When I was interviewing for full-time teaching jobs (I made it to the finalist round four times over six years before finally landing a job), I was consistently asked some variant of the following questions:
- If a student asked you for more information on [incident / period X] in American history, what further reading would you recommend for them?
- If you are teaching on [incident / period X] in American history, what primary sources would you use?
“Monks Mound,” Cahokia, IL – photo by L.D. Burnett, May 2018
These are pedagogical questions that also test the range and, to some extent, the depth of someone’s knowledge in the field, particularly for those of us who mostly teach the survey. I did okay answering these questions off the top of my head the first couple of times I was asked, but after that, I decided it would be prudent to prepare a list for myself in case I drew a blank and forgot the author or title of a work when asked.
Below is the most recent iteration of the list I prepared. For the periodization, I used the periodization from the Early American Newspapers database, to which I no longer have access. I used some of their period titles directly and modified some of them, and I used some of the key events they provide for each period and added to some of them. (That database periodizes American history into some questionably thin slices.)
For each period I noted the following information:
“text” – a primary source I could assign
“image” – either an image created during the period, or a photograph of an artifact
“outside resource” – a video, blog post, or brief article available online
“bibliography” – scholarly monographs and peer-reviewed articles
I only included one item for each category in most cases because I simply wanted to be able to answer the questions posed to me in an interview. (You can tell what my favorite period to teach is by the sheer number of primary sources I listed for it.) It’s certainly not an exhaustive list, and it may not even be a good one.
Still, I offer the list here for anyone who is either interviewing for a teaching job in U.S. history or preparing to teach the survey in U.S. history for the first time. Feel free to use it as a starter list to build out your own collection of resources for teaching.
As always, I would welcome comments and suggestions. I would particularly welcome additions to the list for both the “text” and “image” categories for each period.
And I ended the list at the (purported) end of the Cold War. But history keeps going. So additions covering the period since 1991 – “The Age of Whatever This Is” – would be most welcome.
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Indigenous America (before 1492)
Peopling the Americas, agriculture and resource management, Native societies, Native empires, trade routes
Text: “How the Cayuse Got Fire” (from Coyote Was Going There, ed. Jarold Ramsey)
Image: photos of Cahokia (taken by me); photos of Chichen Itza (taken by me)
Outside resource: Native America (PBS)
Bibliography: R. David Edmunds, et. al., The People : A History of Native America; Michael Leroy Oberg, Native America: A History
Age of Exploration and Conquest (1492 – 1630)
Columbus, Protestant Reformation, La Florida, French traders, first British colonies
Text: Richard Hakluyt, “A particular discourse concerning the great necessity and manifold commodities…” Table of Contents (1584); John Winthrop, “Reasons to Be Considered for Justifying the Undertakers of the Intended Plantation in New England and for Encouraging Such Whose Hearts God Shall Move to Join with Them in It” (1629)
Image: John White, paintings of village of Secoton (1585)
Outside resource: PBS Secrets of the Dead, “La Florida”
Bibliography: Matthew Restall, When Montezuma Met Cortés: The True Story of the Meeting that Changed History
The Growth of New England (1631-1641)
Pequot War, Anne Hutchinson, Roger Williams
Text: excerpt of transcript from trial of Anne Hutchinson
Image: illustration of the Pequot palisade, from John Underhill’s “Newes from America” (1638)
Outside resource: PBS God In America series, “A New Adam”
Bibliiography: Wendy Warren, New England Bound: Slavery and Colonization in Early America
The British Atlantic and Salutary Neglect (1642 – 1689)
Restoration colonies, Metacom’s war (1675-1678), Bacon’s rebellion, continued growth of New England, New Amsterdam becomes New York, transformation of slavery
Text: Statutes of Harvard, 1646
Image: “A Sugar Mill in the West Indies,” 1655
Outside resource: PBS Africans In America, episode 1; “From Indentured Servitude to Racial Slavery” (online)
Bibliography: Peter H. Wood, Strange New Land: Africans in Colonial America
Early Colonial Era (1690-1729)
Salem witchcraft trials, slavery institutionalized, plantation economies
Text: Deodat Lawson, “A brief and true narrative of some remarkable passages relating to sundry persons afflicted by witchcraft, in Salem Village: which happened from the nineteenth of March, to the fifth of April, 1692”; selections from Cotton Mather
Image: English Tobacco Label, c. 1700
Outside resource: Erin Blakemore, “How an African Slave in Boston Helped Save Generations from Smallpox” (History, 2019)
Bibliography: Carol F. Karlsen, The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England; Elaine G. Breslaw, Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem: Devilish Indians and Puritan Fantasies
Development of Colonial Societies (1730 to 1753)
First Great Awakening, Stono Slave Rebellion, Universities established
Text: Excerpts from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin; Excerpts from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself; selected numbers of The Pennsylvania Gazette
Image: John Collet, George Whitefield Preaching (18th c.)
