During World War II, American propaganda was used to increase support for the war and commitment to an Allied victory. Using a wide variety of media, propagandists fomented hatred for the enemy and support for America's allies, urged greater public effort for war production and victory gardens, persuaded people to make do with what they had so that more material could be used for the war effort, and sold war bonds.

James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens (September 12, 1913 – March 31, 1980) was an American track and field athlete who specialized in the sprints and the long jump. He participated in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany, where he achieved international fame by winning four gold medals: one each in the 100 meters, the 200 meters, the long jump, and as part of the 4x100 meter relay team. He was the most successful athlete at the 1936 Summer Olympics, a victory more poignant and often noted because Adolf Hitler had intended the 1936 games to showcase his Aryan ideals and prowess.

The Veterans History Project (VHP) collects, preserves, and makes available the personal stories of American war veterans and civilian workers who supported them. These collections of firsthand accounts are gathered for use by researchers and so that future generations may hear directly from veterans to better understand the realities of war.

The Anthology of American Folk Music is a six-album compilation released in 1952 by Folkways Records, comprising eighty-four American folk, blues and country music recordings that were originally issued from 1927 to 1932.

Experimental filmmaker and notable eccentric Harry Smith compiled the music from his personal collection of 78 rpm records. The album is famous due to its role as a touchstone for the American folk music revival in the 1950s and 1960s. The Anthology was released for compact disc by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings on August 19, 1997.

The Veterans History Project of the American Folklife Center collects, preserves, and makes accessible the personal accounts of American war veterans so that future generations may hear directly from veterans and better understand the realities of war.

Veterans Day, formerly Armistice Day, is an annual United States holiday honoring armed service veterans. It is a federal holiday that is observed on November 11. It coincides with other holidays such as Armistice Day or Remembrance Day, which are celebrated in other parts of the world and also mark the anniversary of the signing of the Armistice that ended World War I. (Major hostilities of World War I were formally ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 with the German signing of the Armistice.)

Memorial Day is a federal holiday observed annually in the United States on the last Monday of May. Formerly known as Decoration Day, it originated after the American Civil War to commemorate the fallen Union soldiers of the Civil War. (Southern ladies organizations and southern schoolchildren had decorated Confederate graves in Richmond and other cities during the Civil War, but each region had its own date. Most dates were in May.) By the 20th century Memorial Day had been extended to honor all Americans who have died in all wars. Memorial Day is a day of remembering the men and women who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. As a marker it typically marks the start of the summer vacation season, while Labor Day marks its end.

Peter "Pete" Seeger (born May 3, 1919) is an American folk singer and an iconic figure in the mid-20th-century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead Belly's "Goodnight, Irene", which topped the charts for 13 weeks in 1950. Members of The Weavers were blacklisted during the McCarthy Era. In the 1960s, he re-emerged on the public scene as a prominent singer of protest music in support of international disarmament, civil rights, and environmental causes.

As a song writer, he is best known as the author or co-author of "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?", "If I Had a Hammer (The Hammer Song)", (composed with Lee Hays of The Weavers), and "Turn, Turn, Turn!", which have been recorded by many artists both in and outside the folk revival movement and are still sung throughout the world. "Flowers" was a hit recording for The Kingston Trio (1962); Marlene Dietrich, who recorded it in English, German and French (1962); and Johnny Rivers (1965). "If I Had a Hammer" was a hit for Peter, Paul & Mary (1962) and Trini Lopez (1963), while The Byrds popularized "Turn, Turn, Turn!" in the mid-1960s, as did Judy Collins in 1964, and The Seekers in 1966. Seeger was one of the folksingers most responsible for popularizing the spiritual "We Shall Overcome" (also recorded by Joan Baez and many other singer-activists) that became the acknowledged anthem of the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement, soon after folk singer and activist Guy Carawan introduced it at the founding meeting of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960. In the PBS "American Masters" episode Pete Seeger: The Power of Song, Seeger states it was he who changed the lyric from the traditional "We will overcome" to the more singable "We shall overcome".

Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie (July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967) is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his guitar. His best-known song is "This Land Is Your Land." Many of his recorded songs are archived in the Library of Congress. Such songwriters as Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, Pete Seeger, Joe Strummer, Billy Bragg and Tom Paxton have acknowledged Guthrie as a major influence.

Guthrie traveled with migrant workers from Oklahoma to California and learned traditional folk and blues songs. Many of his songs are about his experiences in the Dust Bowl era during the Great Depression, earning him the nickname the "Dust Bowl Troubadour." Throughout his life Guthrie was associated with United States communist groups, though he was seemingly not a member of any.

