TPS Newsletter
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Civil Rights
Spotlight on Central Illinois
The American civil rights movement is noted as an era of change towards equality for all citizens, including the citizens of central Illinois. Did you know…
Elijah Parish Lovejoy was a supporter of the Anti-Slavery Society of Illinois. He wrote and published his anti-slavery views in the Alton Observer. When pro-slavery riots broke out on November 7, 1837, Mr. Lovejoy was fatally wounded. In 1864 friends of Mr. Lovejoy proposed to erect a monument to Mr. Lovejoy and his anti-slavery efforts.
On March 28, 1864 a riot erupted in Charleston, Illinois when a group of Confederate sympathizers known as Copperheads arrived and attacked Union soldiers. When the riot was over there were nine dead and twelve wounded. You can read a letter to President Lincoln about this riot at http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mal:@field(DOCID+@lit(d3551100)). There were also riots in Paris, Illinois. You can read a telegraph from Governor Richard Yates to Edwin Stanton asking for soldiers to help keep the peace http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mal:@field(DOCID+@lit(d3119200)).
“In 1908 socialist William English Walling published an exposé about a bloody race riot in Springfield, Illinois. As a result, in January 1909, an interracial group assembled in his apartment to discuss proposals for an organization that would advocate the civil and political rights of African Americans. The group decided to issue a "call" for a national conference on the centennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth, February 12, 1909. As a result of the "call," the National Negro Conference was held in New York on May 31 and June 1, 1909. At the second annual meeting, May 12, 1910, the Committee adopted the formal name of the organization--the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Among the "first and immediate steps" listed at the bottom of this founding document is "That there be equal educational opportunities for all and in all the States, and that public school expenditure be the same for Negro and white child."
Was Illinois and surrounding states free or slave states? “The growing sectionalism that was dividing the nation during the late antebellum years is documented graphically with this political map of the United States, published in 1856. Designed to portray and compare the areas of free and slave states, it also includes tables of statistics for each of the states from the 1850 census, the results of the 1852 presidential election, congressional representation by state, and the number of slaves held by owners.”
Topic Connections
The African American Experience in Ohio 1850-1920
This collection illustrates several major themes: slavery, abolition, and the underground railroad; African Americans in politics and government; and African-American religion. The African American Experience in Ohio is a project that provides on-line access to Ohio African American history through the digitizing of over 30,000 pages from numerous separate collections in the holdings of the Ohio Historical Society Archives/Library and the Library/Manuscript collections of the National Afro-American Museum.
Special Presentations
From Slavery to Freedom the African-American Pamphlet Collection 1822-1909
These pamphlets were published from 1824 through 1909. Most were written by African-American authors, though some were written by others on topics of particular importance in African-American history. Among the authors represented are Frederick Douglass, Kelly Miller, Charles Sumner, Mary Church Terrell, and Booker T. Washington.
Special Presentations
The Frederick Douglass Papers
The Frederick Douglass Papers in the Manuscript Division contain approximately 7,400 items dating from 1841 to 1967, although most come from the period from 1862 to 1895. Frederick Douglass documented many instances of racial prejudice and violence in his papers. Therefore, some of the materials in this online historical collection contain language or negative stereotypes that may be offensive to some readers.
Special Presentations
Born in Slavery Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers Project 1936-1938
Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 at the Library of Congress offers more than 2,300 typewritten narratives comprising over 9,500 page images with searchable text and bibliographic records, and more than 500 photographs of former slaves with links to their corresponding narratives. Approximately two hundred of the photographs in this online collection have never before been publicly available.
Special Presentations
Voices from the Days of Slavery
The almost seven hours of recorded interviews presented here took place between 1932 and 1975 in nine Southern states. Twenty-three interviewees, born between 1823 and the early 1860s, discuss how they felt about slavery, slaveholders, coercion of slaves, their families, and freedom. All known recordings of former slaves in the American Folklife Center are included in this presentation. Some are being made publicly available for the first time and several others already available now include complete transcriptions.
Special Presentations
Baseball and Jackie Robinson
1997 marked the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's rookie season for the Brooklyn Dodgers. When he stepped onto Ebbets field on April 15th, 1947, Robinson became the first African American in the twentieth century to play baseball in the major leagues - breaking the "color line," a segregation practice dating to the nineteenth century. Jackie Robinson was an extremely talented multi-sport athlete and a courageous man who played an active role in civil rights. This presentation was created to commemorate his achievements and describe some aspects of the color line's development and the Negro Leagues.
Special Presentations
Women of Protest
Women of Protest: Photographs from the Records of the National Woman's Party is a selection of 448 photographs depicting people and events associated with the militant wing of the American women’s suffrage movement. The images span from about 1875 to 1938 but largely date between 1913 and 1922, during and immediately after the suffrage campaign.
Special Presentations
- Suffrage Prisoners
- Time Line
- Essay-Historical Overview of NWP
- Profiles: Selected Leaders of the Women's National Party
- Tactics and Techniques of the Women's National Party Suffrage Campaign
The Chinese in California 1850-1925
The Chinese in California, 1850-1925 illustrates nineteenth and early twentieth century Chinese immigration to California through about 8,000 images and pages of primary source materials. These documents describe the experiences of Chinese immigrants in California, including the nature of inter-ethnic tensions.
Special Presentations
Lesson Plans and Activities
Lesson Plans
- After Reconstruction Grades 9-12
- From Jim Crow to Linda Brown Grades 9-12
- Jackie Steals Home Grades 9-12
- Rounding the Bases Grades 9-12
- To Kill a Mockingbird Grades 7-12
- Two Unreconciled Strivings Grades 11-12
- Ladies, Contraband and Spies Grades 10-11
Activities & Presentations
- Voices of Civil Rights
- Images of 20th Century African-American Activist: A Select List
- Law Library of Congress Civil Rights
- The Learning Page Community Center Civil Rights
- American Treasures of the Library of Congress
- From Slavery to Civil Rights
Webcasts
- Freedom Writer: Virginia Foster Durr, Letters from the Civil Rights Years
- A Matter of Law: A Memoir of Struggle in the Cause of Equal Rights
Wise Guides
America's Library (Elementary)
What's New at LOC.GOV
Veterans and the Art of War
Oral histories form the heart of the Veterans History Project collections, but there are many other ways to tell the story of service during wartime. If one picture is worth a thousand words, then the collections featured below contain several books' worth. Here are veterans who documented their experiences with paintbrushes, sketching pens, and camera lenses. From Vietnam photographs by Aldo Panzieri to WWII GI portraits by Mimi Korach Lesser, these collections tell tales that mere words cannot describe. Though many of these collections do contain interviews and documents, it is their artwork that is the truly eloquent testimony to all facets of war.
User Tips
Be more successful while searching for primary sources by choosing various key words! Since language changes over time, keywords of primary sources will be dependent on when the source was created and how the source was named and identified. “Searching primary sources at the Library of Congress using historical synonyms produces better results.” For example, using the term car is a more common term today but in the past, automobile or a general term of transportation may have been more common. Another example would be the use of the word city or ghetto versus slum. To see more examples of historical synonyms, visit http://memory.loc.gov/learn/start/synonym.html.
Source: American Memory Synonym List, http://memory.loc.gov/learn/start/synonym.html
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