Outside resource: PBS series God In America, ep 1 “A New Adam”
Bibliography: Jon Butler, Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People; Thomas S. Kidd, The Great Awakening: The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America
Seven Years War (1754 to 1763)
Pontiac’s Rebellion, Decline of French colonial power, Royal Proclamation of 1763
Text: Benjamin Franklin’s “Albany Plan of Union” (1754)
Image: “Join or Die” (1754)
Outside resource: PBS documentary, “The War that Made America”
Bibliography: Fred Anderson, Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766; Timothy J. Shannon, Indians and Colonists at the Crossroads of Empire: The Albany Congress of 1754
Prelude to Revolution (1764 to 1774)
Stamp Act Crisis, Boston Massacre, Boston Tea Party, First Continental Congress
Text: John Adams, “A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law” (1765)
Image: Paul Revere, Boston Massacre engraving (1770)
Outside Resource: “Liberty! The American Revolution” (PBS) – episode 1
Bibliography: Jesse Lemisch, “Jack Tar in the Streets”; Alan Taylor, American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804
American Revolution (1775 to 1783)
Battle of Lexington and Concord, Declaration of Independence, Rise of Republicanism
Text: Declaration of Independence, 1776
Image: Black Loyalist Pass, 1783
Outside Resource: “Liberty! The American Revolution” (PBS) – episode 2
Bibliography: Alan Taylor, American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804; Cassandra Pybus, Epic Journeys of Freedom: Runaway Slaves of the American Revolution and Their Global Quest for Liberty
Articles of Confederation to Constitution (1784 to 1789)
Shays’ Rebellion, U.S. Constitutional Convention, Rise of Republican Motherhood
Text: United States Constitution (1787)
Image: “The Looking Glass for 1787” (political cartoon)
Outside Resource: “Liberty! The American Revolution” (PBS) – ep. 6
Bibliography: Pauline Maier, Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788
Early Republic (1790 to 1811)
Ban on Slave Importation, Louisiana Purchase, Lewis and Clark Expedition
Text: Benjamin Rush, “Of the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic”; “Thoughts Upon Female Education”
Image: “An Emblem of America” (1800)
Outside Resource: “Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery” PBS/Ken Burns
Bibliography: Linda Kerber, Toward an Intellectual History of Women
War of 1812 (1812 to 1815)
Burning of Washington, “Star Spangled Banner” written, Tecumseh killed, Treaty of Ghent
Text: “Naturalized Mariners,” City Gazette [Charleston, S.C.], Oct. 18, 1803
Image: The Star-Spangled Banner
Outside Resource: PBS, “The War of 1812”
Bibliography: Adam Jortner, The Gods of Prophetstown: The Battle of Tippecanoe and the Holy War for the American Frontier
Era of Good Feelings (1816 to 1822)
Spain cedes FL to U.S., Missouri Compromise, Denmark Vesey executed
Text: James Madison to Congress, requesting support for internal improvements
Image: Construction at Lockport; Barge on the Erie Canal
Outside Resource: “Erie: The Canal that Made America” PBS documentary
Bibliography: Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848
Jacksonian Era (1823 to 1842)
Second Great Awakening, Lowell Textile Mills, Monroe Doctrine, Trail of Tears and Indian Removal
Text: “To the Public,” William Lloyd Garrison; Seneca Falls Declaration
Image: Engraving of a Methodist Camp Meeting, 1839
Outside Resource: “The Trail of Tears: Cherokee Legacy” (2006 documentary)
Bibliography: Nathan Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity; Bruce Dorsey, Reforming Men and Women: Gender in the Antebellum City; ; Manisha Sinha, The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition
Antebellum Period (1843 to 1860)
Height of Plantation Slavery, California Gold Rush, Dred Scott decision, Mexican War
Text: Selections from Emerson, Fuller, Thoreau, Whitman
Image: “War News from Mexico,” Richard Caton Woodville, 1848
Outside Resource: “The Mexican American War” (History Channel Documentary)
Bibliography: Martha S. Jones, Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America; Walter Johnson, Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market
U.S. Civil War (1861 to 1865)
Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, Sherman’s March, President Lincoln assassination
Text: Declarations of secession for South Carolina, Georgia, Texas, etc; Selections from Stephen C. Beck, A True Sketch of His Army Life (1913)
Image: Gettysburg photographs by Alexander Gardner and Timothy O’Sullivan; “The Fort Pillow Massacre” (engraving, 1864)
Outside resource: “Death and the Civil War” PBS American Experience