Guthrie was married three times and fathered eight children, including American folk musician Arlo Guthrie. He is the grandfather of musician Sarah Lee Guthrie. Guthrie died from complications of Huntington's disease, a progressive genetic neurological disorder. During his later years, in spite of his illness, Guthrie served as a figurehead in the folk movement, providing inspiration to a generation of new folk musicians, including mentor relationships with Ramblin' Jack Elliott and Bob Dylan.

JAZZ: The Smithsonian Anthology traces the turning points of this 20th-century tale through its legendary innovators and notable styles. The great American musical invention of the 20th century, jazz is an ever-youthful, still evolving music of beauty, sensitivity, and brilliance that has produced (and been produced by) an extraordinary progression of talented artists.

Objects and stories both reinforce and challenge our understanding of American history and help define our personal and cultural identities. Join the Smithsonian on a journey through time to discover what we can learn through artifacts.

A diverse and multifaceted cultural and educational enterprise, the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) is an active and visible component of the Smithsonian Institution, the world's largest museum complex. The NMAI cares for one of the world's most expansive collections of Native artifacts, including objects, photographs, archives, and media covering the entire Western Hemisphere, from the Arctic Circle to Tierra del Fuego.

The museum provides a variety of materials for use in the classroom. All have been developed by the museum's education staff in collaboration with Native community members. These materials offer rich Native perspectives on the history and contemporary life of many different Native tribes.

Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City on March 25, 1911, was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city of New York and resulted in the fourth highest loss of life from an industrial accident in U.S. history. It was also the second deadliest disaster in New York City – after the burning of the General Slocum on June 15, 1904 – until the destruction of the World Trade Center 90 years later. The fire caused the deaths of 146 garment workers, who died from the fire, smoke inhalation, or falling to their deaths. Most of the victims were recent Jewish and Italian immigrant women aged sixteen to twenty-three; the oldest victim was 48, the youngest were two fourteen-year-old girls.

Because the managers had locked the doors to the stairwells and exits – a common practice at the time to prevent pilferage and unauthorized breaks – many of the workers who could not escape the burning building jumped from the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors to the streets below. The fire led to legislation requiring improved factory safety standards and helped spur the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, which fought for better working conditions for sweatshop workers.

The factory was located in the Asch Building, at 23-29 Washington Place, now known as the Brown Building, which has been designated a National Historic Landmark and a New York City landmark.

When a highly successful Mexican American Studies program at a high school in Tucson comes under fire for teaching ethnic chauvinism, teachers and students fight back. This modern civil rights struggle is born at the epicenter of the immigration debate in the age of identity politics.

The People Speak is a documentary feature film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans. The film gives voice to those who, by insisting on equality and justice, spoke up for social change throughout U.S. history and also illustrates the relevance of this to today's society.

The film is narrated by historian Howard Zinn and is based on his books A People's History of the United States and, with Anthony Arnove, Voices of a People's History of the United States.

Picturing United States History: An Interactive Resource for Teaching with Visual Evidence is a digital project based on the belief that visual materials are vital to understanding the American past. This website provides online "Lessons in Looking," a guide to Web resources, forums, essays, reviews, and classroom activities to help teachers incorporate visual evidence into their classrooms. The Picturing U.S. History site will also serve as a clearing house for teachers interested in incorporating visual documents into their U.S. history, American studies, American literature, or other humanities courses.

The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions due to Britain's ongoing war with France, the impressment of American merchant sailors into the Royal Navy, British support of American Indian tribes against American expansion, outrage over insults to national honour after humiliations on the high seas and possible American desire to annex Canada

Prepare to set sail on a seafaring adventure! Live the life of a young sailor aboard USS Constitution, "Old Ironsides," during the War of 1812. Scrub the deck, haul on lines, steer the ship, and work the guns. Tell tall tales and perhaps sneak a game of dice during your leisure time. If you do well, you'll rise through the ranks and eventually captain your own gun crew.

Explore the ship and learn about the daily lives of the 450 sailors who lived and worked in these crowded spaces. Listen as they tell you about their lives in their own words. Vivid, detailed drawings and playful text by world-renowned artist Stephen Biesty and writer Richard Platt let you explore all of USS Constitution's nooks, from the dark hold to the top of the tallest mast—and everywhere in between.

Drawing on more than 10 years of intensive research by the USS Constitution Museum, this is the most accurate and thrilling depiction of life at sea ever presented. Now raise the anchors and sail into the War of 1812!

Throughout his life, Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) collected books across a vast spectrum of topics and languages. Jefferson followed a modified version of an organizational system created by British philosopher Francis Bacon (1561–1626) to arrange the books in his library, then the largest private book collection in North America.

Divided into categories of Memory, Reason, and Imagination—which Jefferson translated to “History,” “Philosophy,” and “Fine Arts”—and further divided into forty-four “chapters,” the collection placed within Jefferson’s fingertips the span of his multifaceted interests.

