Eyewitness to History – serie

Through its extensive use of primary source materials and provision of explanations, this book places readers into the context of late 17th-century Salem to shed light on one of the darkest events in American history—the Salem witch trials.The Salem witch trials are one of the most fascinating events in American history. Despite being commonly covered in school curricula, the nature of the trials are often misunderstood. This book enables readers to get unique perspective and insight into the nature of this event through a representative selection of primary source materials, each of which is prefaced with explanatory editorial comments. The result is a work that clarifies the belief systems and religious and social culture of 17th century Massachusetts and places them into a comprehensible context to make sense of how the Salem witch trials came to happen.The book provides an introductory overview of the Salem witch trials, which is followed by an array of primary sources that tell the Salem story in the words of both the accusers and the victims of that episode. Editorial commentary accompanies each of the documents, placing it into its historical framework and clearly explaining archaic terminology and testimony.The primary sources used in this work are drawn from the vast archive of Salem witch trial sources, including court testimonies, court depositions, commentary from journals, miscellaneous court records such as arrest and death warrants, and writings by contemporary critics of the trials. This broad and balanced mix of documents gives students of the Salem witch trials a unique sense of the extent and impact of this event on the people of colonial Massachusetts as well as the complexity of the event.

Explore Japanese internment through the voices of those who endured removal, those who designed this notorious forced relocation, and those who witnessed the broken promise of U.S. democracy.This document collection sheds light on Japanese American internment through the voices and perspectives of those who directly experienced this event as well as those who created the policy behind it. The book provides readers with a wide range of first-hand accounts, government reports, and media responses that help readers to better understand the events of this unfortunate period of American history.Each document has contextualizing information to help students understand content they may come across in their research. This format is meant to accommodate a wide range of documents that includes a variety of viewpoints and perspectives, such as "eyewitness" pieces (personal narratives, letters; and first-hand accounts); media pieces (newspaper articles, op-ed articles, and reactions and responses to the events); and government and legislative pieces (laws, proclamations, rules, etc.). Books in this series provide a preface, introduction, guide to primary documents, and chronological organization of documents, with each document providing its own introduction, the text of the document or excerpt, and a brief list of additional readings.

This powerful collection of documents illumines the experiences of the original people of the United States during American Indian removal, offering readers a unique standpoint from which to understand American identity and the historical processes that have shaped it.The Indian Removal Act transformed the Native North American continent and precipitated the development of a national identity based on a narrative of vanishing American Indians. This volume is a probing look into a chapter in American history that, while difficult, cannot be ignored. Sweeping in its coverage of history, it includes deeply personal accounts of American Indian removal from which readers may discern the degree to which the new national identity of the United States was influenced by bigotry and dependence on the corporate economy. The book is organized into six sections that collectively provide the full scope of American Indian removal policies that began with the founding of the United States. The sections trace the evolution of federal government policies; the rhetoric of Indian removal in public debates; removal experiences; ethnic cleansing through overtly racist laws; responses to removals; and the question that reigned in the aftermath: Who owned the land? The chronological organization allows readers both to approach Indian removal through the framework of ongoing injustice in the colonial system that existed for the first 150 years of the United States, from the 1770s through the 1920s, and to draw connections from this legacy to the seizures of Indian lands and resources that continue today.

An introduction to the history of early Christianity, this reference provides roughly 60 primary source documents from the first five centuries of the Christian Era, each accompanied by explanatory material.Christianity has been one of the most powerful influences on world history, and for this reason the world of the early Christians figures prominently in film, fiction, and popular culture. The first centuries of Christianity provided the foundation for the faith institutions of today; this book examines the history of early Christianity through its use of primary texts written by early Christians. In doing so, it helps readers to understand that multiple sects of Christianity competed for dominance, and it sheds light on the struggles of early Christians that their differences entailed.The book covers the first five centuries of the Christian Era, with sections devoted to each century. Some 60 primary source documents appear within those sections, and each is accompanied by background information. This chronological arrangement helps readers to understand how Christianity evolved over time, and it provides insights into the theological debates and persecutions that marked the lives of early Christians and characterized the early Church.

This book provides original source documents—from firsthand accounts to media responses to legislation—regarding the Chicano movement of the 1960s through 1970s. Readers will understand the key events, individuals, and developments of La Causa: Chicanos uniting to free themselves from exploitation.The 1960s was a time of the burgeoning black Civil Rights movement, when society and politics were divided over the war in Vietnam and public violence became "normal" in the form of police response to protests and assassinations of leaders. It was also a time that witnessed the beginning of a movement to secure justice and rights on behalf of Mexican-Americans and other Latinos. It was the Chicano movement. Documents of the Chicano Movement: Eyewitness to History presents some 50 primary historical documents, each prefaced by a succinct introductory essay. Because the Chicano movement comprised disparate groups and leaders from across the nation, the book will be divided into several sections that acknowledge these separate but connected efforts, each headed by its own introduction. Through its detailed coverage of approximately two decades, the book highlights key topics that include the fight of farm workers to establish a union; the so-called "Land-Grant Struggle" to reclaim areas of the Southwest ceded in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hildago; the establishment in New Mexico of the Crusade for Justice, an organization that promoted a nationalistic agenda; the growth of the urban Chicano student movement and its drive for educational reform; the Chicano Antiwar Moratorium protests; and the eventual rise of Chicano political power with the birth of the La Raza Unida Party. The breadth of primary documents include materials from archives, manuscript repositories, newspapers, government documents, public speeches and addresses, first-person accounts from individuals who participated directly in the Chicano movement, legal decisions, pamphlets, and essays. The documents not only tell a vivid, engaging story but also provide students and researchers with valuable resources for use in other works.

