Years: before 1607

Events: Christopher Columbus genocides (1492), Juan Ponce de Leon arrives in Florida (1513), European Colonialism

Authors: Tribes of the Sioux and Arapaho

Citation: Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty!: An American History. 6th ed., W.W. Norton & Company, 2019.

Time period: Pre-Colonialism 

Dates: published 1894 and set 1607

Point of view: first person 

Themes: white expansion, nature, animals, religion, didactic 

Connection: The purpose of the “Ghost Dance Songs” is to bring ghosts of the dead and slaughtered Native Americans to vanish, white people, who had invaded their lands. The songs express this fear of the white expansion and coming to colonize a “new earth” (Sioux 30, 31). The Sioux describe that “the whole world is coming” (18) and “a nation is coming, a nation is coming” (19), representing at first their fear of new people, such as Christopher Columbus, coming to where they live, changing their way of life, and, in this case, committing genocide. 

Years: 1607-1775

Events: John Winthrop founded Massachusetts Bay Colony (1628),

first British colony was founded (1670), the Pilgrims introduced the Puritanism (1620) 

Authors: Anne Bradstreet, Jonathan Edwards, John Winthrop

Citation: Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty!: An American History. 6th ed., W.W. Norton & Company, 2019.

Time Period: Colonialism 

Dates: published and set 1741

Point of view: second person 

Themes: Sin, Religion, Predestination, Puritanism, provoke of fear

Connection: The main theme of this text is Puritanism and Predestination. When Pilgrims introduced Puritanism, they wanted people to believe in God’s will, similar to Edward’s sermon. He uses fear rhetoric, claiming, "you are kept out of hell but do not see the hand of God" (1), to represent Predestination and provoke fear of the last judgment in the future if people are rebellious. Edwards suggests people should be deeply religious in hopes of God’s hands “keep[ing them] from falling" (1). Here, Edwards shows how God is an essential element within Pilgrims' assessments of Puritanism.

Years: 1776 - 1820s

Events: American Revolution (1775-1783), women Enlightenment (1779), American independence (1776)

Authors: Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Elizabeth Stanton

Citation: Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty!: An American History. 6th ed., W.W. Norton & Company, 2019.

Time Period: Enlightenment 

Dates: publishes and set 1848  

Point of View: third person 

Themes: women rights / inclusion, equality, Religion inclusion, competition, Natural Rights

Connection:  The main intention of the Declaration of Sentiments was to include women in the Declaration of Independence that supposedly included everyone. Women were provided with happiness by their husbands and society, but Stanton argues against that standard. She states, “all men and women are created equal” (7), which changes the original quote once written by male activists. To argue that people should recognize women's rights, Stanton states “she had no voice” (7), showing that even though women had rights, it changed nothing, that is, just writing it down on the Declaration “equal” didn't change anything.

Years:1820-1860

Events: the Industrial Revolution / urbanization, slavery abolitionism, The French Revolution

Authors: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, John Greenleaf Whittier

Time period: Romanticism

Dates: published and set 1845

Point of view: first person 

Themes: religion, emotion turning into rationality, real love, psychological terror, hopelessness

Connection: One of the reasons for the French Revolution was the want to separate government and religion. In “The Raven,” Edgar Allan Poe writes that “‘thy God lent thee—by these angels he hath sent thee’” (72). Poe shows his religion and his undying faith that one day, he will meet his love again. However, the Raven tells him, “‘Nevermore’” (48), upsetting him when he realizes that the Raven, sent from hell, is not there to help him deal with his sorrows]; instead, he tells him that he won't be able to see Lenore in the afterlife.

Citation: Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty!: An American History. 6th ed., W.W. Norton & Company, 2019.

Years: 1840s-1860s

Events: Ralph Waldo Emerson publishes "Self-Reliance" (1841), Henry David Thoreau discusses injustice in "Civil Disobedience" (1849), Industrial Revolution.

Authors:Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Citation: Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty!: An American History. 6th ed., W.W. Norton & Company, 2019.

Time Period: Transcendentalism 

Dates: published and set 1841

Point of view: first person

Themes: reason, trust, spirituality, nature, God

Connection: The industrial revolution offered new visions and lifestyles for a new world, but writers like Emerson, who believed in the power of nature, didn't agree because they used rationalism to create this system, which would disconnect humans from nature and God. Emerson says, "Every natural action is graceful” (4), to introduce the idea that God is present in nature, to help people to find their true selves. He ends his essay with, “A man's power to connect his thought with its proper symbol” (5), showing his hope that people would believe in nature and intuition to achieve knowledge, without rationalism.

Years: 1820- 1865

Events: Evangelical religious movement (1830), abolition of slavery (1865), Civil War (1861-1865),

Authors: Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown, Henry Bibb 

Citation: Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty!: An American History. 6th ed., W.W. Norton & Company, 2019. 

Time period: Slave Narrative 

Dates: published 1925 and set 1845

Point of view: first person 

Themes: loss of innocence, violence, truth, unspeakable / unsable, education

Connection:  Douglass, one of the leaders for the abolitionist movement, wrote background information about the truth of being a slave instead of a white slaveholder describing it. He says, “acknowledge ourselves fit only to be slaves” (75), suggesting that the whites didn't allow the slaves to learn how to read and write, otherwise, it was a reason for the whites to feel threatened. Douglass describes, “They suppress the truth” (16). The slaveholders didn't want slaves to be rational, Douglass was unique, he went against the idea and became literate, and exposed the truth.

Years: roughly 1901-1950 

Events: World War I (1914-1918), The Great Depression (1929-1939), World War II (1939-1945, America entered 1941)

Authors: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zora Neale Hurston, Gertrude Stein, Ralph Ellison, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, etc.

Citation: “8 Classic Works of Modernist Literature Everyone Should Read.” Interesting Literature, 19 Oct. 2020, interestingliterature.com/2016/02/8-classic-works-of-modernist-literature-everyone-should-read/. 

Time Period: Modernism 

Dates: Published in 1925 & Set in 1922 

Point of view: first person 

 Themes: class / wealth, nostalgia, gossip, ignorance, American Dream, materialism

Connection: WW1 was a significant event that influenced The Great Gatsby. Nick Carraway says, "Weren't you in the Third Division during the War?" (Fitzgerald 51), showing Nick’s will to fight to live the American dream. He went to the war primarily looking to make a fortune while escaping the dullness that he thinks to pervade the Midwest, however, he believes that the American dream no longer exists. Gatsby says, “'My house looks well doesn't it?'” (87), showing how people valued materialism. But Fitzgerald tried to show that happiness is not achieved by the materialism of the American dream.