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Emancipation Proclamation:
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of the bloody civil war.

The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free."

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President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free."

Despite this expansive wording, the Emancipation Proclamation was limited in many ways. It applied only to states that had seceded from the United States, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy (the Southern secessionist states) that had already come under Northern control. Most important, the freedom it promised depended upon Union (United States) military victory.

Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in the nation, it captured the hearts and imagination of millions of Americans and fundamentally transformed the character of the war. After January 1, 1863, every advance of federal troops expanded the domain of freedom. Moreover, the Proclamation announced the acceptance of black men into the Union Army and Navy, enabling the liberated to become liberators. By the end of the war, almost 200,000 black soldiers and sailors had fought for the Union and freedom.

From the first days of the Civil War, slaves had acted to secure their own liberty. The Emancipation Proclamation confirmed their insistence that the war for the Union must become a war for freedom. It added moral force to the Union cause and strengthened the Union both militarily and politically. As a milestone along the road to slavery's final destruction, the Emancipation Proclamation has assumed a place among the great documents of human freedom.

The original of the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, is in the National Archives in Washington, DC. With the text covering five pages the document was originally tied with narrow red and blue ribbons, which were attached to the signature page by a wafered impression of the seal of the United States. Most of the ribbon remains; parts of the seal are still decipherable, but other parts have worn off.

The document was bound with other proclamations in a large volume preserved for many years by the Department of State. When it was prepared for binding, it was reinforced with strips along the center folds and then mounted on a still larger sheet of heavy paper. Written in red ink on the upper right-hand corner of this large sheet is the number of the Proclamation, 95, given to it by the Department of State long after it was signed. With other records, the volume containing the Emancipation Proclamation was transferred in 1936 from the Department of State to the National Archives of the United States.

The Emancipation Proclamation

Select Resources

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Enlarge The Emancipation Proclamation (page 1) Record Group 11 General Records of the United States View in National Archives Catalog Español President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war.

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Plessy v. Ferguson (1896):
U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine. The case came from an 1892 incident in which African American train passenger Homer Plessy refused to sit in a car for Black people.

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Gettysburg Address:
Lincoln spoke of how humans were equal as it has been said in the Declaration of Independence. He also said the Civil War was a fight not simply for the Union, but "a new birth of freedom" that would make everyone truly equal in one united nation.

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What Made the Gettysburg  Address so Famous?

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Robber Baron(s):
A person who becomes rich through ruthless and unforgiving business practices (originally with reference to prominent US businessmen in the late 19th century).

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Peace Movement:
Social movement that seeks to achieve ideals such as the ending of a particular war or wars, minimize inter-human violence in a particular place or type of situation, and is often linked to the goal of achieving world peace.

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Robert D. Benford, Frank O. TaylorIV, in Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, & Conflict (Second Edition) , 2008

Cycles of Peace Movements

Peace movements around the world have experienced cycles of mobilization. Associated with these cycles have been fluctuations in the amount of attention peace movements devote toward negative peace versus positive peace. During times of international tensions and war, peace movements tend to grow. Not surprisingly, wartime yields a disproportionate focus on the task at hand - stopping organized violent responses of the rival nations toward one another. Yet even during wars, some wings of a peace movement's focus extend beyond ending the current hostilities toward building more permanent amicable relations among societies.

Regardless of their focus, wartime peace activists are often vulnerable to accusations on the home-front that, at the very least, they are undermining the war effort by lowering the morale of their nation's soldiers. Sometimes peace activists are accused of aiding and abetting the 'enemy'. Hence, during popular wars the number of regular participants in peace movements may decrease as the amount of peace movement activities paradoxically increases.

Once a war ends, peace activism tends to shift toward prevention. With the horrors of war fresh on people's minds, peace activists advocating working toward positive peace are briefly granted greater legitimacy. However, even during 'peacetime', many peace movements tend to concentrate on the weapons of destruction rather than on the political and economic arrangements that are conducive to war. Whether their goal is terminating a weapon system (negative peace) or eliminating the causes of war (positive peace), opponents often accuse peacetime activists of being idealists, well-meaning but naive.

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Early Peace Efforts

Peace movements are undoubtedly among the major societal forces that have characterized the twentieth century. Their roots, however, can be traced back to the early nineteenth century. The first attempts to create an organized effort to promote peace emerged in the Anglo-Saxon world, in particular in Britain and the U.S. For example, the New York Peace Society and the Massachusetts Peace Society were founded in 1815, while the London Peace Society was created only 1 year later, in 1816. This early peace reformism, however, has little to do with the peace movements of the mid- and late twentieth century. It is more a matter of movements of ideas led by a small number of intellectual elites, rather than popular movements involving thousands of middle-class citizens. We can thus talk of pacifism more than peace movements.

Some prominent pacifist associations were founded in the following decades in most Western countries, both nationally, such as for example, the American Peace Society (1928), and internationally, such as for example, the Ligue internationale et permanente de la paix (Paris, 1863) and the Ligue international de la paix et de la liberté (Geneva, 1867). As their names often suggest, many of these associations worked in the frame of an internationalist approach to peace, that is, based on the assumption that the latter could be reached only through a dialog across national actors and governments. Other transnational associations emerged from wartime pacifism, such as the British and US Quaker service committees (by 1917), the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (1919), and the International War Resister League (1921). Although many efforts by peace movements have later focused on influencing national governments and public opinions, such an internationalist approach remains alive within the movement until nowadays, and has in fact found new vigor with the rise of the global justice movement in the 2000s.