Through its extensive use of primary source materials and invaluable contextual notes, this book offers a documented history of one of the most famous adventures in early American history: the Lewis and Clark expedition.This book is the first to situate the Lewis and Clark expedition within the political and scientific ambitions of Thomas Jefferson. It spans a forty-year period in American history, from 1783–1832, covering Jefferson's early interest in trying to organize an expedition to explore the American West through the difficult negotiations of the Louisiana Purchase, the formation of the "Corps of Discovery," the expedition's incredible journey into the unknown, and its aftermath. The story of the expedition is told not just through the journals and letters of Lewis and Clark, but also through the firsthand accounts of the expedition's other members, which included Sacagawea, a Native American woman, and York, an African American slave. The book features more than 100 primary source documents, including letters to and from Jefferson, Benjamin Rush, and others as the expedition was being organized; diary excerpts during the expedition; and, uniquely, letters documenting the lives of Lewis, Clark, Sacagawea, and York after the expedition.

This book provides a unique, thorough, and indispensable resource for anyone investigating the causes and consequences of the Dust Bowl.During the 1930s, drought and the cultivation of submarginal lands created a severe wind-erosion problem in the southern Great Plains, a region that became known as the Dust Bowl. During the worst dust storms, the blowing soil often turned day into night. Some people died when caught outside during a black blizzard, others developed "dust pneumonia," and some residents moved to California. Most people, however, remained. Those who stayed and endured the storms had an abiding faith that federal resources and the return of normal rainfall would end the dust storms and return life to normal, free from the desperation and fear caused by the blowing soil.Documents of the Dust Bowl offers a fascinating documentary history of one of the worst ecological disasters in American history. It will enable high school students and academics alike to study the manner in which Dust Bowl residents confronted and endured the dust storms in the southern Great Plains during the 1930s.

Beginning from the First People, through the influx of European settlers and the slave trade from Africa, to the modern era, this book presents and discusses documents that reflect pivotal moments in the LGBT rights movement in North America.While most would think of the modern Gay Rights Movement as beginning in the 1960s, in reality, the issue of nonheterosexual human behavior within society and the campaign to achieve equality and acceptance have existed far earlier. Beginning with the First People in the Americas and their acceptance of tribal members who did not conform to gender and sexual binary roles, to the expansion west and establishment of the United States as a Republic, to the contentious struggles for equality in the 20th and 21st centuries, this reference traces the development of the Gay Rights Movement through the examination of primary source materials related to the incremental changes toward making America safe for all people.These documents enable readers to reflect on pivotal moments in the LGBT rights and sexual equality movement in the past up to the achievement of marriage equality. A modern chronology traces key events in the Gay Rights Movement across the last 70 years, such as those during the World War II era, the formation of the Mattachine Society in Los Angeles in the 1950s, to the Stonewall Riot in New York in the late 1960s, the elimination of the category of homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1973, the judgment in 2003 by the U.S. Supreme Court that laws criminalizing sodomy are unconstitutional, and the legalization of same-sex marriage in all U.S. states in 2015.

This book explores the transformative energy and excitement that African Americans expressed in aesthetic and civic currents that percolated during the opening of the 20th century and proved to be a force in the modernization of America.This engaging reference text represents the voices of the era in poetry and prose, in full or excerpted from anecdotes, editorials, essays, manifestoes, orations, and reminiscences, with appearances by major figures and often overlooked contributors to the Harlem Renaissance.Organized topically and, within topics, chronologically, the volume reaches beyond the typical representation of the spirit and substance of the movement, examinations of which are typically confined to the New York City community and from U.S. entry into World War I in 1917 to the depths of the Great Depression in 1935. It carries readers from the opening of the Harlem Renaissance, which began at the top of the 20th century, to its heights in the 1920s and '30s and through to its artistic and literary echoes in the shadows of World War II (1939–1945).

An engaging and accurate introduction to the Protestant Reformation, told in the words of those who led it, opposed it, and lived it.The Protestant Reformation was a pivotal event in world history and religion. Documents of the Reformation collects more than 60 primary documents that shed light on the personalities, issues, ideas, and events of the 16th-century upheaval and will help readers to understand how and why the Protestant Reformation began and transpired as it did. The book is divided into 12 sections on topics such as indulgences, persecution, and women in the Reformation, each of which offers five document selections. Detailed introductions preceding the documents put them into historical context and explain why they are important, while a general introduction and chronology help readers to understand the Reformation in broad terms and to see causal connections. Bibliographies of current print and digital resources attend each document, and a general bibliography lists seminal works on the Reformation.