Who Built America? Working People and the Nation’s History

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Who Built America? surveys the nation’s past to show the role that working people played in the making of modern America and the transformations wrought by the changing nature and forms of work. Explore more than 2000 historical documents in the History Matters Repository, read Historians Disagree essays written by prominent scholars, watch documentary films, and take A Closer Look at select topics. Use My WBA? to create shareable collections for use as course packets, assignments, or presentations. Produced by the American Social History Project/Center for Media + Learning at the Graduate Center, City University of New York.

Image: Rohr Barn Raising, 1888, from the collection of The Massillon Museum

Image: Rohr Barn Raising, 1888, from the collection of The Massillon Museum

Who Built America? Working People and the Nation’s History

Volume 1

Preface
Part I: Colonization and Revolution, 1492–1815
Chapter 1: A Meeting of Three Worlds: Europe, Africa, and American Colonization, 1492–1680
Chapter 2: Servitude, Slavery, and the Growth of the Southern Colonies, 1620–1760
Chapter 3: Family Labor and the Growth of the Northern Colonies, 1640–1760
Chapter 4: Toward Revolution, 1750–1776
Chapter 5: Revolution, Constitution, and the People, 1776–1815
Part II: Free Labor and Slavery, 1790–1850
Chapter 6: The Consolidation of Slavery in the South, 1790–1836
Chapter 7: Northern Society and the Growth of Wage Labor, 1790–1837
Chapter 8: Immigration, Urban Life, and Social Reform in the Free Labor North, 1838–1860
Chapter 9: The Spread of Slavery and the Crisis of Southern Society, 1836–1848
Part III: War, Reconstruction, and Labor, 1848–1877
Chapter 10: The Settlement of the West and the Conflict over Enlaved Labor, 1848–1860
Chapter 11: The Civil War: America's Second Revolution, 1861–1865
Chapter 12: Reconstructing the Nation, 1865–1877
Chapter 13: New Frontiers: Westward Expansion and Industrial Growth, 1865–1877

Volume 2

Part I: Monopoly and Upheaval, 1877–1914
Chapter 1: Progress and Poverty: Industrial Capitalism in the Gilded Age, 1877–1893
Chapter 2: Community and Conflict: Working People Respond to Industrial Capitalism, 1877–1893
Chapter 3: From Depression to Expansion: Industrial Capitalism Triumphs at Home and Abroad, 1893–1900
Chapter 4: Change and Continuity in Daily Life, 1900–1914
Chapter 5: Radicals and Reformers in the Progressive Era, 1900–1914
Part II: War, Depression, and Industrial Unionism, 1914–1946
Chapter 6: Wars for Democracy, 1914–1920
Chapter 7: A New Era, 1920–1929
Chapter 8: The Great Depression and the First New Deal, 1929–1935
Chapter 9: Labor Democratizes America, 1935–1939
Chapter 10: A Nation Transformed: The United States in World War II, 1939–1946
Part III: Cold War America—And After, 1946–2016
Chapter 11: The Cold War Boom, 1946–1960
Chapter 12: The Rights Conscious 1960s, 1960–1973
Chapter 13: Economic Adversity Transforms the Nation, 1973–1989
Part IV: A Fragmented Nation, 1989-2021
Chapter 14: The American People in an Age of Global Capitalism, 1989–2001
Chapter 15: America’s World After 9/11, 2001–2007
Chapter 16: Hope, Change, and Fear, 2007—2016
Chapter 17: Coda: “To Continue the Work of Our Foreparents”

My WBA

Introducing the My WBA? Collection Tool

My WBA? allows readers to customize and share the resources on this site for use in presentations, teaching, reading and discussion groups. Sign in to create an account, then create as many collections as needed using the + plus sign to add items to a collections.  Text files and notes can be included in a collection and collections items can be arranged and edited. Each collection creates a discrete url that can be shared with others.

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Table of Contents

Volume 1

Preface
Part I: Colonization and Revolution, 1492–1815
Chapter 1: A Meeting of Three Worlds: Europe, Africa, and American Colonization, 1492–1680
Chapter 2: Servitude, Slavery, and the Growth of the Southern Colonies, 1620–1760
Chapter 3: Family Labor and the Growth of the Northern Colonies, 1640–1760
Chapter 4: Toward Revolution, 1750–1776
Chapter 5: Revolution, Constitution, and the People, 1776–1815
Part II: Free Labor and Slavery, 1790–1850
Chapter 6: The Consolidation of Slavery in the South, 1790–1836
Chapter 7: Northern Society and the Growth of Wage Labor, 1790–1837
Chapter 8: Immigration, Urban Life, and Social Reform in the Free Labor North, 1838–1860
Chapter 9: The Spread of Slavery and the Crisis of Southern Society, 1836–1848
Part III: War, Reconstruction, and Labor, 1848–1877
Chapter 10: The Settlement of the West and the Conflict over Enlaved Labor, 1848–1860
Chapter 11: The Civil War: America's Second Revolution, 1861–1865
Chapter 12: Reconstructing the Nation, 1865–1877
Chapter 13: New Frontiers: Westward Expansion and Industrial Growth, 1865–1877

Volume 2

Part I: Monopoly and Upheaval, 1877–1914
Chapter 1: Progress and Poverty: Industrial Capitalism in the Gilded Age, 1877–1893
Chapter 2: Community and Conflict: Working People Respond to Industrial Capitalism, 1877–1893
Chapter 3: From Depression to Expansion: Industrial Capitalism Triumphs at Home and Abroad, 1893–1900
Chapter 4: Change and Continuity in Daily Life, 1900–1914
Chapter 5: Radicals and Reformers in the Progressive Era, 1900–1914
Part II: War, Depression, and Industrial Unionism, 1914–1946
Chapter 6: Wars for Democracy, 1914–1920
Chapter 7: A New Era, 1920–1929
Chapter 8: The Great Depression and the First New Deal, 1929–1935
Chapter 9: Labor Democratizes America, 1935–1939
Chapter 10: A Nation Transformed: The United States in World War II, 1939–1946
Part III: Cold War America—And After, 1946–2016
Chapter 11: The Cold War Boom, 1946–1960
Chapter 12: The Rights Conscious 1960s, 1960–1973
Chapter 13: Economic Adversity Transforms the Nation, 1973–1989
Part IV: A Fragmented Nation, 1989-2021
Chapter 14: The American People in an Age of Global Capitalism, 1989–2001
Chapter 15: America’s World After 9/11, 2001–2007
Chapter 16: Hope, Change, and Fear, 2007—2016
Chapter 17: Coda: “To Continue the Work of Our Foreparents”
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