The Emancipator
The Emancipator Newsletter, published monthly in Jonesborough, Tennessee in 1820 by Elihu Embree, advocated the abolition of slavery.
the beginning of advocacy – social reformers react to change
Women, Temperance, and Domesticity – America in Class – resources for history & literature teachers
THis lesson combines excerpts from the Ken Burns film Prohibition and an 1854 novel, Teachers background, questions and answers make this lesson valuable and easy to use
Admissions Books for Eastern State Penitentiary - 1830s and 1840s
Fascinating admissions books created by Thomas Larcombe, a Baptist minister who was the first to hold the position of “moral instructor” at Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary in the 1830s and 1840s. There are two .csv files on this page offering details on prisoners held and released. Why not let students dig into the "raw material" of history to see what they can conclude about that time period?
Nothing to Say - Henry Thoreau complains about technology
Thoreau's comments about railroads the telegraph of the mid 19th century are strangely resonant to technology in the 21stn century. Does technology's conquering of time and distance improve the human condition?
ur inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end,
We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the new, but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.
Domestic manners of the Americans, by Francis Trollope, 1832 (book)
This account of a French woman's journey through the United States in 1832 does not get the same attention as De Tocqueville, but it is a similar volume. Teachers and students can get a much more conversational look into life in 1830s US through segments of this book. Students can search through it for her comments about slavery, religion and the pursuit of profit
Mental Health in the 1840s PBS Newshour Extra
Well-designed and presented lesson which uses historical description and primary source documents to explore the question "How does investigative journalism bring awareness to problems and help support reform efforts?"
Tocqueville: Book II Chapter 6
Here Tocqueville writes of newspapers in the 1830s in the way that someone could talk of the media today. They have the ability to drop the same idea into many minds at the same time
nothing but a newspaper can drop the same thought
into a thousand minds at the same moment.
A newspaper then takes up the notion or the feeling that had occurred
simultaneously, but singly, to each of them. All are then immediately guided
towards this beacon; and these wandering minds, which had long sought each
other in darkness, at length meet and unite. The newspaper brought them
together, and the newspaper is still necessary to keep them united.