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American Studies

This guide supports American Studies I and II class research and assignments.
new nation and expansion 1780-1861
primary sources

 

Timeline: A New Nation (Library of Congress)

New Nation: Overview (Library of Congress)

Primary Source Sets (Digital Public Library of America)

prominent figures

 

 

Benjamin Franklin was an American printer and publisher, author, inventor and scientist, and diplomat. One of the foremost of the Founding Fathers, Franklin helped draft the Declaration of Independence and was one of its signers, represented the United States in France during the American Revolution, and was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. He made important contributions to science, especially in the understanding of electricity, and is remembered for the wit, wisdom, and elegance of his writing. (Britannica)

 

 

 

Thomas Jefferson was the draftsman of the Declaration of Independence of the United States and the nation’s first secretary of state and second vice president and, as the third president , the statesman responsible for the Louisiana Purchase. An early advocate of total separation of church and state, he also was the founder and architect of the University of Virginia and the most eloquent American proponent of individual freedom as the core meaning of the American Revolution. (Britannica)

 

 

 

Meriwether Lewis was an American explorer, who with William Clark led the Lewis and Clark Expedition through the uncharted American interior to the Pacific Northwest in 1804–06. He later served as governor of Upper Louisiana Territory. (Britannica)

William Clark was an American frontiersman who won fame as an explorer by sharing with Meriwether Lewis the leadership of their epic expedition to the Pacific Northwest (1804–06). He later played an essential role in the development of the Missouri Territory and was superintendent of Indian affairs at St. Louis. (Britannica)

 

 

 

"Sacajawea (Sacagawea/Sakakawea/Sacajewea), which translates in Hidatsa to “Bird Woman,” was born to the Shoshone Tribe in Idaho. Kidnapped at the age of 12 by the Hidatsa Tribe, a rival Native American group, she was then sold into slavery and forced to marry the French Canadian fur trapper Toussaint Charbonneau, who also claimed one other Shoshone woman as his “wife.” Sacajawea was an essential member of the expedition to discover routes through the North American West to the Pacific Ocean. Both Native American legend and journals from the Lewis and Clark expedition reference her important contribution." (Brooklyn Museum)

 

 

Tecumseh was a Shawnee warrior chief who organized a Native American confederacy in an effort to create an autonomous Indian state and stop white settlement in the Northwest Territory (modern-day Great Lakes region). He firmly believed that all Indian tribes must settle their differences and unite to retain their lands, culture and freedom. Tecumseh led his followers against the United States military in many battles and supported the British during the War of 1812. But his dream of independence ended when he was killed at the Battle of Thames, which led to the collapse of his Indian confederacy. (History)

 

 

 

 

George Washington was commander in chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War and served two terms as the first U.S. president, from 1789 to 1797. The son of a prosperous planter, Washington was raised in colonial Virginia. As a young man, he worked as a surveyor then fought in the French and Indian War. 

During the American Revolution, he led the colonial forces to victory over the British and became a national hero. In 1787, he was elected president of the convention that wrote the U.S. Constitution. Two years later, Washington became America’s first president. Realizing that the way he handled the job would impact how future presidents approached the position, he handed down a legacy of strength, integrity and national purpose. Less than three years after leaving office, he died at his Virginia plantation, Mount Vernon, at age 67. (History)

 

 

 

Although she was an enslaved person, Phillis Wheatley Peters was one of the best-known poets in pre-19th century America. Educated and enslaved in the household of prominent Boston commercialist John Wheatley, lionized in New England and England, with presses in both places publishing her poems, and paraded before the new republic’s political leadership and the old empire’s aristocracy, Wheatley was the abolitionists’ illustrative testimony that blacks could be both artistic and intellectual. Her name was a household word among literate colonists and her achievements a catalyst for the fledgling antislavery movement. (Poetry Foundation)

 

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