Who Built America? Volume I: Through 1877 Working People and the Nation's History

Who Built America?explores fundamental conflicts in United States history by placing working peoples' struggle for social and economic justice at center stage. Unique among U.S. history survey textbooks for its clear point of view,Who Built Americais a joint effort of Bedford/St. Martin's and the American Social History Project, based at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and renowned for its print, visual, and multimedia productions such as the "History Matters" Web site. With vivid prose, penetrating analysis, an acclaimed visual program, and rich documentary evidence,Who Built America?gives students a thought-provoking book they'll want to read and instructors an irreplaceable anchor for their course.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS AND EDITORS

THE AMERICAN SOCIAL HISTORY PROJECT/CENTER FOR MEDIA AND LEARNING aims to revitalize interest in history by challenging the traditional ways that people learn about the past. Founded in 1981 by the late Herbert Gutman and Stephen Brier and based at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, ASHP/CML produces award-winning print, visual, and multimedia materials about the working men and women whose actions and beliefs shaped American history. Also with Bedford/St. Martin’s, they have published History Matters: A Student Guide to U.S. History Online, based on their popular Web resource of the same name.

CHRISTOPHER CLARK, professor of history at the University of Connecticut, received the Frederick Jackson Turner Award from the Organization of American Historians for The Roots of Rural Capitalism: Western Massachusetts, 1780–1860 (1990). His other publications include The Communitarian Moment: The Radical Challenge of the Northampton Association (1995) and Social Change in America: From the Revolution through the Civil War (2006), together with articles on rural history and the social roots of American economic development. He has also been the co-recipient of the Cadbury Schweppes Prize for innovative teaching in the humanities.

NANCY A. HEWITT is Professor II of history and women’s and gender studies at Rutgers University. She has received many awards and prizes, including the Jerome T. Krivanek Distinguished Teaching Award and the Julia Cherry Spruill Book Prize as well as fellowships from the NEH, the Mellon Foundation, and the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Her publications include Women’s Activism and Social Change: Rochester, New York, 1822–1872 (1984); Visible Women: New Essays on American Activism, co-edited with Suzanne Lebsock (1993); and Southern Discomfort: Women’s Activism in Tampa, Florida, 1880s-1920s (2001). She has published numerous articles on women’s history and women’s activism.

ROY ROSENZWEIG is Mark and Barbara Fried Professor of History & New Media at George Mason University, where he also heads the Center on History and New Media (http://chnm.gmu.edu). He is the author, co-author, and co-editor of numerous books including The Park and the People: A History of Central Park; The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life; Eight Hours for What We Will: Workers and Leisure in an Industrial City, 1870-1920; History Museums in the United States: A Critical Assessment; Presenting the Past: Essays on History and the Public, and Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Presenting, and Preserving the Past on the Web. He was co-creator of the CD-ROM, Who Built America?, which won James Harvey Robinson Prize of American Historical Association.

NELSON LICHTENSTEIN is professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara where he directs the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy. He is the author of Labor’s War at Home: the CIO in World War II (1982, 2003); Walter Reuther: the Most Dangerous Man in Detroit (1997); and State of the Union: A Century of American Labor (2002), which won the Philip Taft Prize in Labor History. He has held fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations. His edited books include Industrial Democracy in America: the Ambiguous Promise (1993); Wal-Mart: The Face of Twenty-First-Century Capitalism (2006); American Capitalism: Social Thought and Political Economy in the Twentieth Century (2006); and Major Problems in the History of American Workers (2003).

JOSHUA BROWN, Visual Editor, is the executive director of the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning and professor of history at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He was visual editor of the first edition of Who Built America? and also co-authored the accompanying CD-ROMs and video documentary series. He has served as executive producer on many digital and Web projects, including Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution; The Lost Museum: Exploring Antebellum Life and Culture; and The September 11 Digital Archive. Brown is author of Beyond the Lines: The Pictorial Press, Everyday Life, and the Crisis of Gilded Age America (2002); co-author (with Eric Foner) of Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction (2005); and co-editor of History from South Africa: Alternative Visions and Practices (1991), as well as numerous essays and reviews on the history of U.S. visual culture.