An important feature of early efforts to fight war and promote peace consists in the strong religious background of peace associations. Often such associations were created that have a strong religious background, in particular of the Christian religion. More generally speaking, often national peace movements divide in two main orientations: a Christian (either Catholic, Protestant, or both) orientation and a leftist (either Socialist, Communist, or both) orientation. The relative strength and importance of each stream depends among other on the cleavage structure in each specific country. Other streams have emerged later on, in particular with the rise of the new social movements in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

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'Peace Movements' may be used in two ways. On the one hand, a peace movement is a specific coalition, or purposeful grouping, of peace organizations that, together with elements of the public, seek to remove a threat of war or to create institutions and cultures that obviate recourse to violence. On the other, it is the organizational infrastructure to do so. Usage is usually clarified by context. Peace organization constituencies (supporting members and friends) are people with shared commitment to common values and traditions, like religious nonresistance (the conscientious, absolute, individual rejection of war), or to a program such as world federalism. Such groups form coalitions in order to enlist public support in response to salient issues. If the issue is war or a specific war threat, peace coalitions take the form of antiwar movements. In nearly 200 years of organized peace effort, specific peace movements have affected national policies, international institutions, and popular attitudes. Taken as a whole, they can be viewed as a single, evolving, and increasingly transnational social movement. Its conceptualization is a result of interaction between its historical experience and the formal analyses of war, peace, and social movements. The conceptualization of peace movements has resulted from the dialectical interaction of movement self-reflection on its own experience and subsequent scholarly analysis. The small peace societies begun in 1815 proselytized for attitudinal changes that would obviate warfare. Their memberships broadened, and American and British peace advocates (active members of peace societies) even solicited support on the European continent. By 1899 there were about 100 linked societies, among which some were well funded. The largely elitist leadership constituted a kind of peace establishment. They defined themselves by programs such as international arbitration and by a common bias for internationalism-the view that the destructiveness of war could be avoided by stressing mutual interests, breaking down barriers, and building up international law. Such generalized peace advocacy was christened 'pacifism' (note shift of meaning, next sentence) at the turn of the century. That conviction was shaken in World War I, as peace advocates were repressed, and 'pacifism' was narrowed to mean individual nonresistance. At the same time, though, some internationalists recognized the importance of constraints on national sovereignty and of professional international problem solvers: this shift may be called 'liberal internationalism.' Moreover, the movement was revitalized by the addition of a reform-minded leadership that was activist, linking peace and social justice, in the modern sense of positive peace (most fully articulated by Johan Galtung, this refers to peace as the positive attribute of just, mutual relationships rather than the mere absence of warfare). Thus redefined, peace movements came to be understood as social change agents. In the next two decades, peace advocates, especially in England and America, organized strong campaigns to influence national policy through the politics of pressure groups. In the 1920s they were divided by conflicting priorities, however, and in the mid-1930s they aligned in rival coalitions for and against collective security-the formation of large-scale military alliances to forestall aggression. By this time, formal analysis of peace movements began among a few historians, and their work defined the movement itself along its own lines of organization and programs-in the political context at the time of writing. During World War II a fresh peace coalition was coalesced around the vision of a United Nations Organization, and it was extended to the control of atomic weapons and even world federalism (a vision of world government in which power is broadly distributed). This incipient peace movement was checked by the Cold War until nuclear testing provided a salient issue for a worldwide coalition that mobilized large numbers of people and affected public policy. Following the Test Ban Treaty of 1963, many peace advocates turned to other issues, most dramatically the US war in Vietnam, until a hardening of the Cold War and another nuclear weapons threat occasioned a massive coalition that crossed national borders but was also divided by national priorities. About the same time, there were international movement campaigns against US intervention in Central America, apartheid in South Africa, and on other issues. Scholarly study of peace movements flowered in the 1970s among historians and sociologists alike, and the literature was extended into the 1990s. Not only were movement stories filled out, they were newly conceptualized in many respects, notably by a common thrust on peace reform as a social movement-a coalitions of organizations, plus significant elements of the general public, for program and policy goals. Beyond their records as organizations, their successes and failures in achieving their goals, peace movements have been integral elements of the policy-forming and social change process in their societies. One new thrust characteristic of both history and sociology was to analyze peace advocacy in terms of resource mobilization-the terms on which organizations could form coalitions and mobilize public support. In the 1990s both historians and sociologists applied resource mobilization analysis to major peace coalitions. Some scholars took the next step, treating international coalition for peace as one of many transnational social movements (international coalitions of social movements in several countries) in a dynamic, global network. Peace movements, tentatively early in the twentieth century but sometimes quite vigorously in the latter half, have become an integral part of the policy-forming and social change process in an increasingly integrated world.

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The history of peace movements started with peace societies in the USA and in England between 1814 and 1816. France and Switzerland followed in 1821 and 1830 respectively with the majority of European countries only after 1850. In the nineteenth century, pacifist motivation sprang either from a Christian position or from a rationalistic impetus thus expressing the emancipatory drive of the bourgeoisie society. Contemporary continental European peace movements regarded those wars fought for national unity to be legitimate. The last two decades of the century saw the uprising of new organizations whose demands for arbitration and disarmament reflected the overall crisis of the international system in the age of imperialism. As World War I rendered pacifist efforts illusionary the balance shifted towards radical demands like conscientious objection. New peace movements evolving in the interwar years were socially less homogenous in structure. Two positions coexisted, i.e., a radical one in favor of conscientious objection and mass strike, and a moderate one opting for the support of the League of Nations and its essential transformation into an instrument to secure peace. Dealing with dictatorial regimes peace movements in their massive support of appeasement policy proved again to be ineffective. After World War II the nuclear threat produced pacifist mass movements embedded in the 'new' social movements.

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Distinctive forms of protest

Women in the peace movement have been inspired in their development of NVDA, perhaps because it is a much easier tool for them to use. The security forces tend to be male and find female protestors both less threatening and more embarrassing than male ones. Thus, the Gandhian image of men lining up to have their skills split open by baton-wielding police, and bandaged up by their attendant women folk, has been replaced by security forces helplessly chasing women dressed up as teddy bears having picnics on bomb silos while their men folk make sandwiches. Women have proved effective not only in poking fun at the apparatus of the state, but also in showing its limits and fragility, entering high-security areas almost at their pleasure. They have partly achieved this through the development of nonhierarchical forms of cooperation and communication, so that, for example, it was impossible for the authorities to disrupt or stop the actions against the nuclear base at Greenham Common by arresting leaders or seizing means of communication. There were no leaders, and communication was done by networking. The women moved in all areas of society and could not be isolated, as was vividly demonstrated by the appearance of cards at one of the Queen's Garden Parties proclaiming "Greenham Women are Everywhere."

Because women were behaving politically in what are usually considered private places (laundromats can be political forums, for example), their activities tended to be unnoticed. This is a pattern of political resistance that has been used in many anticolonial movements, as well as movements in Eastern Europe opposing the hegemony of the Soviet Union, and demonstrates Gandhi's perception that the official organs of the state only survive with the cooperative tolerance of their citizens. Feminists have sought to demonstrate the dependence of the state on women's cooperation, and that regardless of their exclusion from public positions, this dependency gives women power.