Bibliography: Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering; Heather Cox Richardson, To Make Men Free: A History of the Republican Party
Reconstruction (1866 to 1877)
Civil Rights Amendments, Freedman’s Bureau, Increasing Industrialization, Sioux War
Text: the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments
Image: “Pardon / Franchise”; “This Is a White Man’s Government,” Thomas Nast
Outside resource: “Reconstruction: America After the Civil War” (PBS 2019)
Bibliography: Eric Foner, A Short History of Reconstruction; David Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory
Gilded Age (1878 to 1889)
Haymarket Bombing and Labor unrest, Chinese Exclusion Act, Dawes Act
Text: Andrew Carnegie, “The Gospel of Wealth”
Image: Bessemer converter
Outside Source: “The Gilded Age” (PBS American Experience, 2018)
Bibliography: Jackson Lears, Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America
Progressive Era (1890 to 1913)
Plessy v. Ferguson, Filipino-Cuban-Spanish-American War, Turner’s Frontier Thesis
Text: Ida B. Wells, “Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases”; Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull House (excerpt); Democratic National Platform, 1896; Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives; Upton Sinclair, The Jungle; Booker T. Washington, “Atlanta Exposition Speech”; W.E.B. DuBois, “On the Wings of Atalanta,” from Souls of Black Folk; Zitkala-Sa, “Why I Am a Pagan”
Image: “Scribners, June 1895”; “The New Woman and Her Bicycle”
“Our Home Defenders” (Republican engraving/platform, 1896)
Outside source: “Island of Hope, Island of Tears” (NPS documentary, 1992)
Bibliography: Rebecca Edwards, New Spirits: Americans in the Gilded Age; Michael Kazin, A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan
World War I and its aftermath (1914 to 1920)
Southern lynching, Anti-communist “Red Scare,” Mexican Immigration, white Women gain suffrage
Text: Telegram from Walter Page to Woodrow Wilson, including a translation of the Zimmerman telegram
Image: “Wake Up, America!” “Beat back the Hun with Liberty Bonds” (posters)
Outside source: “An Outrage” (documentary)
Bibliography: Celia M. Kingsbury, For Home and Country: World War I Propaganda on the Home Front; David Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society
Roaring Twenties (1921 to 1928)
End of the Progressive era, Jazz Age, Scopes Monkey Trial, rise of modern nativism
Text: Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues (incl. “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”)
Image: “The Spirit of ‘26” (Life Magazine cover, 1926)
Outside Source: “Monkey Trial” (PBS American Experience)
Bibliography: Mae Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America; Edward J. Larson, Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate over Science and Religion
Great Depression / End of Prohibition (1929 – 1940)
Stock Market crash, Great Depression, end of Prohibition, FDR’s New Deal, The Atlantic Charter
Text: Democratic Party platform, 1932; Republican Party platform, 1932 (American Presidency Project, UC Santa Barbara)
Image: “Migrant Mother,” Dorothea Lange; “Guernica,” Pablo Picasso
Outside source: “A Night at the Garden” (documentary by Marshall Curry re: German-American Bund rally 1939)
Bibliography: Eric Rauchway, The Moneymakers: How Roosevelt and Keynes Ended the Great Depression, Defeated Fascism, and Secured a Prosperous Peace; Kim Phillips-Fein, Invisible Hands: The Businessmen’s Crusade against the New Deal
World War II (1941 – 1945)
Attack on Pearl Harbor, global conflict, shifting gender roles on the home front
Text: Executive Order 9066; letters from my grandparents to each other about Pearl Harbor
Image: Norman Rockwell, “Four Freedoms” paintings; Rockwell, “Rosie the Riveter”
Outside Source: “Keeper of the Stories,” L.D. Burnett
Bibliography: James Sparrow, Warfare State: World War II Americans and the Age of Big Government
Post-War Era (1946 – 1952)
The Fair Deal, rise of the Cold War, political and economic realignments, NATO, Korean conflict
Text: The Long Telegram, George Kennan (1946); NSC-68 (military buildup)
Image: from LIFE Magazine, Aug. 28, 1950
Outside Source: “Atomic Café”
Bibliography: Ray Haberski God and War: American Civil Religion since 1945 (2012)
America at Mid-Century (1953-1960)
McCarthyism, emerging Middle East tensions, Brown decision, Montgomery bus boycott, Sputnik
Text: Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, ch. 1, “The Problem that Has No Name”
Image: Motorola TV advertisement, 1951
Outside source: “Tupperware!” American Experience
Bibliography: Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America
The Second Reconstruction (1961 – 1964)
