Ever since the first days of European settlement—and even before that with the wide variety of Native cultures—diversity has been one of the distinguishing features of religious life in North America. Sometimes the juxtaposition of religious groups created conflict, as when Spanish settlers sought to impose Roman Catholicism on the Pueblos in the Southwest, leading … Continued
Before the Civil War, segregation existed mainly in cities in both the North and the South. In the years immediately after the Civil War segregation eased somewhat. In the 1880s legislation strengthened segregation in the South. By the 1890s it had become entrenched. In the North, while legislation combated segregation, African Americans were still kept … Continued
White Americans did not expect blacks to participate in Reconstruction-era debates. Blacks thought otherwise. Black citizenship depended on the status of the Confederate states. After the Civil War, were the Confederate states conquered lands, frontier territories, or states in good standing? The recalcitrance of white Southerners opened Republicans to extending full citizenship to the formerly … Continued
The removal of American Indian tribes from lands east of the Mississippi River to what is now the state of Oklahoma is one of the tragic episodes in American history. Early treaties signed by American agents and representatives of Indian tribes guaranteed peace and the integrity of Indian territories, primarily to assure that the lucrative … Continued
Environmentally, “suburbs” are marriages of city and countryside. Only in the twentieth century did such places acquire such geographic and cultural centrality in Americans’ lives, to become where most of us live, shop, and work. Not surprisingly, they also had seminal impacts on our modern notions of “nature” and “environment.” If the overlaps between America’s … Continued
Early on, prescribed formats governed the publication of slave narratives. Douglass based his narrative on the sermon. Jacobs modeled her narrative on the sentimental or domestic novel. Douglass focuses on the struggle to achieve manhood and freedom. Jacob focuses on sexual exploitation. A comparison of the narratives of Douglass and Jacobs demonstrates the full range … Continued
Given the secondary position of persons of African descent throughout their history in America, it could reasonably be argued that all efforts of creative writers from that group are forms of protest. The intention of protest literature was—and remains—to show inequalities among races and socio-economic groups in America and to encourage a transformation in the … Continued
The American Civil Rights Movement cohered around the aim of eliminating the system of Jim Crow segregation and the reform of some of the worst aspects of racism in American institutions and life. When most Americans think of the Civil Rights Movement, they have in mind a span of time beginning with the 1954 Supreme … Continued
In 1691, this notorious episode in the history of early New England began to unfold in a small rural neighborhood on the outskirts of Salem town, then the second-largest seaport in Massachusetts Bay Colony. Several adolescent girls in Salem Village began to exhibit strange and alarming symptoms that some of their parents quickly came to … Continued
Teaching the American Revolution presents a prime opportunity to instruct your students in the ways that religion shaped the American past. Most people today think of the War for Independence as a purely secular event, a chapter in political, constitutional, military, and diplomatic history. They envision an initial resistance to the British empire triggered mainly … Continued