Women's Peace Camps founded in the 1980s to protest against the acceleration of the nuclear arms race reflected the richness and ambiguity of both the peace movement and the feminist traditions. There was no single commitment or ideal that all had to subscribe to (as, for example, with the Peace Pledge Union). Rather, they provided a forum where people with a more or less agreed-upon core of values came together to discuss and protest. These values included a rejection of violence, a skeptical attitude toward the state, a rejection of domination, including the dominance of men over women, of class, of race, a rejection of neocolonialism and a sympathy with the oppressed wherever they struggled, and an openness to experimenting with new forms of political action. The camps reflected the range of the peace movement.

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Contemporary Peace Movements

The postwar revitalization of peace movements was shadowed by splits between the one-issue antinuclear movements that were more concerned with political effectiveness than with a way of life, and the older organizations working for social transformation. Strikes, demonstrations and vigils, transcontinental peace walks, protest ships sailing in forbidden waters, all helped lead to the declaration of nuclear weapons-free zones in Latin America and the South Pacific, and a partial test-ban treaty, but weapons production, testing, and deployment by the major powers went steadily on.

As peace movements became more sophisticated in terms of political effectiveness, they became more specialized, and the links between peace movements and peaceful lifeways are harder to find, although the relevance of movement activities for peace culture continues. For example, the interdisciplinary peace research movement that began in the early 1960s soon expanded its work beyond disarmament studies to economic conversion, alternative development, alternative defense, and ecological security, thus linking alternative security policy with grassroots alternative lifeways movements. Zone of Peace studies helped conceptualize specific social spaces for nonviolent lifeways.

Occupationally based peace organizations helped give specific content to general peace movement activity. The 1988-89 Peace Resource Book listed 22 such organizations in the United States, at least half linked to transnational organizations with sections in a number of countries. The list includes associations for architects, business executives, computer professionals, educators, high-tech professionals, physicians, lawyers, media professionals, veterans, nurses, parliamentarians, performing artists, psychologists, social scientists, writers, and publishers. The fruits for peace culture include architects designing peace parks, educators designing conflict resolution curriculae for schools, physicians and nurses reconceptualizing health and illness, and artists offering drama, music, poetry, and art that express the peacemaking dimension of human experience.

Then there are the scientists' organizations addressing basic issues of the health of the planet and the hazards of nuclear and other weapons developments. They include groups such as the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, founded in 1965 to focus the world scientific community on possibilities of disarmament; the Union of Concerned Scientists founded in 1969, and the Commission established by the International Council of Scientific Unions in the 1970s to investigate nuclear hazards. These communities have helped develop an international consensus on the need for nonviolent dispute settlement and more attention to the natural environment of an endangered planet - key elements for a macrolevel culture of peace. As powerful voices in the international community, listened to by national governments and the United Nations, they are laying the groundwork for current and future shifts in state security behavior.

Most, if not all, of the 200 international peace organizations listed in the 1997 Housman's Peace Diary have consultative status at the United Nations and work with various United Nations bodies including Regional Disarmament Centers - there is one on each continent - and at times with special programs on regional conflicts, with the UN University based in Tokyo. Many of them will be working with UNESCO's new Culture of Peace Program, helping war victims regain personhood, helping former soldiers and guerillas - many of them children - learn new occupational skills, new habits of caring and cooperation, and community-building skills, as well as skills of rebuilding destroyed soils and forests. Other projects involve creating new school programs for war-traumatized children and new support systems for war-traumatized women, often rape victims. Like all the groups mentioned in this section, they are helping to lay the groundwork for an emerging culture of peace.

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Peace Movements

In the nineteenth century, a wide variety of national and international peace movements arose to condemn war either on religious grounds or as an anachronism long overdue for abolition by human progress. In the United States, the work of organizations such as the New England Non-Resistance Society and the League for Universal Brotherhood helped pave the way for the Hague Court in 1899, the first international tribunal and a forerunner to the League of Nations, founded after World War I, and the United Nations, founded after World War II. Many such movements continue their work today around the world, arguing that war, especially given the destructive potential of modern weapons (nuclear, biological and chemical), presents a form of violence which humanity as a whole must learn to overcome in order to survive. Albert Einstein, in an exchange of letters with Sigmund Freud at the inception of the nuclear era, argued that because of such weapons, humanity must evolve to a new level of civilization. Activists such as Dr. Helen Caldicott, the leader of Physicians for Social Responsibility, have pursued this cause.

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Peace Movements and the Critique of the Nuclear Arms Race

Gorbachev's efforts were aided by the emergence in the 1980s of a massive peace movement in Western Europe and the US, which opposed a new generation of highly accurate, so-called 'first strike' nuclear weapons that were being introduced by the MICs of both superpowers as well as new strategic doctrines that claimed nuclear wars could be fought and 'won'. In generating some of the largest political demonstrations of the post-World War II period in the West, the peace movements of the 1980s created an unprecedented crisis of legitimacy for the MIC by calling into question its claim to be the provider of stability and security through nuclear deterrence based on increasingly 'modernized' nuclear weapon systems.

The peace movement developed sophisticated critiques of both the technology and the politics of the nuclear arms race. Widely read works by Thompson and others opposed the technological momentum of the arms race and sought to radically democratize nuclear politics, in part by exposing the gulf that separated the awesome destructive capacities of nuclear technologies or 'hardware' from the comparatively infantile 'science' of deterrence and nuclear strategy that was based on unproven assumptions about human behavior and decision making.

Many peace movement leaders were women, including Helen Caldecott of Physicians for Social Responsibility and Randall Forsberg, author of a 'nuclear freeze' proposal that was passed by voters in many states in the US. In this period a 'gender gap' opened in US voting patterns with significantly fewer women than men voting for candidates who supported the renewed arms race and MIC. Authors such as Enloe and Cohn subjected the masculine character and gender consequences of the MIC and nuclear weapons laboratories to important feminist critiques. Additionally, a number of prominent scientists and military officers, including Freeman Dyson and Lord Zuckerman, 'defected' from the MIC and published widely read critiques of the new nuclear weapon systems and doctrines.

The first Reagan administration responded to this crisis with the announcement of a SDI or Star Wars program in 1983. While the rhetorical shift from 'offensive', horribly destructive nuclear weapons to a 'defensive' system attracted a certain degree of public support, the SDI effort in turn became the subject of bitter controversy, especially in the scientific and technical communities. Critics of SDI pointed to its unprecedented costs and dangers. Many pointed out that such a system would have great offensive capabilities and would violate the US-Soviet Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Others saw it as a way for nuclear weapons labs and the MIC to develop new projects as the prospects of anything new in offensive weapons were running out. 'Star Wars' represented an increasingly parasitic arms race where now offensive and defensive weapon systems could race each other in a never-ending spiral. Many military officers and strategists were also wary as SDI technology developed by an adversary would threaten the very foundation of US nuclear deterrence.