Formerly known as Teaching with Primary Sources Quarterly, this online journal presents strategies and resources for the K-12 classroom from the Library of Congress. The TPS Journal is published quarterly by the Library of Congress Educational Outreach Division in collaboration with the TPS Educational Consortium.

The Girl Scouts of the United States of America (GSUSA) is a youth organization for girls in the United States and American girls living abroad. It describes itself as "the world's preeminent organization dedicated solely to girls". It was founded by Juliette Gordon Low in 1912 and was organized after Low met Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting, in 1911. Upon returning to Savannah, Georgia, she telephoned a distant cousin, saying, "I've got something for the girls of Savannah, and all of America, and all the world, and we're going to start it tonight!"

GSUSA aims to empower girls and to help teach values such as honesty, fairness, courage, compassion, character, sisterhood, confidence, and citizenship through activities including camping, community service, learning first aid, and earning badges by acquiring other practical skills. Girl Scouts' achievements are recognized through rank advancement and by various special awards. Girl Scouts welcomed girls with disabilities early in their history, at a time when they were not included in most other activities.

The history of the American whaling industry from its 17th-century origins in drift and shore whaling off the coast of New England and Cape Cod, through the golden age of deep ocean whaling, and on to its demise in the decades following the American Civil War.

Whaling is the hunting of whales mainly for meat and oil. Its earliest forms date to at least 3000 BC. Various coastal communities have long histories of sustenance whaling and harvesting beached whales. Industrial whaling emerged with organised fleets in the 17th century; competitive national whaling industries in the 18th and 19th centuries; and the introduction of factory ships along with the concept of whale harvesting in the first half of the 20th century.

Ida Bell Wells-Barnett (July 16, 1862 – March 25, 1931) was an African American journalist, newspaper editor and, with her husband, newspaper owner Ferdinand L. Barnett, an early leader in the civil rights movement. She documented lynching in the United States, showing how it was often a way to control or punish blacks who competed with whites. She was active in the women's rights and the women's suffrage movement, establishing several notable women's organizations. Wells was a skilled and persuasive rhetorician, and traveled internationally on lecture tours.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum is a museum in Washington, D.C. with an extensive collection of American art.

Part of the Smithsonian Institution, the museum has a broad variety of American art that covers all regions and art movements found in the United States. Among the significant artists represented in its collection are Nam June Paik, Jenny Holzer, David Hockney, Georgia O'Keeffe, John Singer Sargent, Albert Pinkham Ryder, Albert Bierstadt, Edmonia Lewis, Thomas Moran, James Gill, Edward Hopper, Karen LaMonte, and Winslow Homer.

Patriotic Melodies tells the stories behind many of the songs that have now become part of the American national heritage. A combination of hymns, national songs, music of the theater, radio and television, military themes, and poetry, all of this music demonstrates that while over history many things have changed, this expression of pride and hope remain a constant part of the American experience.

Lyrical Legacy helps teachers explore eighteen American songs and poems from the digital collections of the Library of Congress. Each song and poem is represented by an original primary source document, along with historical background information and, in many cases, sound recordings and alternate versions.

The United States Census Bureau (officially the Bureau of the Census, as defined in Title 13 U.S.C. § 11) is the government agency that is responsible for the United States Census. It also gathers other national demographic and economic data. As part of the United States Department of Commerce, the Census Bureau serves as a leading source of data about America's people and economy.

The most visible role of the Census Bureau is to perform the official decennial (every 10 years) count of people living in the U.S. The most important result is the reallocation of the number of seats each state is allowed in the House of Representatives, but the results also affect a range of government programs received by each state. The agency director is a political appointee selected by the President of the United States.

Addy Walker, an American Girl, is a nine-year old born into slavery who escapes to freedom with her mother during the Civil War. You can discover what life was like for Addy and other young African American girls during this difficult time in American history by reading Addy's stories.

This collection of resources is based upon the children's book, "Meet Addy: An American Girl," a selection of the Smithsonian's "Our Story" series (National Museum of American History) about a black girl living in the South during the Civil War.

"America the Beautiful" is an American patriotic song. The lyrics were written by Katharine Lee Bates and the music composed by church organist and choirmaster Samuel A. Ward.

Bates originally wrote the words as a poem, Pikes Peak, first published in the Fourth of July edition of the church periodical The Congregationalist in 1895. At that time, the poem was titled America for publication.

Ward had originally written the music, Materna, for the hymn O Mother dear, Jerusalem in 1882. Ward's music combined with the Bates poem was first published in 1910 and titled America the Beautiful.

The song is one of the most beloved and popular of the many American patriotic songs. From time to time it has been proposed as a replacement for The Star-Spangled Banner as the National Anthem, including television sign-offs.

