The following 100 primary sources in United States Intellectual History are designed to offer students and scholars an introductory view of United States intellectual history. All documents have been selected from The American Yawp Reader here . Suggestions of sources from under-represented voices are particularly appreciated.
Native American creation stories Bartolomé de las Casas describes the exploitation of indigenous people, 1542 John Winthrop dreams of a city on a hill, 1630 A Gaspesian Indian defends his way of life, 1641 Olaudah Equiano describes the Middle Passage, 1789 Haudenosaunee thanksgiving address Eliza Lucas letters, 1740-1741 Jonathan Edwards revives Enfield, Connecticut, 1741 Samson Occom describes his conversion and ministry, 1768 Pontiac calls for war, 1763 Thomas Paine calls for American independence, 1776 Declaration of Independence, 1776 Abigail and John Adams converse on women’s rights, 1776 Hector St. Jean de Crèvecœur describes the American people, 1782 A Confederation of Native peoples seek peace with the United States, 1786 Mary Smith Cranch comments on politics, 1786-87 James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments , 1785 Venture Smith, A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture Smith , 1798 Anti-Thomas Jefferson Cartoon, 1797 Thomas Jefferson’s racism, 1788 Black scientist Benjamin Banneker demonstrates black intelligence to Thomas Jefferson, 1791 Tecumseh calls for pan-Indian resistance, 1810 Genius of the Ladies Magazine Illustration, 1792 Maria Stewart bemoans the consequences of racism, 183 2Alexis de Tocqueville, “How Americans Understand the Equality of the Sexes,” 1840 Anti-Catholic Cartoon, 1855 Rhode Islanders protest property restrictions on voting, 1834 Black Philadelphians defend their voting rights, 1838 Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” 1852 Revivalist Charles G. Finney emphasizes human choice in salvation, 1836 David Walker’s “Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World,” 1829 Angelina Grimké, Appeal to Christian Women of the South , 1836 Sarah Grimké calls for women’s rights, 1838 Henry David Thoreau reflects on nature, 1854 The fruit of alcohol and temperance lithographs, 1849 Nat Turner explains the Southampton rebellion, 1831 Harriet Jacobs on rape and slavery, 1860 George Fitzhugh argues that slavery is better than liberty and equality, 1854 Sermon on the duties of a Christian woman, 1851 Cherokee petition protesting removal, 1836 John O’Sullivan declares America’s manifest destiny, 1845 Wyandotte woman describes tensions over slavery, 1849 Manifest destiny painting, 1872 Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin , 1852 Margaraetta Mason and Lydia Maria Child discuss John Brown, 1860 Alexander Stephens on slavery and the Confederate constitution, 1861 Ambrose Bierce recalls his experience at the Battle of Shiloh, 1881 Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address, 1865 Charlotte Forten teaches freed children in South Carolina, 1864 Frederick Douglass on remembering the Civil War, 1877 Fifteenth Amendment print, 1870 William Graham Sumner on Social Darwinism (ca.1880s) Henry George, Progress and Poverty, Selections (1879) Andrew Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth (1889) Lucy Parsons on Women and Revolutionary Socialism (1905) Chief Joseph on Indian Affairs (1877, 1879) Frederick Jackson Turner, “Significance of the Frontier in American History” (1893) Laura C. Kellogg on Indian Education (1913) Helen Hunt Jackson on a Century of Dishonor (1881) Henry Grady on the New South (1886) Ida B. Wells-Barnett, “Lynch Law in America” (1900) Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams (1918) Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper ” (1913) Rudyard Kipling, “The White Man’s Burden” (1899) William James on “The Philippine Question” (1903) Chinese Immigrants Confront Anti-Chinese Prejudice (1885, 1903) Booker T. Washington & W.E.B. DuBois on Black Progress (1895, 1903) Jane Addams, “The Subjective Necessity for Social Settlements” (1892) Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907) Alice Stone Blackwell, Answering Objections to Women’s Suffrage (1917) Theodore Roosevelt on “The New Nationalism” (1910) Alan Seeger on World War I (1914; 1916) Emma Goldman on Patriotism (July 9, 1917) W.E.B DuBois, “Returning Soldiers” (May, 1919) Warren G. Harding and the “Return to Normalcy” (1920) Crystal Eastman, “Now We Can Begin” (1920) Hiram Evans on the “The Klan’s Fight for Americanism” (1926) Ellen Welles Page, “A Flapper’s Appeal to Parents” (1922) Alain Locke on the “New Negro” (1925) Franklin Roosevelt’s Re-Nomination Acceptance Speech (1936) Dorothy West, “Amateur Night in Harlem” (1938) Charles A. Lindbergh, “America First” (1941) Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga on Japanese Internment (1942/1994) Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (1945) The Truman Doctrine (1947) Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Atoms for Peace” (1953) Paul Robeson’s Appearance Before the House Un-American Activities Committee (1956) Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954)John F. Kennedy on the Separation of Church and State (1960) Congressman Arthur L. Miller Gives “the Putrid Facts” About Homosexuality (1950) National Organization for Women, “Statement of Purpose” (1966) The Port Huron Statement (1962) Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (1968) Gloria Steinem on Equal Rights for Women (1970) Native Americans Occupy Alcatraz (1969) Pat Buchanan on the Culture War (1992) Phyllis Schlafly on Women’s Responsibility for Sexual Harassment (1981) George W. Bush on the Post-9/11 World (2002) Chelsea Manning Petitions for a Pardon (2013) Emily Doe (Chanel Miller), Victim Impact Statement (2015)