Finally, critics such as Zuckerman pointed to the technological arrogance: the most complex weapon system ever proposed, with command and control relying on execution of trillions of lines of software code and much of its hardware deployed in space - a system and software that could never be operationally tested in advance - would have to perform flawlessly on its first use to defend against nuclear attack. Despite a 15-year, $50 billion research and prototype development effort from 1983 to the late 1990s, the SDI failed to inaugurate a second long wave of MIC-led expansion comparable to the earlier nuclear arms race.

Instead, the legitimation crisis of the 1980s revealed the Cold War technological era coming to an end. The nuclear arms race had become exhausted, both technologically and in its scientific-ideological legitimations, that is, theories of nuclear strategy that tried to justify departures from basic nuclear deterrence. The deconstruction of the scientific and technical aura of the nuclear arms race by the peace movement was a central development here. The peace movement undermined what had previously been a central political and social function of the MIC: to unite publics and blocs behind a symbolic sense of military-provided security and to claim to be the leading edge of scientific-technological, and hence economic, modernity.

By the end of the decade the US and the Soviet Union had concluded or were negotiating a series of historic nuclear arms control treaties, and the Soviet Union had relinquished its military and political claims over the Warsaw Pact nations of Eastern Europe, paving the way for a series of relatively peaceful transitions in those societies. In 1989, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Cold War was over. What were left were large MICs, with their huge nuclear arsenals, without a purpose.

In the Soviet case, the end of the Cold War and diminution of the arms race represented a systemic crisis; what continued justification was there for a national structure dominated by the MIC in light of the end of the Cold War and deepening economic crisis? Within a few years the Soviet Union had disintegrated into 13 independent republics and its MIC, inherited mostly by Russia, was a hollowed-out shell of its Cold War peak.

In the case of the United States, the end of the Cold War was accompanied by public discussion of the possibility of a historic 'peace dividend', entailing a major demobilization of military forces (as in the aftermath of previous wars) and reorientation of economic and scientific resources to civilian ends. But a full-scale re-evaluation of the MIC dominance of US governmental priorities and resources was diverted by the first major international crisis of the 1990s: the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War.

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4 Social Movements and the Media

A number of scholars have noted that social movements have often successfully brought new issues onto the public agenda. Thomas Rochon's (1998 ) analysis of the peace movement in various Western countries fits in this tradition, as does the work of Douglas McAdam ( 1988), whose study of the Mississippi Freedom Summer documented the success of civil rights activists in putting the issue of racial equality on the national political agenda during the mid-1960s.

Studies of the media agenda have been legion, largely following from the early work of Max McCombs and Donald Shaw (1972); for a review of this literature, see Rogers and Dearing (1988). Bernard Cohen (1963) noted famously that while the media cannot tell the public what to think, they can have a great impact on what the public think about. Within political science, several authors have picked up on the issue of media effects on public opinion (Iyengar 1991, Iyengar and Kinder 1987). James Stimson (1991) noted the changes in a broadly measured national mood based on public opinion surveys; John Kingdon (1984) also put considerable emphasis on the national mood in his study of agenda setting in government. As policymakers consider what issues to spend their time on, Kingdon (1984) noted they often make reference to the idea of a national mood.

Studies of the political agenda have been remarkable in political science for their integrative character: rather than focusing on any particular institution of government, scholars have traced the sources of agenda setting in the public, in the roles of interest groups and social movements, by noting the roles of policy entrepreneurs, and by looking at the government in very broad terms. Of course this does not mean that political leaders play an insignificant role. From the work of Richard Neustadt (1960) onwards students of the US Presidency have noted the need for presidents to focus their energy on a few issues (see Light 1982; for a similar study of congressional leadership see Bader 1996). Studies of the Supreme Court have noted the extremely tight control that the Court maintains over its agenda, as well as the characteristics of the cases that it is most likely to take. The Court, of course, is unusual among political institutions in that its agenda is reactive rather than proactive. Congress or the President can reach out to discuss whatever issues appeal to them; the Court can only choose from the issues that are presented for its decision (see Perry 1984, Caldeira and Wright 1988).

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Social Movements and the Media

A number of scholars have noted that social movements have often successfully brought new issues onto the public agenda. Thomas Rochon's (1998) analysis of the peace movement in various Western countries fits in this tradition, as does the work of Douglas McAdam (1988), whose study of the Mississippi Freedom Summer documented the success of civil rights activists in putting the issue of racial equality on the national political agenda during the mid-1960s.

Studies of the media agenda have been legion, largely following from the early work of Max McCombs and Donald Shaw (1972); for a review of this literature, see Rogers and Dearing (1988). Bernard Cohen (1963) noted famously that while the media cannot tell the public what to think, they can have a great impact on what the public think about. Within political science, several authors have picked up on the issue of media effects on public opinion (Iyengar, 1991; Iyengar and Kinder, 1987). James Stimson (1991) noted the changes in a broadly measured national mood based on public opinion surveys; John Kingdon (1984) also put considerable emphasis on the national mood in his study of agenda setting in government. As policymakers consider what issues to spend their time on, Kingdon (1984) noted they often make reference to the idea of a national mood.

Studies of the political agenda have been remarkable in political science for their integrative character: rather than focusing on any particular institution of government, scholars have traced the sources of agenda setting in the public, in the roles of interest groups and social movements, by noting the roles of policy entrepreneurs, and by looking at the government in very broad terms. Of course this does not mean that political leaders play an insignificant role. From the work of Richard Neustadt (1960) onwards students of the US Presidency have noted the need for presidents to focus their energy on a few issues (see Light, 1982; for a similar study of congressional leadership see Bader, 1996). Studies of the Supreme Court have noted the extremely tight control that the Court maintains over its agenda, as well as the characteristics of the cases that it is most likely to take. The Court, of course, is unusual among political institutions in that its agenda is reactive rather than proactive. Congress or the President can reach out to discuss whatever issues appeal to them; the Court can only choose from the issues that are presented for its decision (see Perry, 1984; Caldeira and Wright, 1988).

