United States History Resources

Choose an event that took place between 1877 and 2003 and read three contemporary newspaper articles (from three different media sources) about that event.

• In a three-page paper discuss how that event was viewed in the media of the time.
• Did these three newspaper accounts have conflicting views about it or was the media unanimous in its approval or condemnation of that event?
• How do we view this event today in its historical perspective?

For example: Wounded Knee, the Haymarket bombing, the Homestead Strike, the Spanish-American War, the annexation of the Philippines, the Prohibition of Alcohol, the Nineteenth Amendment, the rise of the KKK, the Lend/Lease Act, the America First Committee, the McCarthy hearings, the anti-Vietnam war protests, the ending of the Cold War, the invasion of Iraq.

• Use specific names of individuals, places, events, and organizations.
  • Women may be referred to as Miss or Mrs. + [Last name] in older publications, without their first name.
• Use Advanced Search to limit by date; Get this information from your biographical and reference sources
• Think about alternative phrasing, language used during the time period; build your list of terms as you read secondary and primary sources
  • protest = riot = mob
  • draft = conscription
  • Black Americans = Negroes = Colored People

Use the publication date filter in the databases to limit your search results to the year(s) of the event you are researching. This will limit your results to primary sources.