The Amish (play /ˈɑːmɪʃ/ AH-mish; Pennsylvania Dutch: Amisch, German: Amische), sometimes referred to as Amish Mennonites, are a group of Christian church fellowships that form a subgroup of the Mennonite churches. The Amish are known for simple living, plain dress, and reluctance to adopt many conveniences of modern technology. The history of the Amish church began with a schism in Switzerland within a group of Swiss and Alsatian Anabaptists in 1693 led by Jakob Ammann. Those who followed Ammann became known as Amish.

In the early 18th century, many Amish and Mennonites immigrated to Pennsylvania for a variety of reasons. Today, the most traditional descendants of the Amish continue to speak Pennsylvania German, also known as Pennsylvania Dutch. However, a dialect of Swiss German predominates in some Old Order Amish communities, especially in the American state of Indiana. As of 2000, over 165,000 Old Order Amish live in the United States and approximately 1500 live in Canada. A 2008 study suggested their numbers have increased to 227,000, and in 2010 a study suggested their population had grown by 10% in the past two years to 249,000, with increasing movement to the West.

Have you ever thought about the women who have shaped who you are today?

Have you thought about the sacrifices they made, the obstacles they overcame, or the memorable times in history they have lived through?Author Betsy Hearne wanted to know more about the women in her family's past, so she researched her family for the book Seven Brave Women, which tells the story of her female ancestors dating back to the Revolutionary War.

National History Day is a national academic competition focusing on history for students in grades 6-12. Each year, more than half a million students construct entries as an individual or in a group in one of five categories-Documentary, Exhibit, Paper, Performance or Website. Students then compete in a series of contests (Regional and State) to proceed to the National Contest.

The mission of National History Day is to provide students with opportunities to learn historical content and develop research, thinking and communication skills through the study of history and to provide educators with resources and training to enhance classroom teaching.

We invite all Americans to participate in a series of events and programs to get us thinking, talking and teaching about the rights and responsibilities of citizens in our democracy. At the heart of this initiative are 100 milestone documents of American history. These documents reflect our diversity and our unity, our past and our future, and mostly our commitment as a nation to continue to strive to “form a more perfect union.”

We want everyone—students, teachers, parents, and the general public—to read these milestone documents, consider their meaning, discuss them, and decide which are the most significant and why.

American Journeys contains more than 18,000 pages of eyewitness accounts of North American exploration, from the sagas of Vikings in Canada in AD1000 to the diaries of mountain men in the Rockies 800 years later.

Read the words of explorers, Indians, missionaries, traders and settlers as they lived through the founding moments of American history. View, search, print, or download more than 150 rare books, original manuscripts, and classic travel narratives from the library and archives of the Wisconsin Historical Society.

National History Day motivates students to discover history by:

Cultivating interest: students research a topic of their choice
Developing research skills: students act as historians discovering how to uncover primary sources, build historical context and form historical interpretations
Becoming experts on their research topic: presenting their research to teachers, students, and historians
Achieving success
-The shy student gains confidence when speaking about a topic he/she has researched
-The apathetic student gains passion by choosing a topic of personal interest
-The high achieving student increases his/her ability to articulate their learning through presentation

The Price of Freedom: Americans at War surveys the history of America’s military from the French and Indian Wars to the present conflict in Iraq, exploring ways in which wars have been defining episodes in American history. The exhibition extends far beyond a survey of battles to present the link between military conflict and American political leadership, social values, technological innovation, and personal sacrifice. The heart of the story is the impact of war on citizen soldiers, their families, and communities.

The Geography and Map Division (G&M) has custody of the largest and most comprehensive cartographic collection in the world with collections numbering over 5.5 million maps, 80,000 atlases, 6,000 reference works, over 500 globes and globe gores, 3,000 raised relief models, and a large number of cartographic materials in other formats, including over 38,000 CDs/DVDs. The online Map Collections represents only a small fraction that have been converted to digital form. These images were created from maps and atlases and, in general, are restricted to items that are in public domain, meaning those which are not covered by copyright.

The Waldseemüller map, Universalis Cosmographia, is a printed wall map of the world by German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, originally published in April 1507. It is known as the first map to use the name "America". The map is drafted on a modification of Ptolemy's second projection, expanded to accommodate the Americas and the high latitudes. A single copy of the map survives, presently housed at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Waldseemüller also created globe gores, printed maps designed to be cut out and pasted onto spheres to form globes of the Earth.

Maps are much more than geographical representations of places. In addition to teaching geographic understanding, maps illustrate change over time. They can tell us about the people who made them, the times in which they lived, and what they knew and didn’t know. Maps can also make an argument. Maps have been used to claim new territory, to insult rivals and to attack competitors. Analyzing maps helps students discover new topics to explore further, and can support the development of critical thinking skills that they can apply to other representations of the world.

The Tuskegee Airmen (play /tʌsˈkiːɡiː/) is the popular name of a group of African American pilots who fought in World War II. Formally, they formed the 332nd Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group of the U.S. Army Air Corps.