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URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780080970868930034

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Robert D. Benford, Frank O. TaylorIV, in Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, & Conflict (Second Edition) , 2008 Peace movements around the world have experienced cycles of mobilization. Associated with these cycles have been fluctuations in the amount of attention peace movements devote toward negative peace versus positive peace.

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WW2 (consequence's @ home):
The war brought vast changes: While there was an increase in marriages, job opportunities, and patriotism there was also a definite decline in morale among some Americans. Despite the increase in rising wages, poverty increased and some families were forced to move in search of work.

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President Roosevelt (32nd President of the U.S.)

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Franklin D. Roosevelt:
32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945.

He took office in the midst of the Great Depression. Roosevelt issued executive order that instituted the 'New Deal'. Which was a variety of programs designed to produce relief, recovery, and reform for the people.

-Famous Quote-
"Nothing to fear but fear itself."

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Great Depression:
Was the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world, lasting from 1929 to 1939. It began after the stock market crash of October 1929, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors.

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The Great Depression: Causes & Repercussions —  US Economic History 7

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19th Amendment:
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

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WW2 (America's role):
United States began to provide significant military supplies and other assistance to the Allies in September 1940, even though the United States did not enter the war until December 1941.

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Harriet Tubman was an American abolitionist and political activist. She helped escape over 70 slaves through the underground railrouad.

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MLA - Michals, Debra. "Harriet Tubman." National Women's History Museum. National Women's History Museum, 2015. Date accessed.

Chicago - Michals, Debra. "Harriet Tubman." National Women's History Museum. 2015. www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/harriet-tubman.

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Known as the "Moses of her people," Harriet Tubman was enslaved, escaped, and helped others gain their freedom as a "conductor" of the Underground Railroad. Discover more about her on womenshistory.org.

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The first Women's Movement was held in 1848 and was advertised as a "convention to discuss the social, civil and religious conditions and right of woman"

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The feminist movement (also known as the women's liberation movement, the women's movement, or simply feminism) refers to a series of political campaigns for reforms on issues such as reproductive rights, domestic violence, maternity leave, equal pay, women's suffrage, sexual harassment, and sexual violence, all of which fall under the label of feminism and the feminist movement. The movement's priorities vary among nations and communities, and range from opposition to female genital mutilation in one country, to opposition to the glass ceiling in another.

Feminism in parts of the western world has gone through three waves. First-wave feminism was oriented around the station of middle- or upper-class white women and involved suffrage and political equality. Second-wave feminism attempted to further combat social and cultural inequalities. Third-wave feminism is continuing to address the financial, social and cultural inequalities and includes renewed campaigning for greater influence of women in politics and media. In reaction to political activism, feminists have also had to maintain focus on women's reproductive rights, such as the right to abortion.

First-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity and thought, that occurred within the time period of the 19th and early 20th century throughout the world. It focused on legal issues, primarily on gaining women's suffrage (the right to vote).

During the First Wave, there was a notable connection between the slavery abolition movement and the women's rights movement. Frederick Douglass was heavily involved in both movements and believed that it was essential for both to work together in order to attain true equality in regards to race and sex.

The first women's rights convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York (now known as the Seneca Falls Convention) from July 19-20, 1848, and advertised itself as "a convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman". While there, 68 women and 32 men-100 out of some 300 attendees, signed the Declaration of Sentiments, also known as the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments. The principal author of the Declaration was Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who based it on the form of the United States Declaration of Independence. She was a key organizer of the convention along with Lucretia Coffin Mott, and Martha Coffin Wright. Charlotte Woodward, alone among all 100 signers, was the only one still alive in 1920 when the Nineteenth Amendment passed. Woodward was not well enough to vote herself.

Second-wave feminism is a period of feminist activity and thought that first began in the early 1960s in the United States, and eventually spread throughout the Western world and beyond. In the United States the movement lasted through the early 1980s.

Whereas first-wave feminism focused mainly on suffrage and overturning legal obstacles to gender equality ( e.g., voting rights, property rights), second-wave feminism broadened the debate to a wide range of issues: sexuality, family, the workplace, reproductive rights, de facto inequalities, and official legal inequalities. Second-wave feminism also drew attention to domestic violence and marital rape issues, establishment of rape crisis and battered women's shelters, and changes in custody and divorce law. Its major effort was the attempted passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the United States Constitution, in which they were defeated by anti-feminists.

In 1960, the Food and Drug Administration approved the combined oral contraceptive pill, which was made available in 1961. This made it easier for women to have careers without having to leave due to unexpectedly becoming pregnant. The administration of President Kennedy made women's rights a key issue of the New Frontier, and named women (such as Esther Peterson) to many high-ranking posts in his administration.

In 1963 Betty Friedan, influenced by Simone De Beauvoir's book "The Second Sex," wrote the bestselling book "The Feminine Mystique" in which she explicitly objected to the mainstream media image of women, stating that placing women at home limited their possibilities, and wasted talent and potential. The perfect nuclear family image depicted and strongly marketed at the time, she wrote, did not reflect happiness and was rather degrading for women. This book is widely credited with having begun second-wave feminism. Watch this video about the success and impact of Friedan's book:

Third-wave feminism refers to several diverse strains of feminist activity and study, whose exact boundaries in the history of feminism are a subject of debate, but are generally marked as beginning in the early 1990s and continuing to the present. The movement arose partially as a response to the perceived failures of and backlash against initiatives and movements created by second-wave feminism during the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, and the perception that women are of "many colors, ethnicities, nationalities, religions, and cultural backgrounds". This wave of feminism expands the topic of feminism to include a diverse group of women with a diverse set of identities.

Further Research

Watch the following documentary to learn more about how the portrayal of women and women's roles has evolved since the 1950s.

Self-Check: Gender

You'll have more success on the Self-Check, if you've completed the four Readings in this section.

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The feminist movement (also known as the women's liberation movement, the women's movement, or simply feminism) refers to a series of political campaigns for reforms on issues such as reproductive rights, domestic violence, maternity leave, equal pay, women's suffrage, sexual harassment, and sexual violence, all of which fall under the label of feminism and the feminist movement.

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Segregation was the required of separate housing, education and services for people of color. It was a law that was enforced by series of southern laws.

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What Were Jim Crow Laws | Facts for Kids

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13th amendment abolished slavery in the United States. It was passed in 1864.

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Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, the 13th amendment abolished slavery in the United States.

