America Firsthand Volume 1

This distinctive, class-tested primary source reader tells America’s story through the words and other creative expressions of the ordinary and extraordinary Americans who shaped it. "Points of View" sections provide varied vantage points on important topics, and select images draw students into interpreting the visual record. This carefully crafted, ready-to-go collection saves instructors time and effort in finding consistently engaging and informative sources.

With its distinctive focus on ordinary people, this primary documents reader offers a remarkable range of perspectives on America’s history from those who lived it — from Jews in the Early Republic to strikers at an auto plant in 1940s Detroit, and from a Civil War battlefield nurse to a 1990s dot.com entrepreneur. Popular Points of View sections expose students to different perspectives on a specific event or topic, and Visual Portfolios invite analysis of the visual record. These features and the collection as a whole save instructors time finding consistently suitable source material on their own.

This distinctive, class-tested primary source reader tells America’s story through the words and other creative expressions of the ordinary and extraordinary Americans who shaped it. Now featuring the contributions of new co-author John M. Giggie, an award-winning teacher and scholar from the University of Alabama, America Firsthand offers a remarkable range of first-person perspectives that bring the past vividly to life — from an African American minister’s message of racial liberation, to the prison notes of suffragists, to a writer’s recollections of Sputnik. “Points of View” sections provide varied vantage points on important topics, and “Visual Portfolios” draw students into interpreting the visual record. This carefully crafted, ready-to-go collection saves instructors time and effort in finding consistently engaging and informative sources.

This distinctive, class-tested primary source reader tells America’s story through the words and other creative expressions of the ordinary and extraordinary Americans who shaped it. "Points of View" sections provide varied vantage points on important topics, and select images draw students into interpreting the visual record. This carefully crafted, ready-to-go collection saves instructors time and effort in finding consistently engaging and informative sources.

This work is a comprehensive survey of one of the oldest—and hottest—debates in American history: the role of religion in the public discourse. The relationship between church and state was contentious long before the framers of the Constitution undertook the bold experiment of separating the two, sparking a debate that would rage for centuries: What is the role of religion in government—and vice versa? Religion and the Law in America explores the many facets of this question, from prayer in public schools to the addition of the phrase "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance, from government investigation of religious fringe groups to federal grants for faith-based providers of social services. In more than 250 A–Z entries, along with a series of broad, thematic essays, it examines the groups, laws, and court cases that have framed this ongoing debate. Through its careful, balanced exploration of the interaction between government and religion throughout the history of the United States, the work provides all Americans—students, scholars, and lay readers alike—with a deep understanding of one of the central, enduring issues in our history.

Challenging the traditional interpretation that the years between Reconstruction and World War I were a period when Blacks made only marginal advances in religion, politics, and social life, John Giggie contends that these years marked a critical turning point in the religious history of Southern Blacks.

Mark Owen is a pseudonym for Matt Bissonnette.