Sources for
America’s History Volume 2: Since 1865 Kevin B. Sheets State University of New York, College at Cortland
Bedford/St. Martin’s Boston ◆ New York
For Bedford/St. Martin’s Publisher for History: Mary V. Dougherty Senior Executive Editor for History and Technology: William J. Lombardo Director of Development for History: Jane Knetzger Developmental Editor: Robin Soule Publishing Services Manager: Andrea Cava Production Supervisor: Steven Dowling Executive Marketing Manager: Sandra McGuire Editorial Assistant: Victoria Royal Project Management: Books By Design, Inc. Text Design: Lily Yamamoto, LMY Studios Cover Design: Marine Miller Cover Photo: Mexican American Parade. Chicago, Illinois, 1963. The Granger Collection, NYC. All Rights Reserved. Composition: Jouve Printing and Binding: RR Donnelley and Sons President, Bedford/St. Martin’s: Denise B. Wydra Director of Marketing: Karen R. Soeltz Production Director: Susan W. Brown Director of Rights and Permissions: Hilary Newman Copyright © 2014 by Bedford/St. Martin’s All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except as may be expressly permitted by the applicable copyright statutes or in writing by the Publisher. Manufactured in the United States of America. 8 7 6 5 4 3 f e d c b a For information, write: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 75 Arlington Street, Boston, MA 02116 (617-399-4000) ISBN 978-1-4576-2891-7
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Preface
Historians are fond of quoting L. P. Hartley’s famous line: “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” It is a helpful image that emphasizes the distance, remoteness, and inscrutability of the past. Visiting a country whose language you do not speak can be disorienting until you start deciphering the gestures, unlocking the meaning behind facial expressions, and picking apart the cultural practices natives take for granted. For many students, the past is equally disorienting, and to seek safe harbor they ignore differences to emphasize commonalities. “Those people in the past are just like me, except they wear funny clothes.” Stripped down, they do resemble us, but more often they encountered their world in radically different ways. Understanding these differences is what makes the study of history so compelling. My goal in compiling Sources for America’s History is to help students encounter this different past in its most raw and visceral form. Designed to accompany America’s History, Eighth Edition, and America: A Concise History, Sixth Edition, the sources collected here put students in unmediated contact with those whose experiences shaped our past. Each chapter includes a variety of both obscure and well-known voices, whose testimony highlights key themes of the period. The sources in each chapter give competing perspectives on leading events and ideas. This purposeful tension between sources is not intended to frustrate the reader. Instead, the differing viewpoints introduce students to the challenge that historians face in sifting through the evidence left to us. How do we make sense of the large body of primary sources that we have related to America’s half millennium of lived experience? Textbook authors present an argument about the past, something historians refer to as a “narrative.” Those arguments, of course, are based on historians’ interpretation and assessment of primary sources. This document collection makes its own argument based on the specific sources selected for inclusion, but invites debate by encouraging the reader to interpret sources in different ways. Sources for America’s History is designed to encourage a productive intellectual give-and-take, enabling students of history to offer their own perspective on the past. In this way, students join the ongoing discussion among the community of scholars seeking to understand the long and complex history of what became the United States. To facilitate this effort, Sources for America’s History includes a number of key features. Each chapter in the collection includes five or six documents that iii