The 13th amendment, which formally abolished slavery in the United States, passed the Senate on April 8, 1864, and the House on January 31, 1865. On February 1, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln approved the Joint Resolution of Congress submitting the proposed amendment to the state legislatures. The necessary number of states ratified it by December 6, 1865. The 13th amendment to the United States Constitution provides that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

In 1863 President Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation declaring "all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free." Nonetheless, the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in the nation. Lincoln recognized that the Emancipation Proclamation would have to be followed by a constitutional amendment in order to guarantee the abolishment of slavery.

The 13th amendment was passed at the end of the Civil War before the Southern states had been restored to the Union and should have easily passed the Congress. Although the Senate passed it in April 1864, the House did not. At that point, Lincoln took an active role to ensure passage through congress. He insisted that passage of the 13th amendment be added to the Republican Party platform for the upcoming Presidential elections. His efforts met with success when the House passed the bill in January 1865 with a vote of 119-56.

With the adoption of the 13th amendment, the United States found a final constitutional solution to the issue of slavery. The 13th amendment, along with the 14th and 15th, is one of the trio of Civil War amendments that greatly expanded the civil rights of Americans.

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13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Abolition of Slavery (1865)

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Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, the 13th amendment abolished slavery in the United States. The 13th amendment, which formally abolished slavery in the United States, passed the Senate on April 8, 1864, and the House on January 31, 1865.

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Industrialization shaped the world into our modern era. It revamped human settlement, labor and family life.

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Slavery is addressed in the U.S Constitution as Amendment 13, it formally abolished slavery in the U.S and was passed by the senate on April 8, 1864.

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Introduction of Slavery Explained for Kids

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Westward expansion was the 19th century movement of settlers into the American West. It began with the Louisiana Purchase. It was land west of the Mississippi River and after the purchase, lewis and Clark were sent to explore.

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Westward expansion began in earnest in 1803. Thomas Jefferson negotiated a treaty with France in which the United States paid France $15 million for the Louisiana Territory - 828,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River - effectively doubling the size of the young nation.

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Bill of rights are the first 10 amendments in the US constitution that were written in 1791. It guarantees civil rights and liberties to the individual.

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Although James Madison was the youngest member of the Continental Congress, his leadership was a critical factor in the development of American government. Madison proposed the Virginia Plan, he authored some of the Federalist Papers, and he wrote the Bill of Rights.

The first national election occurred in 1789. Along with President Washington, voters elected a large number of supporters of the Constitution. In fact, almost half of the ninety-one members of the first Congress had helped to write or ratify the Constitution.

Not surprisingly, given Anti-Federalists' opposition to the strong new central government, only eight opponents of the Constitution were sent to the House of Representatives. Most Anti-Federalists concentrated their efforts in state politics.

Protection of Individual Rights

An immediate issue that the new Congress took up was how to modify the Constitution. Representatives were responding to calls for amendments that had emerged as a chief issue during the ratification process. Crucial states of Massachusetts, Virginia, and New York (among others) had all ultimately supported the Constitution - but only with the expectation that explicit protections for individual rights would be added to the highest law of the land. Now that supporters of the Constitution controlled the federal government, what would they do?

The legal tradition of having a precise statement of individual rights had deep roots in Anglo-American custom. So it's not surprising that the first Congress amended the Constitution by adding what became known as the Bill of Rights.

Amendment 10: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

James Madison, now a member of Congress from Virginia, once again took the leading role crafting proposed amendments that would be sent to the states for approval. Madison skillfully reviewed numerous proposals and examples from state constitutions and ultimately selected nineteen potential amendments to the Constitution.

As one might expect, the nationalist Madison took care to make sure that none of the proposed amendments would fundamentally weaken the new central government. In the end, ten amendments were ratified in 1791.

Ten Amendments

These first ten amendments to the Constitution became known as the Bill of Rights and still stand as both the symbol and foundation of American ideals of individual liberty, limited government, and the rule of law. Most of the Bill of Rights concerns legal protections for those accused of crimes.
Rights and Protections Guaranteed in the Bill of Rights

Amendment

Rights and Protections

First

Freedom of speech

Freedom of the press

Freedom of religion

Freedom of assembly

Right to petition the government

Third

Protection against housing soldiers in civilian homes

Fourth

Protection against unreasonable search and seizure

Protection against the issuing of warrants without probable cause

Fifth

Protection against

trial without indictment

double jeopardy

self-incrimination

property seizure

Sixth

Right to a speedy trial

Right to be informed of charges

Right to be confronted by witnesses

Right to call witnesses

Right to a legal counsel

Ninth

Rights granted in the Constitution shall not infringe on other rights.

Tenth

Powers not granted to the Federal Government in the Constitution belong to the states or the people.

For instance, the fourth through eighth amendments provide protection from unreasonable search and seizure, the privilege against self-incrimination, and the right to a fair and speedy jury trial that will be free from unusual punishments.

The First Amendment, perhaps the broadest and most famous of the Bill of Rights, establishes a range of political and civil rights including those of free speech, assembly, press, and religion.

The last two amendments, respectively, spell out that this list of individual protections is not meant to exclude other ones, and, by contrast, set forth that all powers claimed by the federal government had to be expressly stated in the Constitution.

The Full Text of the Bill of Rights

While the Bill of Rights created no deep challenge to federal authority, it did respond to the central Anti-Federalist fear that the Constitution would unleash an oppressive central government too distant from the people to be controlled.

By responding to this opposition and following through on the broadly expressed desire for amendments that emerged during the ratification process, the Bill of Rights helped to secure broad political support for the new national government. A first major domestic issue had been successfully resolved.

Understanding the Bill of Rights

The Bill of Rights remains an active force in contemporary American life as a major element of Constitutional law. The meaning of its protections remains hotly debated. For example, the privilege to bear arms to support a militia, which appears in the second amendment, produces significant political controversy today.

More sweepingly, the extension of the Bill of Rights to protect individuals from abuse not only by the federal government, but also from state and local governments remains an unsettled aspect of Constitutional interpretation.

Originally, the protections were solely meant to limit the federal government, but with the fourteenth amendment's guarantee in 1868 that no state could deprive its citizens of the protections in the Bill of Rights this original view began to be expanded. To this day the Supreme Court has not definitively decided if the entire Bill of Rights should always be applied to all levels of government.

A More Perfect Union: The Creation of the U.S. Constitution
Looking for some in-depth analysis to tie all of this history together? The National Archives and Records Administration provides an excellent recap of the turbulent series of debates and compromises that culminated with the states' final ratification of the Constitution. If you're interested specifically in the Bill of Rights, stick to the last few sections, but if you have time, read it all - it's worth it!