DAVID JAFFEE, Visual Editor, teaches Early American history and interactive pedagogy and technology at the City College of New York and The Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). He is the author of People of the Wachusett: Great New England in History and Memory, 1630-1860 (1999) and is completing a book titled Craftsmen and Consumers in Early America, 1760–1860. He has also written many essays on artists and artisans in Early America as well as on the use of new media in the history classroom. He is the project director of two NEH grants at CUNY to develop multimedia resources for the teaching of U.S. history. He has been the recipient of various fellowships including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Winterthur Museum, and the Huntington Library.

Note: Each chapter ends with a timeline, "The Years in Review," and a bibliography, "Additional Readings."

VOLUME I

Preface

PART I COLONIZATION AND REVOLUTION, 1492–1815

1. A Meeting of Three Worlds: Europe, Africa, and American Colonization, 1492–1680

Peoples of the New World

The Background to Overseas Expansion: Europe and Africa

The Invasion of the Americas Begins: Portugal, Spain, and the Need for Labor

Early Colonization Efforts in North America

The English Colonial Experience

Native Americans: Decline, Resistance, Exchange

Conclusion: The Remaking of Three Worlds



2. Servitude, Slavery, and the Growth of the Southern Colonies, 1620–1760

The Development of the Southern Colonies

The Making of Southern Slave Societies

African-American Culture in the South

Prosperity, Inequality, and Shifting Ideas in Slave Societies

Conclusion: The Southern Colonies at Mid-Eighteenth Century

3. Family Labor and the Growth of the Northern Colonies, 1640–1760

Early New England

America and England in the Late Seventeenth Century

Rural Societies in the Eighteenth Century

Urban America

Hierarchy and Equality in Northern Societies

Conclusion: Prosperity and Inequality at Mid-Century

4. Toward Revolution, 1750–1776

The Colonial Roots of Rebellion

The First British Empire: Triumph and Crisis

Imperial Conflict Grows

Resistance Becomes Revolution

Conclusion: What Sort of American Society?

5. Revolution, Constitution, and the People, 1776–1815

The Course of the War

Building a Republic

Creating a National Government

American Society: Competing Visions

Post-Revolutionary America in the World

Conclusion: Legacies of Revolution

PART II FREE LABOR AND SLAVERY, 1790–1850

6. The Consolidation of Slavery in the South, 1790–1836

Cotton and the Expansion of Slavery

Southern Slave Experiences

Southern White Experiences

Religion, Resistance, and Rebellion

The Planter Class Consolidates Power

Conclusion: The Challenges of a Slave Society

7. Northern Society and the Growth of Wage Labor, 1790–1837

The Early Nineteenth-Century North

A Transformation Begins

Wage Labor and Resistance

Democracy and Class in Jacksonian Society

Conclusion: A Divided Republic

8. Immigration, Urban Life, and Social Reform in the Free Labor North, 1838–1860

The Transformation of the American Labor Force

Urban Mayhem and Middle Class Reform

Radical Reform

Conclusion: The Free Labor North Faces an Uncertain Future

9. The Spread of Slavery and the Crisis of Southern Society, 1836–1848

The Master's Precarious Domain

New Frontiers and New Challenges for Southern Slavery

Extending an Empire of Slavery

Conclusion: Western Expansion and the Path to War

PART III WAR, RECONSTRUCTION AND LABOR, 1848–1877

10. The Deepening Rift over Slavery, 1848–1860

The Transformation of the West

Uneasy Compromises over Slavery

The Labor Question in a Time of Rising Tension

Toward a Showdown

Conclusion The Deepening Rift Becomes a Chasm

11. The Civil War: America's Second Revolution, 1861–1865

The Nation Disintegrates

The War for the Union and Against Slavery

The Cold Realities of War

War Transforms the North

War Transforms the South

Military Victory Assured

Conclusion: Revolutionary Consequences and Daunting Questions

12. Reconstructing the Nation, 1865–1877

The Beginnings of Reconstruction

African Americans Build New Lives After Emancipation

The Drama of Reconstruction Unfolds

The End of Reconstruction

Conclusion: Still Searching for Freedom

13. New Frontiers: Westward Expansion and Industrial Growth, 1865–1877

Change and Violence on the Frontier

Industrialization and the Working Class

An American Labor Movement Emerges

Conclusion: The Lessons of 1877