This popular reader uses both primary and secondary sources to explore social history topics and sharpen your interpretive skills. Each chapter includes one secondary source essay and several related primary source documents. Chapter introductions tie the readings together and pose questions to consider.

Table of Contents:
Part I: THE EMERGENCE OF AN URBAN, INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY, 1865-1920. 1. Reconstruction: Triumphs and Tragedies. Essay. Mark Andrew Huddle, "To Educate a Race." Documents. A Letter "To My Old Master," c. 1865. The Knights of the White Camelia, 1868. "We Are Literally Slaves," 1912. 2. The Last Frontier. Essay. Jack Chen, "Linking a Continent and a Nation." Documents. California Must Be All American, 1878. Homesteading in South Dakota in the 1880s, 1930. A Montana Cowtown, 1899. 3. Indian Schools: "Americanizing" the Native American. Essay. Robert A. Trennert, "Educating Indian Girls at Nonreservation Boarding Schools, 1878-1920." Documents. Rules for Indian Schools, 1890. A Government Official Describes Indian Race and Culture, 1905. The Cutting of My Long Hair, c. 1885. 4. Immigrant Life and Labor in an Expanding Economy. Essay. Robert F. Zeidel, "An Immigrant's Anguish: The Americanization of Johanes Johansen." Documents. Struggles of an Irish Immigrant, c. 1913. An Italian Bootblack's Story, 1902. A Bintel Brief, 1907. 5. Women's Sphere: Women's Work. Essay. Daniel Sidorick, "The 'Girl Army' and the Philadelphia Shirtwaist Strike, 1909-1910." Documents. Only Heroic Women Were Doctors Then (1865), 1916. Women's Separate Sphere, 1872. Employments Unsuitable for Women, 1901. 6. The Triumph of Racism. Essay. Keith Weldon Medley, "The Birth of 'Separate but Equal.'" Documents. Senator Benjamin Tillman Defends Disfranchisement and Lynching of African Americans, 1900. George White's Farewell Speech, 1901. A Call for Equality, 1905. 7. America Goes to War. Essay. Meirion and Susie Harries, "Building a National Army." Documents. German-American Loyalty, 1917. Letters from Mennonite Draftees, 1918. Racism and the Army, 1918. Suggestions for Further Reading. Part II: MODERN AMERICAN SOCIETY, 1920-PRESENT. 8. Intolerance: A Bitter Legacy of Social Change. Essay. Kevin A. Boyle, "Prosperity and Prejudice in Postwar America." Documents. The Klan's Fight for Americanism, 1926. Intelligence and Prejudice: One Professor's View, 1923. Congress Debates Immigration Restriction, 1921. 9. Morals and Manners in the 1920s. Essay. Daniel Okrent, "Prohibition and Politics." Documents. Moving Pictures Evoke Concern, 1922. Does Jazz Put the Sin in Syncopation?, 1921. 10. The Depression Years. Essay. Timothy Egan, "The Worst Hard Time." Documents. The Okies in California, 1939. Homeless Women Sleep in Chicago Parks, 1931. A Vagrant Civil Engineer, 1932. 11. World War II. Essay. William O'Neill, "The People Are Willing." Documents. Shipyard Diary of a Woman Welder (1940s), 1944. Conditions in the Camps (1942-1945), 1948. Japanese American Servicemen (1942-1945), 2011. 12. Americans on the Move: Suburbs and the Sunbelt. Essay. Kenneth Jackson, "The Baby Boom and the Age of the Subdivision." Documents. The Melting Pot Goes Suburban, 2002. Big Apple, Southern Cities Tops in Growth, 2011. 13. Minorities' Struggles for Equality. Essay. William Doyle, "Crisis in Little Rock." Documents. Growing Up Black in the South: A Remembrance, 1977. The Southern Manifesto, 1956. Wealth and Income Inequality, 2005. A Native American Protest, 1969. 14. The Sixties and Beyond: Times of Protest. Essay. Terry Anderson, "The Movement and the Sixties Generation." Documents. Vietnam Veterans Against the War, 1971. Gays in the Military: President Obama Notes the New Policy, 2011. 15. The Revival of Feminism. Essay. Flora Davis, "Feminism's Second Wave: The Opening Salvos." Documents. A Woman's Right to Abortion, 1973. President George W. Bush Opposes Abortion, 2002. Trials of Working Women, 2006. 16. The New Immigration. Essay. Robert Joe Stout, "Why Immigrants Come to America." Documents. Struggling to Get Ahead: The Life of a Vietnamese Fisherman, 2010. Story of an Immigrant from the Philippines, 2008. Suggestions for Further Reading.