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ACLU Briefing Paper - The Bill of Rights
We're all familiar enough with the who, what, when, and where of the Bill of Rights. But what about the why? Why did the American people, in particular, want guarantees about their liberty? Why did the ideal of democracy threaten the very ideal of liberty? And why wasn't the Bill of Rights really put into practice for the first 130 years of its existence? In this informative, easy-to-read essay, the American Civil Liberties Union attempts to answer some of these questions.

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Liberty! Chronicle of the Revolution
Extra, extra, read all about it! Congress adds a Bill of Rights to the Constitution! With this faux-newspaper article from 1791, you can get a sense of the tremendous negotiations that surrounded the birth of the Bill of Rights. In the end, it was little more than the product of much haggling and many compromises between supporters of a strong central government and those concerned about individual liberties. What was all the fuss about?

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George Mason and the Bill of Rights
Most people don't know much about the man Thomas Jefferson called "the wisest man of his generation," but George Mason was largely responsible for the addition of the Bill of Rights to the Constitution. This site explores the contributions made by this influential southern antifederalist leader who preferred to keep his nose out of politics, but who fought passionately for his beliefs on the occasions when he did enter the governmental fray.

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A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular; and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inferences. -Thomas Jefferson to James Madison
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One of the Constitution's great strengths is its ability to amend itself. The first Constitutional Amendments were proposed shortly after the Constitution itself. Larely focussed on protecting individual liberties, the first 10 Amendments, ratified in 1791, are known today as the Bill of Rights

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Benjamin Franklin was elected to the second continental congress and was part of the committee that helped draft the declaration of independence. Franklin helped secure loans and persuade the french. He was present when the treaty of Paris was signed.

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Francis Folger Franklin, Ben's son.
(Posthumous painting. Artist and date unknown)

Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston on January 17, 1706. He was the tenth son of soap maker, Josiah Franklin. Benjamin's mother was Abiah Folger, the second wife of Josiah. In all, Josiah would father 17 children.

Josiah intended for Benjamin to enter into the clergy. However, Josiah could only afford to send his son to school for one year and clergymen needed years of schooling. But, as young Benjamin loved to read he had him apprenticed to his brother James, who was a printer. After helping James compose pamphlets and set type which was grueling work, 12-year-old Benjamin would sell their products in the streets.

Apprentice Printer

When Benjamin was 15 his brother started The New England Courant the first "newspaper" in Boston. Though there were two papers in the city before James's Courant, they only reprinted news from abroad. James's paper carried articles, opinion pieces written by James's friends, advertisements, and news of ship schedules.

Benjamin wanted to write for the paper too, but he knew that James would never let him. After all, Benjamin was just a lowly apprentice. So Ben began writing letters at night and signing them with the name of a fictional widow, Silence Dogood. Dogood was filled with advice and very critical of the world around her, particularly concerning the issue of how women were treated. Ben would sneak the letters under the print shop door at night so no one knew who was writing the pieces. They were a smash hit, and everyone wanted to know who was the real "Silence Dogood."

After 14 letters, Ben confessed that he had been writing the letters all along. While James's friends thought Ben was quite precocious and funny, James scolded his brother and was very jealous of the attention paid to him.

Before long the Franklins found themselves at odds with Boston's powerful Puritan preachers, the Mathers. Smallpox was a deadly disease in those times, and the Mathers supported inoculation; the Franklins' believed inoculation only made people sicker. And while most Bostonians agreed with the Franklins, they did not like the way James made fun of the clergy, during the debate. Ultimately, James was thrown in jail for his views, and Benjamin was left to run the paper for several issues.

Upon release from jail, James was not grateful to Ben for keeping the paper going. Instead he kept harassing his younger brother and administering beatings from time to time. Ben could not take it and decided to run away in 1723.

Escape to Philadelphia

Running away was illegal. In early America, people all had to have a place in society and runaways did not fit in anywhere. Regardless Ben took a boat to New York where he hoped to find work as a printer. He didn't, and walked across New Jersey, finally arriving in Philadelphia via a boat ride. After debarking, he used the last of his money to buy some rolls. He was wet, disheveled, and messy when his future wife, Deborah Read, saw him on that day, October, 6, 1723. She thought him odd-looking, never dreaming that seven years later they would be married.

Franklin found work as an apprentice printer. He did so well that the governor of Pennsylvania promised to set him up in business for himself if young Franklin would just go to London to buy fonts and printing equipment. Franklin did go to London, but the governor reneged on his promise and Benjamin was forced to spend several months in England doing print work.

Benjamin had been living with the Read family before he left for London. Deborah Read, the very same girl who had seen young Benjamin arrive in Philadelphia, started talking marriage, with the young printer. But Ben did not think he was ready. While he was gone, she married another man.

Upon returning to Philadelphia, Franklin tried his hand at helping to run a shop, but soon went back to being a printer's helper. Franklin was a better printer than the man he was working for, so he borrowed some money and set himself up in the printing business. Franklin seemed to work all the time, and the citizens of Philadelphia began to notice the diligent young businessman. Soon he began getting the contract to do government jobs and started thriving in business.

In 1728, Benjamin fathered a child named William. The mother of William is not known. However, in 1730 Benjamin married his childhood sweetheart, Deborah Read. Deborah's husband had run off, and now she was able to marry.

In addition to running a print shop, the Franklins also ran their own store at this time, with Deborah selling everything from soap to fabric. Ben also ran a book store. They were quite enterprising.

The Pennsylvania Gazette

In 1729, Benjamin Franklin bought a newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette. Franklin not only printed the paper, but often contributed pieces to the paper under aliases. His newspaper soon became the most successful in the colonies. This newspaper, among other firsts, would print the first political cartoon, authored by Ben himself.

During the 1720s and 1730s, the side of Franklin devoted to public good started to show itself. He organized the Junto, a young working-man's group dedicated to self- and-civic improvement. He joined the Masons. He was a very busy man socially.

Poor Richard's Almanack

But Franklin thrived on work. In 1733 he started publishing Poor Richard's Almanack. Almanacs of the era were printed annually, and contained things like weather reports, recipes, predictions and homilies. Franklin published his almanac under the guise of a man named Richard Saunders, a poor man who needed money to take care of his carping wife. What distinguished Franklin's almanac were his witty aphorisms and lively writing. Many of the famous phrases associated with Franklin, such as, "A penny saved is a penny earned" come from Poor Richard.