The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African-American military aviators in the United States armed forces. During World War II, African Americans in many U.S. states still were subject to the Jim Crow laws. The American military was racially segregated, as was much of the federal government. The Tuskegee Airmen were subjected to racial discrimination, both within and outside the army. Despite these adversities, they trained and flew with distinction. Primarily made up of African Americans, there were also five Tuskegee Airmen of Haitian descent.

The almost seven hours of recorded interviews presented here took place between 1932 and 1975 in nine Southern states. Twenty-three interviewees, born between 1823 and the early 1860s, discuss how they felt about slavery, slaveholders, coercion of slaves, their families, and freedom. Several individuals sing songs, many of which were learned during the time of their enslavement. It is important to note that all of the interviewees spoke sixty or more years after the end of their enslavement, and it is their full lives that are reflected in these recordings. The individuals documented in this presentation have much to say about living as African Americans from the 1870s to the 1930s, and beyond.

All known recordings of former slaves in the American Folklife Center are included in this presentation. Some are being made publicly available for the first time and several others already available now include complete transcriptions. Unfortunately, not all the recordings are clearly audible. Although the original tapes and discs are generally in good physical condition, background noise and poorly positioned microphones make it extremely difficult to follow many of the interviews.

Coney Island is a peninsula and beach on the Atlantic Ocean in southern Brooklyn, New York, United States. The site was formerly an outer barrier island, but became partially connected to the mainland by landfill.

Coney Island is possibly best known as the site of amusement parks and a major resort that reached their peak during the first half of the 20th century. It declined in popularity after World War II and endured years of neglect. In recent years, the area has seen the opening of MCU Park and has become home to the minor league baseball team the Brooklyn Cyclones.

Mission US is an interactive adventure game designed to improve the understanding of American history by students in grades 5 through 8. Mission 1: "For Crown or Colony?" explores the reasons for Revolution through the eyes of Loyalists and Patriots in 1770 Boston. Mission 2: "Flight to Freedom" explores resistance to slavery along the Kentucky-Ohio border in the years preceding the Civil War.

The Oh Freedom! collection interprets more than three dozen artworks from the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, features artist biographies, and presents a variety of secondary sources from the wider collections of the Smithsonian, such as historical artifacts, photographs, musical recordings, and more. Oh Freedom! broadens the definition of the civil rights movement beyond the 1950s and 1960s, presenting it as a longer and more complex quest for freedom, justice and equality throughout the course of the 20th century and into the present.

Before the 1860s, most of the people living on the Great Plains were Native Americans. In 1862, Congress passed the Homestead Act, allowing men or women who were 21 years old or older to "stake a claim" to 160 acres of land. Homesteaders agreed to build a home within six months and then live there for the next five years.

People who dreamed of owning a farm of their own or a bigger farm came from all around the country and the world to try to build a better future for themselves and their families.
The land the settlers found was flat and treeless. Many people said that it looked like an ocean of grass. Without trees or rocks to build houses with, settlers used sod, a tough combination of dirt and the roots of grass.

If your students are doing research in a history topic dealing with America, steer them to one of these bibliographies from the Library of Congress. Presidents and poets, elections and wars: it's all here!

Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. King has become a national icon in the history of modern American liberalism.

A Baptist minister, King became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957, serving as its first president. King's efforts led to the 1963 March on Washington, where King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. There, he expanded American values to include the vision of a color blind society, and established his reputation as one of the greatest orators in American history.

In 1964, King became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end racial segregation and racial discrimination through civil disobedience and other nonviolent means. By the time of his death in 1968, he had refocused his efforts on ending poverty and stopping the Vietnam War.

King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and Congressional Gold Medal in 2004; Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established as a U.S. federal holiday in 1986.

Picturing America, an exciting new initiative from the National Endowment for the Humanities, brings masterpieces of American art into classrooms and libraries nationwide. Through this innovative program, students and citizens will gain a deeper appreciation of our country’s history and character through the study and understanding of its art.

The nation’s artistic heritage—our paintings, sculpture, architecture, fine crafts, and photography—offers unique insights into the character, ideals, and aspirations of our country.

Picturing America, an exciting new initiative from the National Endowment for the Humanities, brings masterpieces of American art into classrooms and libraries nationwide. Through this innovative program, students and citizens will gain a deeper appreciation of our country’s history and character through the study and understanding of its art.

The nation’s artistic heritage—our paintings, sculpture, architecture, fine crafts, and photography—offers unique insights into the character, ideals, and aspirations of our country.

The Grapes of Wrath is an American realist novel written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939. For it he won the annual National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for novels and it was cited prominently when he won the Nobel Prize in 1962.

