Discovering the American Past: A Look at the Evidence, Volume I: To 1877

Each chapter is organized around the same proven pedagogical framework: The Problem, Background, The Method, The Evidence, Questions to Consider, and Epilogue.

By using a variety of sources such as letters, maps, statistics, drawings, song lyrics, photography, laws, and cartoons, students learn to examine sources critically, the way historians do.

A new Chapter 1, “The Beginning of the World,” concentrates on Native American and Judeo-Christian accounts of creation and what they tell us about the people who embraced them.

A new Chapter 3, “From English Servants to African Slaves: Creating Racial Slavery in Colonial Virginia,” allows students to explore the evolution of racial slavery in late 17th and early 18th century Virginia.

A new Chapter 8, “Women Out of Their Latitude,” examines the debate on the nature of the sexes and gender equality, and includes Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s defense of women’s rights.

Chapter 9, “The ‘Peculiar Institution’: Slaves Tell Their Own Stories,” includes some of the writings of Solomon Northup (whose experiences came to life in the Academy Award winning film “Twelve Years a Slave”). The chapter retains many of the materials from the WPA ex-slave interviews, but has been revised to include freedom suits from antebellum St. Louis. These depositions allow students to see another way in which slaves told their own stories.

A new Chapter 10, “Caring for the Sick and Wounded,” highlights Civil War nurses of the Union and Confederacy using women’s letters, diaries, and memoirs to understand the conflict through their eyes

A new Chapter 12, “History Skills in Action,” offers students guidance on the process of designing a research project, giving them an opportunity to practice applying what they’ve learned in the text.

All the chapters have been revised, some dramatically.