Fire Prevention

Franklin continued his civic contributions during the 1730s and 1740s. He helped launch projects to pave, clean and light Philadelphia's streets. He started agitating for environmental clean up. Among the chief accomplishments of Franklin in this era was helping to launch the Library Company in 1731. During this time books were scarce and expensive. Franklin recognized that by pooling together resources, members could afford to buy books from England. Thus was born the nation's first subscription library. In 1743, he helped to launch the American Philosophical Society, the first learned society in America. Recognizing that the city needed better help in treating the sick, Franklin brought together a group who formed the Pennsylvania Hospital in 1751. The Library Company, Philosophical Society, and Pennsylvania Hospital are all in existence today.

Fires were very dangerous threat to Philadelphians, so Franklin set about trying to remedy the situation. In 1736, he organized Philadelphia's Union Fire Company, the first in the city. His famous saying, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," was actually fire-fighting advice.

Those who suffered fire damage to their homes often suffered irreversible economic loss. So, in 1752, Franklin helped to found the Philadelphia Contribution for Insurance Against Loss by Fire. Those with insurance policies were not wiped out financially. The Contributionship is still in business today.

Electricity

Franklin's printing business was thriving in this 1730s and 1740s. He also started setting up franchise printing partnerships in other cities. By 1749 he retired from business and started concentrating on science, experiments, and inventions. This was nothing new to Franklin. In 1743, he had already invented a heat-efficient stove - called the Franklin stove - to help warm houses efficiently. As the stove was invented to help improve society, he refused to take out a patent.

Among Franklin's other inventions are swim fins, the glass armonica (a musical instrument) and bifocals.

In the early 1750's he turned to the study of electricity. His observations, including his kite experiment which verified the nature of electricity and lightning brought Franklin international fame.

The Political Scene

Politics became more of an active interest for Franklin in the 1750s. In 1757, he went to England to represent Pennsylvania in its fight with the descendants of the Penn family over who should represent the Colony. He remained in England to 1775, as a Colonial representative not only of Pennsylvania, but of Georgia, New Jersey and Massachusetts as well.

Early in his time abroad, Franklin considered himself a loyal Englishman. England had many of the amenities that America lacked. The country also had fine thinkers, theater, witty conversation - things in short supply in America. He kept asking Deborah to come visit him in England. He had thoughts of staying there permanently, but she was afraid of traveling by ship.

In 1765, Franklin was caught by surprise by America's overwhelming opposition to the Stamp Act. His testimony before Parliament helped persuade the members to repeal the law. He started wondering if America should break free of England. Franklin, though he had many friends in England, was growing sick of the corruption he saw all around him in politics and royal circles. Franklin, who had proposed a plan for united colonies in 1754, now would earnestly start working toward that goal.

Franklin's big break with England occurred in the "Hutchinson Affair." Thomas Hutchinson was an English-appointed governor of Massachusetts. Although he pretended to take the side of the people of Massachusetts in their complaints against England, he was actually still working for the King. Franklin got a hold of some letters in which Hutchinson called for "an abridgment of what are called English Liberties" in America. He sent the letters to America where much of the population was outraged. After leaking the letters Franklin was called to Whitehall, the English Foreign Ministry, where he was condemned in public.

A New Nation

Franklin came home.

He started working actively for Independence. He naturally thought his son William, now the Royal governor of New Jersey, would agree with his views. William did not. William remained a Loyal Englishman. This caused a rift between father and son which was never healed.

Franklin was elected to the Second Continental Congress and worked on a committee of five that helped to draft the Declaration of Independence. Though much of the writing is Thomas Jefferson's, much of the contribution is Franklin's. In 1776 Franklin signed the Declaration, and afterward sailed to France as an ambassador to the Court of Louis XVI.

The French loved Franklin. He was the man who had tamed lightning, the humble American who dressed like a backwoodsman but was a match for any wit in the world. He spoke French, though stutteringly. He was a favorite of the ladies. Several years earlier his wife Deborah had died, and Benjamin was now a notorious flirt.

In part via Franklin's popularity, the government of France signed a Treaty of Alliance with the Americans in 1778. Franklin also helped secure loans and persuade the French they were doing the right thing. Franklin was on hand to sign the Treaty of Paris in 1783, after the Americans had won the Revolution.

Now a man in his late seventies, Franklin returned to America. He became President of the Executive Council of Pennsylvania. He served as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention and signed the Constitution. One of his last public acts was writing an anti-slavery treatise in 1789.

Franklin died on April 17, 1790 at the age of 84. 20,000 people attended the funeral of the man who was called, "the harmonious human multitude."

His electric personality, however, still lights the world.

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Quick Biography of Benjamin Franklin: Benjamin Franklin, a printer by trade, a scientist by fame, and a man of action by all accounts, continues to shape American thinking and action

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Thomas Jefferson was an author for the Declaration of Independence and the 3rd U.S President. One of his achievements as a president was the purchase of the Louisiana Territory.

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Thomas Jefferson: Revolutionary, U.S. President, Founding Father | Biography

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John Adams- The second president of the United States, known as a remarkable political philosopher, also served as George Washington's vice president.

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George Washington- Was the first president of the United States.

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Characteristics of China-
Culture, Taoism, Buddhism were the three main religions. China was great at inventing things that sparked a society and economy.

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Thirteen Colonies- These are the 13 states that had been British Colonies before their independence was declared in 1776.

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Indian Removal Act- 1830
This was a law in the U.S that gave the president the power to force Native American tribes to move to land west of the Mississippi River. Many Native American tribes were forced out of their homes.

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Trail of tears- When the U.S government forces Native Americans to move from their homelands in the southern U.S to Indian territory in Oklahoma. These people were marched at gunpoint across hundreds of miles to reservations. These people suffered starvation, and disease while walking this path.

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Classical civilizations- China, Egypt, Greece, Rome.

What is a classical civilization? This is the study of these 4 cultures above, and what they have done that sets them apart from others and their lasting significance/impact they have had on the world.

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Primary sources- These are immediate, first hand sources of an event or topic.
Example: Letters, diaries, photographs, interviews.

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Various sources-
Secondary- Sources that interpret a historical event, era, or phenomenon.
Example: Books, journal articles, research, textbooks, dictionaries.

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Chronology- The arrangement of events or dates in the order that they happen.