Set during the Great Depression, the novel focuses on the Joads, a poor family of sharecroppers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought, economic hardship, and changes in financial and agricultural industries. Due to their nearly hopeless situation, and in part because they were trapped in the Dust Bowl, the Joads set out for California. Along with thousands of other "Okies", they sought jobs, land, dignity, and a future.

The Grapes of Wrath is frequently read in American high school and college literature classes due to its historical context and enduring legacy. A celebrated Hollywood film version, starring Henry Fonda and directed by John Ford, was made in 1940.

The Great Depression began with the Wall Street Crash of October, 1929 and rapidly spread worldwide. The market crash marked the beginning of a decade of high unemployment, poverty, low profits, deflation, plunging farm incomes, and lost opportunities for economic growth and personal advancement. Although its causes are still uncertain and controversial, the net effect was a sudden and general loss of confidence in the economic future. The usual explanations include numerous factors, especially high consumer debt, ill-regulated markets that permitted overoptimistic loans by banks and investors, the lack of high-growth new industries, all interacting to create a downward economic spiral of reduced spending, falling confidence, and lowered production.

Industries that suffered the most included construction, agriculture as dust-bowl conditions persisted in the agricultural heartland, shipping, mining, and logging as well as durable goods like automobiles and appliances that could be postponed. The economy reached bottom in the winter of 1932–33; then came four years of very rapid growth until 1937, when the Recession of 1937 brought back 1934 levels of unemployment. The depression caused major political changes in America. Three years into the depression, Herbert Hoover lost the 1932 presidential election to Franklin Delano Roosevelt in a sweeping landslide. Roosevelt's economic recovery plan, the New Deal, instituted unprecedented programs for relief, recovery and reform, and brought about a major realignment of American politics.

Recorded in 1940, and later reissued by Folkways Recordings in 1950, Guthrie’s first album chronicles the American Dust Bowl through his prosaic style of talking blues. Using only guitar and vocals, the album follows the exodus of Midwesterners headed for California and mirrors both Guthrie’s own life and John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath. Along the way, characters are forced into theft, murder, and unbearable hardship against a biblical backdrop of the American West. Hugely influential, Dust Bowl Ballads has been revered by Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen.

In Hard Hitting Songs for Hard-Hit People, Steinbeck wrote of Guthrie: "Harsh voiced and nasal, his guitar hanging like a tire iron on a rusty rim, there is nothing sweet about Woody, and there is nothing sweet about the songs he sings. There is the will of the people to endure and fight against oppression. I think we call this the American spirit."

On the fourteenth day of April of nineteen thirty five,
There struck the worst of dust storms that ever filled the sky:
You could see that dust storm coming, the cloud looked deathlike black,
And through our mighty nation, it left a dreadful track...
This storm took place at sundown and lasted through the night,
When we looked out this morning we saw a terrible sight:
We saw outside our windows where wheat fields they had grown
Was now a rippling ocean of dust the wind had blown.
It covered up our fences, it covered up our barns,
It covered up our tractors in this wild and windy storm.
We loaded our jalopies and piled our families in,
We rattled down the highway to never come back again.
(Woody Guthrie, from “Dust Storm Disaster”)

Picturing America, an exciting new initiative from the National Endowment for the Humanities, brings masterpieces of American art into classrooms and libraries nationwide. Through this innovative program, students and citizens will gain a deeper appreciation of our country’s history and character through the study and understanding of its art.

The nation’s artistic heritage—our paintings, sculpture, architecture, fine crafts, and photography—offers unique insights into the character, ideals, and aspirations of our country.

Maria (Mar-AYE-ah) Mitchell was America’s first woman professional astronomer. She was the first American woman to discover a new comet, and won a gold medal from the king of Denmark as an award for her discovery. After Maria became famous she continued to work as an astronomer, and also taught astronomy to younger women at Vassar College. She used a telescope that is now part of the collection of the National Museum of American History. Maria not only helped her students at Vassar College, but brought attention to other American scientists, schools for girls, and the women’s rights movement.

Maria's Comet is a historical fiction book written by Deborah Hopkinson. The story imagines how Maria's curiosity about the stars developed while she was a young girl and the role her family played in her interest in astronomy

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination". Its name, retained in accordance with tradition, uses the once common term colored people.

ames Weldon Johnson (June 17, 1871 – June 26, 1938) was an American author, politician, diplomat, critic, journalist, poet, anthologist, educator, lawyer, songwriter, and early civil rights activist. Johnson is remembered best for his leadership within the NAACP, as well as for his writing, which includes novels, poems, and collections of folklore. He was also one of the first African-American professors at New York University. Later in life he was a professor of creative literature and writing at Fisk University.

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke. Though it was centered in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City, many French-speaking black writers from African and Caribbean colonies who lived in Paris were also influenced by the Harlem Renaissance.

