The critically acclaimed text that forms the "spine" of both our CD-ROMs provides a definitive social history of the United States written by leading scholars in social, cultural, gender, and labor history. The narrative text is coupled with a truly dazzling set of source materials. We have secured permission to use these archival materials, many of which are in copyright and therefore do not appear anywhere on the Internet; both CD-ROMs provide a set of materials that would be hard to locate in many college libraries. This extraordinary archive of American life encourages individual exploration of all types of historical concepts: on virtually every page you will find an invitation to examine relevant archival films, source documents, recordings, and images. We encourage you to read below to learn more about the primary features of each CD-ROM.

To learn more about CD-ROM II just scroll down the page, and for CD-ROM I click here.

Extensive Research Tools

Our research toolset allows you to:

Access to thousands of pages of primary text documents.

Thousands of text documents are organized under the general categories of Archival, Fiction, Poetry and Lyrics, "In Retrospect", "In the First Person", and Press Accounts. The following are single examples of the types of documents found in each category:

• Archival: "The Truth About Haiti" by James Weldon Johnson, 1915
• Fiction, Poetry, and Lyrics: "The Story of Suicide Sal/The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde" by Bonnie Parker, 1933
• "In Retrospect": "Marching to a Different Drummer". Lesbian and Gay GI's in World War II
• "In the First Person": "They Were Concentration Camps" by Congressman Norman Mineta recalling Japanese-American internment camps
• Press Accounts: "We're Looking for Zoot Suits to Burn" by Al Waxman, 1943
  
  

See 45 minutes of unique historical video clips that you can edit, such as:

• Newsreel footage of the trenches during World War I
• Excerpts from the feature film "The Plow that Broke the Plains" by Pare Lorentz, 1936
• See Joe Louis knock out Max Schmeling during the 1938 heavyweight championship fight
• Watch Bugs Bunny sell war bonds to support the war effort
• View other momentous historical events and unique popular culture film clips
  
  

Hear 7 hours of hard to find songs, speeches, and audio recordings that you can edit.

Our audio clips are divided among three categories: archival, songs, and oral history. The following are examples of the types of audio clips found in each category:

• Archival: "If You Believe the Negro Has a Soul" by Marcus Garvey, 1921 speech
• Archival: "Are you a Snake or a Mouse," Mae West and Don Ameche, 1937 radio program
• Archival: "A Date Which Will Live in Infamy" by Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1941
• Songs: "The Greatest Hebrew Ace" by Charles Cohen, 1927
• Songs: "Panama to Chi" by the I.C. Glee Club Quartet, 1930
• Songs: also include blues, jazz, work songs, protest songs and classic pop tunes.
• Oral History: Two longshoremen remember the 1934 San Francisco Strike
• Oral History: "The Walking Dead," A black soldier remembers Buchenwald
• Oral History: also includes interviews with immigrants, suffragists, and political activists.

View Hundreds of exquisitely reproduced images, including:

• 12 examples of "Cartoons for Creel," 1919 editorial cartoons for the CPI arranged in a slideshow.
• 18 "Visual Images of Suffrage," arranged in a slideshow.
• "Picturing the Flapper," 5 illustrations by John Held, Jr. arranged in a slideshow.
• "Art in Public Buildings," 19 examples of New Deal art arranged in a slideshow.
• "Documenting the Horrors," 8 photographs of Buchenwald taken by the U.S. Army Signal Corps.
• Plus hundreds of still photos, illustrations, cartoons, and posters that illuminate a variety of topics.

In Addition:

• Unique historical "excursions" are woven into the textbook narrative and let you take 150 side trips through related topics that showcase intriguing historical topics from 1914-1946. Each excursion covers topics that supplement the main textual narrative, e.g., "From Puerto Rico to Nueva York: The Origins of Puerto Rican Migration" or "Sex O'Clock in America: Sexual Reformers and Radicals". The excursions come with links to text documents, photos, audio clips, video, Web links, and cross references to other areas of the text and other relevant excursions.
• Games: too many students complain that history is "not fun" or interesting. Our games teach, challenge and stretch the imagination while keeping everyone entertained. Take the "Hepcat Quiz" and see if you are"dicty" or take the first IQ test to see how smart you are.
• Maps and Charts: these valuable resources are essential for classroom explanation of demographic, geographic, political, and social trends and data.
• In the Year: a fun factoid inset for each historical year from 1914 to 1946 that delves into indispensable historical issues such as "How Did World I Alter Men's Fashions?" or "Who Invented B.O?"

Extensive Research Tools

Our research toolset allows you to:

• Bookmark text pages
• Make notes "in the margins" and do a restricted searches to your margin notes
• Highlight text passages
• Create a notebook that allows you to cut and paste text (both from the book and from archival sources) and print for personal or student use
• Create a Resource Collection. This is an extremely helpful tool for giving lectures. You can create a collection of text and archival materials in a sequential order for later display in the classroom.
• Use our Resource Index. This index is organized to display all 143 excursions. Resources may be organized by type (film, audio, photos/images, puzzles and games, graphs, and text) or by topic for effective class use. For example, you might want to organize a set of resources around the concept of popular culture, leisure and the arts in the 19th Century.
• Use customized searches to effectively find text and archival documents

Access to hundreds of primary documents, including:

• Jacob Riis's 1890 study of NYC's notorious Fourth Ward
• Kate Richards O'Hares's "How I Became a Socialist Agitator"
• A 1901 New York Times article revealing that a Tammany political boss Murray Hall was a woman
• Plus editorials, immigrants' letters, speeches, fiction, and court decisions; also try your luck at the world's first crossword puzzle.

See 45 minutes of archival film, such as:

• Downtown Boston in 1906, filmed from a moving streetcar
• Footage of the sunken battleship Maine in Havana harbor
• Clips from the 1912 presidential election
• The Great Train Robbery in its entirety
• Jim Corbett fighting Peter Courtney for the heavyweight title in 1894
• Plus Ellis Island, the building of a 1906 NYC skyscraper, and the world's first cigarette commercial

Hear 4 hours of historical recordings, for example:

• Booker T. Washington reading his 1895 Atlanta Compromise speech
• William Jennings Bryan delivering his "Cross of Gold" speech
• Vaudeville stars doing popular routines
• Andrew Carnegie reading from The Gospel of Wealth
• An interview with a survivor of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire
• Plus popular songs, eyewitness testimony, protest songs, and spirituals

View hundreds of exquisitely reproduced images, including:

• Rare examples of Lewis Hine's documentary photography
• A look at the first Teddy Bears, inspired by President Roosevelt
• An ad for Crisco in a 1912 Ladies' Home Journal
• A photographic record of the great railroad workers' uprising of 1877
• Plus cartoons, portraits, and newspaper photos

In Addition:

• Our exciting historical "excursions" are woven into the textbook narrative and let you take 143 side trips through related topics that showcase intriguing historical topics from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.