Free African Americans -- Life Stories
http://jefferson.village.
virginia.edu/seminar/
unit6/index.html
Description: Emancipation was one of the most important "revolutions" in American history. It fundamentally changed society and had a huge impact not only on the people who lived it, but those who came after. This site has selected material from those formerly enslaved, their former masters, and soldiers and civilians from the Civil War era.
Comments: This is site is co-sponsored by the National Archives and the University of Virginia. 
Resource Type: Primary Source Text
Graphics Content: High
 

The Freedmen's Bureau Act, March 3, 1865
http://www.inform.umd.edu
/ARHU/Depts/History
/Freedman/fbact.htm
Description: The act of Congress to establish a Bureau for the Relief of Freedmen and Refugees was one of the most significant laws of the Reconstruction Period.
Comments: This is a vital primary source for the study of Civil Rights in the U.S..
Resource Type: Primary Source Text
Graphics Content: Low
 

Amendments to the U.S. Constitution 
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/
statecraft/cons.rest.html
Description: The 14th, 15th and 16th Amendments have direct bearing both civil rights and the labor movement and industry in the United States. 
Comments: Required reading under AB 3086.
Resource Type: Primary Source Text
Graphics Content: Low
 

Amendments to the U.S. Constitution 
http://www.law.cornell.edu/
constitution/constitution.
table.html#amendments
Description: Which of these amendments address social issues of 19th century America? 
Comments: Required reading under AB 3086.
Resource Type: Compilation of Links
Graphics Content: Low
 

Federick Douglass on the Condition of Freedmen in 1880
http://vi.uh.edu/pages/
mintz/46.htm
Description: Frederick Douglass describes the condition of African Americans even after the Fouteenth and Fifteenth Amendments as one in which real social and political power in the South is still held in the hands of the former slave owners.
Comments: Some of the vocabulary in this text only primary source document may be difficult for some students.
Resource Type: Primary Source Text
Graphics Content: Low
 

Genesee at the Crossroads
http://www.virtualmuseums.
org/crossroads/index.html
Description: This virtual museum will take you back to the 1860's to a small town in Michigan. See what life was like more than 100 years ago and even follow the adventures of Orie the cat as he learns about the people in Genesee.
Resource Type: Mix of Text and Graphics
Graphics Content: High
 

Juneteenth
http://www.juneteenth.com/
Description: Juneteeth, which began in Galveston in 1865, is a celebration of the ending of slavery. It has come to commemorate African American freedom and emphasizes education and achievement.
Resource Type: Mix of Text and Graphics
Graphics Content: High
 

Pony Express Home Station
http://www.ccnet.com/~xptom/
welcome.html
Description: Ranked among the most remarkable feats to come out of the 1860 American West, the Pony Express was in service from April 1860 to November 1861. Its primary mission was to deliver mail and news between St. Joseph, Missouri, and San Francisco, California. This site has letters, names of riders, and many other pieces of information. 
Resource Type: Mix of Text and Graphics
Graphics Content: High
 

Chicano! Time Line (1861-1880)
http://www.pbs.org/chicano/
18611880.html
Description: This site is from PBS' Chicano! program time line of the Civil War and its aftermath highlights events involving Mexican Americans or of particular importance to Mexican Americans.
Comments: PBS' Chicano! program time line of the Civil War and its aftermath highlights events involving Mexican Americans or of particular importance to Mexican Americans.
Resource Type: Other
Graphics Content: Low
 

Pony Express
http://www.americanwest.com/
trails/pages/ponyexp1.htm
Description: The Pony Express provided the fastest mail delivery between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California. It drew public attention to the central route in hope of gaining the million dollar government mail contract for the Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Company. 
Comments: This basic information on the Pony Express is a useful first step in research.
Resource Type: Mix of Text and Graphics
Graphics Content: Low

Freedman's Bureau: Labor Contract or Re-enslavement?
http://www.archives.state.al.
us/teacher/recon/
recon1.html
Thousands of African Americans who had left the plantations for the cities when freedom came soon found themselves homeless and hungry. Early in 1866, the freedmen began to return to the land for spring planting. At first they worked for the promise of wages at rates agreed upon at the start of the year. The Freedmen's Bureau required labor contracts to be entered into by blacks and their employers, but did not set wage levels. In a near-cashless society, money wages were soon discontinued, to be replaced by sharecropping arrangements. The standard contract gave the black laborer a share of the crop according to how much of the expenses of production he paid. Only for a brief period did the Freedmen's Bureau offer some economic shelter for the ex-slaves. The sharecropping system that evolved during Reconstruction soon bound most African Americans into debt so ruinous that they were practically re-enslaved.

How Should They Be Remembered? Evaluating the Lives and Legacies of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois.
http://www.richmond.edu/
~ed344/webquests/
washdubois/btwwebd.html
By what standards should we judge people from the past? Do we hold them to the standards of our day or of theirs? Should we take into account their backgrounds and circumstances or hold up everyone to the same standards? These are some of the questions you will have to consider as you look back at the lives and legacies of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois. These two men both wanted to help uplift African-Americans from the wreckage of Reconstruction and the ravages of racism. During their careers, both Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois took up the issue of education for African-Americans. You will be looking at their lives and their writings and deciding for yourselves how you think these two men should be remembered. 
Author: Sarah McDermott

The New Deal: North Carolina's Reconstruction?
http://www2.ncsu.edu/
ncsu/cep/ligon/am/
ncdepr~1.htm
You are a representative of the WPA and your assignment is to write a report on a North Carolina resident who lived during both the Reconstruction and Depression eras. Using the American Life Histories, 1936-1940 from the American Memory Collection and additional print and electronic sources, you "interview" one of these older Americans to create a historically accurate, sensory rich illustration of what it was like to be an American in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 
Author: Jackie Brooks and Deborah Pendleton