Many countries in the New World and elsewhere celebrate the anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas, which occurred on October 12, 1492, as an official holiday. The event is celebrated as Columbus Day in the United States, as Día de la Raza in many countries in Latin America, as Discovery Day in the Bahamas, as Día de la Hispanidad, Fiesta Nacional in Spain, Día del Respeto a la Diversidad Cultural (Day of Respect for Cultural Diversity) in Argentina and as Día de las Américas (Day of the Americas) in Uruguay. These holidays have been celebrated unofficially since the late 18th century, and officially in various areas since the early 20th century.

150 years ago, the Civil War tore the United States of America into two parts, the Union and the Confederacy. Many people were involved in the war, from fighting on the battlefields to farming the food for soldiers, from acting as a spy between the sides to serving as a nurse. There are many extraordinary stories that can be told about the Civil War, and "Full Steam to Freedom" explores just one of them through reading and creative activities.

Seven Miles to Freedom tells the story of a young man who was born a slave, but escaped to freedom with his family. Robert Smalls's story brings details of the Civil War to life through his daring adventure.

On September 14, 1814, U.S. soldiers at Baltimore’s Fort McHenry raised a huge American flag to celebrate an important victory over British forces during the War of 1812. The sight of those "broad stripes and bright stars" inspired Francis Scott Key to write a song that eventually became the United States national anthem. Key’s words gave new significance to a national symbol and started a tradition through which generations of Americans have invested the flag with their own meanings and memories.

The Flag Maker is a story about Caroline Pickersgill helping her mother, Mary Pickersgill, create the Star-Spangled Banner and her emotions as she sees that the flag has survived the Battle of Baltimore.

For two and a half years, Americans fought Against the British, Canadian colonists, and native nations. In the years to come, the War of 1812 would be celebrated in some places and essentially forgotten in others. But it is a war worth remembering—a struggle that threatened the existence of Canada, then divided the United States so deeply that the nation almost broke apart. Some of its battles and heroes became legendary, yet its blunders and cowards were just as prominent.

In commemoration of the bicentennials of the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark expedition, the President enacted Public Law 108-15 to modify the Jefferson 5-cent coin (nickel) to reflect images evocative of the historic expedition into the Louisiana Territory. The United States Mint began the Westward Journey Nickel Series™ in 2004 with the release of the Peace Medal and Keelboat nickels. In 2005, a contemporary image of President Jefferson will appear on the nickel, along with two new reverse designs that recognize the American Indians and wildlife encountered by the Lewis and Clark expedition and the progress and culmination of the journey. Depictions of Monticello and Thomas Jefferson will return to the nickel in 2006.

From ancient Egyptian coins to today's circulating cents, coins have a rich and fascinating history. The first coins date back to 650 B.C. - more than 2,600 years ago - in Lydia, an area that today is part of Turkey.

The first United States coins were copper cents, which were struck at the Philadelphia Mint in 1793. At that time, production was manually intensive and the coins were struck one at a time. Today, about seven hundred coins can be produced in one minute.

Keep up with the past and future US coins that might be part of your collection.

Congress authorizes commemorative coins that celebrate and honor American people, places, events, and institutions. Although these coins are legal tender, they are not minted for general circulation. Each commemorative coin is produced by the United States Mint in limited quantity and is only available for a limited time.

Launched in 1999, the United States Mint's 50 State Quarters Program was a 10-year initiative that honored each of the nation's states in the order that they ratified the Constitution or were admitted into the Union. Each quarter was produced for about 10 weeks and will never be produced again. State designs are displayed on the reverse (tails) of the quarters, while the obverse design displays the familiar image of George Washington. But, to accommodate state designs on the reverse, the words "United States of America," "Quarter Dollar," "Liberty," and "In God We Trust" all appear on the obverse.

There are lots of good ideas to explore the world of money and the new Lincoln Penny. It is being released on Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday on Feb. 12, 2009. The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial or 200th birthday anniversary celebration (February 12, 2009 - Lincoln’s 200th Birthday) started in 1809. He inspired many others to do great things. So many aspects of Lincoln's life and legacy provide valuable teaching opportunities. Check out some teaching resources and lessons in this collection to learn more about money and the new Lincoln penny.

The United States Mint - H.I.P. Pocket Change provides free educational resources for educators, parents, and kids. Explore this Library of Resources to view free class activities, lesson plans, and information on how to bring coins into the classroom. The United States Mint H.I.P. Pocket Change™ for kids is dedicated to promoting lifelong pleasure in coins and coin collecting. Games, informational features, and interactive animated cartoons, successfully combine government, technology, and education in a new and exciting way.

Beginning in 2009, the United States Mint began minting and issuing $1 coins featuring designs celebrating the important contributions made by Indian tribes and individual Native Americans to the history and development of the United States. The Native American $1 Coin Program was created by the Native American $1 Coin Act (Public Law 110-82).