Modern presidency, Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965, Cuban Missile Crisis, counter-insurgency in Asia, Kennedy assassination
Text: Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”; documentary, “A Time for Burning” (1966)
Image: Norman Rockwell, “The Problem We All Live With”; cf. photo of Ruby Bridges going to school
Outside Source: “Eyes on the Prize,” PBS miniseries
Bibliography: Jeanne Theoharris, A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History (2018)
Vietnam Era (1965 – 1975)
The Great Society, Vietnam War, election of 1968, anti-war movement and student counterculture, Apollo 11
Text: “Goodbye to All That,” Robin Morgan
Image: LIFE Magazine coverage of Kent State; Hardhat Riot photos, NYC
Outside source: Lee Atwater discusses the Southern Strategy, The Atlantic
Bibliography: Jefferson Cowie: Stayin’ Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class; my own draft in progress
Post-Vietnam Era (1976 – 1980)
Legacy of Watergate, energy crisis at home and hostage crisis abroad, rise of Neo-Conservatism
Text: Matthew Avery Sutton, Jerry Falwell and the Rise of the Religious Right: a Brief History with Documents (Bedford St Martin 2013)
Image: episodes of “Three’s Company”; “Video Killed the Radio Star,” first MTV video
Outside Source: “The Seventies” (2015 documentary)
Bibliography: Alice Echols, Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture
End of the Cold War (1981-1991)
Reagan and the New Right, Perestroika and Glasnost in the East, Iran-Contra Affair, fall of the Berlin Wall, dissolution of the Soviet Union
Text: War Games; The Breakfast Club; Do the Right Thing
Image: “David Kirby on His Deathbed, Ohio, 1990” LIFE Magazine;
Outside Source: “The Bodies of Men Who Have Perished: Reading the Iliad in the 1980s,” by L.D. Burnett
Bibliography: Andrew C. McKevitt, Consuming Japan: Popular Culture and the Globalizing of 1980s America; Doug Rossinow, The Reagan Era: A History of the 1980s; my own manuscript draft
The Age of Whatever This Is (1991 – present)
3 Thoughts on this Post
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A few quick/brief thoughts:
On the Civil War: McPherson’s _Battle Cry of Freedom_ covers all the strands, whereas the Faust book you’ve listed is on a particular topic (i.e. death). So is the Heather Cox Richardson, though it’s on a v imp specific topic (rise of Repub Party).
On the Cold War: Perhaps even better than the Long Telegram wd be Kennan’s famous “X” article in Foreign Affairs.
On Vietnam War: Too many good possibilities here, so I’m going to skip over it in this comment.
End of the Cold War: James G. Wilson, _The Triumph of Improvisation_ (on Reagan and Gorbachev).
Late 19th cent imperialism etc: Paul Kramer on US and Philippines; R. Beisner, _Twelve against Empire_; Walter LaFeber; F. Zakaria, _From Wealth to Power_; C. Lasch, “The Anti-Imperialists, the Philippines, and the Inequality of Man” (in the essay collection _The World of Nations_).
On primary sources side for last topic mentioned above: from Library of America volume American Speeches:
C. Schurz, “The Policy of Imperialism” and
T. Roosevelt, “The Strenuous Life”.
😉
The Time Magazine “Is God Dead?” cover from 1966 would be a good one. I also think the Brown decision itself should be read – it’s relatively brief and readable for a Supreme Court opinion.
As far as primary sources for our current mess of an era, something by Coates is of course an obvious choice – “The First White President” is all too obvious but I have always been partial to “This Is How We Lost To The White Man” from 2008 (Coates on Bill Cosby is a lot to unpack). I think G. W. Bush’s first inaugural address is useful as it touches on a great many themes of his presidency and the wider culture war (it’s particularly useful in how it clearly foreshadows the response to 9/11 while still reflecting that 9/11 was not foreseen; in January 2001 Bush talked mostly about domestic issues). I find Steven Teles, “Kludgeocracy in America” excellent on the broad topic of governmental dysfunction.
For images, you could get a surprising amount of mileage out of the many remarkable portraits of the Obamas – particularly Shepard Fairey’s HOPE poster, the infamous New Yorker caricature of the “terrorist fist bump”, and the official portraits for the Smithsonian by Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald.
Country music since the Reagan era is a rich mine – some names and titles that spring to mind include Alan Jackson, “Gone Country”; Alabama, “Song of the South”; Merle Haggard, “Are The Good Times Really Over”; the Dixie Chicks, “Travelin’ Soldier”); Toby Keith, “Beer For My Horses”; a bunch of songs by Shania Twain. Really a lot of stuff here.