVE NATIONS USE TO PROTECT THEIR SOVEREIGNTY DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION (1)?
Grade 3 Unit 2 History Mystery 4: WHAT STRATEGIES TO NATIVE NATIONS USE TO PROTECT THEIR SOVEREIGNTY DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION (2)?

In this lesson, students will look at 3 maps to learn about where the ancestral tribal lands of four Native nations are located. The four nations are the Iroquois Confederacy (made of 5 nations), the Cherokee Nation, the Chickasaw Nation, and the Western Abenaki nation. Students will label all four groups on three different maps and as they look at each map they will consider how the land is represented on the map and how that might impact how people understand Native land and Native sovereignty.
This lesson is part of a Unit that includes the following lessons:
Grade 3 Unit 2 History Mystery 1: WHAT IS NATIVE SOVEREIGNTY AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
Grade 3 Unit 2 History Mystery 2: WHAT CAN DIFFERENT MAPS TELL US ABOUT NATIVE SOVEREIGNTY AND NATIVE LAND?
Grade 3 Unit 2 History Mystery 3: WHAT STRATEGIES TO NATIVE NATIONS USE TO PROTECT THEIR SOVEREIGNTY DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION (1)?
Grade 3 Unit 2 History Mystery 4: WHAT STRATEGIES TO NATIVE NATIONS USE TO PROTECT THEIR SOVEREIGNTY DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION (2)?

In this mystery, students will look at primary and secondary sources from the four Native nations we have been studying: Haudenosaunee/Iroquois, Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Western Abenaki. They will match their five different strategy cards with the primary and secondary sources. After reading each source, students will determine which strategy that nation used to protect their land and sovereignty during the American Revolution. After each source, students will read a brief summary that will give more information about the strategies used. Student handouts will allow students to mark up the primary and secondary sources, pick a strategy and then explain their reasoning.
This lesson is part of a Unit that includes the following lessons:
Grade 3 Unit 2 History Mystery 1: WHAT IS NATIVE SOVEREIGNTY AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
Grade 3 Unit 2 History Mystery 2: WHAT CAN DIFFERENT MAPS TELL US ABOUT NATIVE SOVEREIGNTY AND NATIVE LAND?
Grade 3 Unit 2 History Mystery 3: WHAT STRATEGIES TO NATIVE NATIONS USE TO PROTECT THEIR SOVEREIGNTY DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION (1)?
Grade 3 Unit 2 History Mystery 4: WHAT STRATEGIES TO NATIVE NATIONS USE TO PROTECT THEIR SOVEREIGNTY DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION (2)?