As 19th-century America expanded, so too did the "ribbons of iron" that crisscrossed the vast landscape and sparked the imagination of music-makers. Work songs, ballads recounting riveting exploits, and instrumental echoes of the once familiar sounds of the steam locomotive have enshrined the railroad in our musical memory.

The decades between the close of the Civil War and the beginning of World War II were a time of profound social turmoil in the United States. While baseball as a sport was becoming tremendously popular around the still-young nation, Americans experienced the sport in various ways reflecting their social and ethnic backgrounds.

This is a Primary Source Set dedicated to the topic of the Japanese Internment during World War II under President Roosevelt.

Japanese-American internment was the relocation and internment by the United States government in 1942 of approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese who lived along the Pacific coast of the United States to camps called "War Relocation Camps," in the wake of Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the internment with Executive Order 9066, issued February 19, 1942, which allowed local military commanders to designate "military areas" as "exclusion zones," from which "any or all persons may be excluded." This power was used to declare that all people of Japanese ancestry were excluded from the entire Pacific coast, including all of California and most of Oregon and Washington, except for those in internment camps.

During World War II, the United States was at war with Japan. By an executive order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, all Americans of Japanese descent living in military exclusion zones on the West Coast were forced to leave their homes and move to internment camps.

This collection of resources is based upon the children's book, Baseball Saved Us," a selection of the Smithsonian's "Our Story" series (National Museum of American History) set during the Japanese Internment.

Lesson plans and study guides from the Smithsonian Institution, some titled Art to Zoo and others titled Smithsonian in Your Classroom.

"Citizen King" is a documentary that explores the last five years of Martin Luther King, Jr. and "March" is a 1964 documentary (included in the National Film Registry) about the 1963 March on Washington.

CITIZEN KING, a two-hour documentary from acclaimed film-makers Orlando Bagwell and Noland Walker, explores the last five years in the life of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Personal recollections and eyewitness accounts of friends, movement associates, journalists, law enforcement officers, and historians illuminate this little-known chapter in the story of America's most influential moral leader in the 20th century.

Examining the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington from the ground-level and focusing on the idealistic passion, joy and synergy of the crowds, MARCH lets us see the event take shape from the planning stage -- with sound checks and worries about whether people will attend -- to the arrival of enormous crowds on parades of trains and buses. It culminates in Martin Luther King's electrifying "I Have a Dream" speech.These USIA films were rarely seen in America because, fearing propaganda, the 1948 Smith-Mundt Act mandated that no USIA film could be shown domestically without a special act of Congress. These films are being rediscovered because a 1990 act of Congress (P.L. 101-246) authorized domestic screening twelve years after release.

"Forgotten Genius: Percy Julian" is a fascinating and largely unknown story of scientific triumph and racial inequality. It covers the extraordinary life journey of Percy Julian, one of the great chemists of the 20th century.

Percy Julian won worldwide acclaim for his work in organic chemistry, and as the first black director of an industrial chemistry research lab. He broke the color barrier in American science more than a decade before Jackie Robinson did so in Major League Baseball. A brilliant chemist, his career was marked by many scientific breakthroughs that improved lives. He converted soybeans into synthetic steroids on an industrial scale, and his innovative approach helped make drugs like cortisone affordable and available to millions.

God in America explores the tumultuous 400-year history of the intersection of religion and public life in America, from the first European settlements to the 2008 presidential election. A co-production of AMERICAN EXPERIENCE and FRONTLINE, this six-hour series examines how religious dissidents helped shape the American concept of religious liberty and the controversial evolution of that ideal in the nation's courts and political arena; how religious freedom and waves of new immigrants and religious revivals fueled competition in the religious marketplace; how movements for social reform -- from abolition to civil rights -- galvanized men and women to put their faith into political action; and how religious faith influenced conflicts from the American Revolution to the Cold War.

While many young children have heard references to "9/11" or "September 11," they may not have accurate answers to all of their questions about the events of September 11, 2001. The goal of this collection of resources is to provide a starting point to help families and classrooms discuss the shocking events of September 11 and how communities respond in times of trouble.

While many young children have heard references to "9/11" or "September 11," they may not have accurate answers to all of their questions about the events of September 11, 2001. The goal of these activities is to provide a starting point to help families and classrooms discuss the shocking events of September 11 and how communities respond in times of trouble.

The Little Chapel That Stood retells the events of September 11, 2001, through illustrations and poetry without going into graphic details. The title refers to St. Paul's Church, a real church located within blocks of the World Trade Center that served as a hub for rescue and recovery workers.

Here is a small collection of political cartoons created by Herb "Herblock" Block organized by date. CLICK ON a tag for the year you wish to view, or simply enjoy each art masterwork as it appears in the collection. Has our world changed so much from when these cartoons were first created?