U.S. History: Primary Sources: Colonial to Antebellum America

How the idea of social Darwinism took hold in American in the years following the Civil War, revealing how many prominent Americans supported the ideas of English philosopher Herbert Spencer, who expanded Darwin's theory of natural selection.

Through songs, journal entries, pictures and historical writings, the book examines the daily lives of colonial men, women, and children over the century and a half from the first European settlements to the beginnings of the American Revolution.

This book provides a glimpse into life in the earliest Southern towns and colonies through selected primary source documents of those who founded the colonies, those who helped them grow, and the indentured servants and slaves who were the labor force of the South.

This anthology of letters, journals, eyewitness accounts, poetry, and illustrations tells a small part of the story of the colonial women and wives of the British and Hessian forces who contributed to both sides of the war effort.

By the 1780s, approximately 97,000 slaves a year were being sent to the Americas on more than 800 British slave ships. Most went from Africa to the West Indies, where they were traded for molasses. In New England, the colonists used the molasses to manufacture rum. British merchants completed the triangle of human misery by trading the rum for more slaves.

A revealing drama that focuses on the 16th president's tumultuous final months in office. In a nation divided by war and the strong winds of change, Lincoln pursues a course of action designed to end the war, unite the country, and abolish slavery. With the moral courage and fierce determination to succeed, his choices during this critical moment will change the fate of generations to come.

Louisa May Alcott's classic tale of four sisters coming of age during the Civil War.