New England Primer

Book that prepared children to read the bible.

Salem Witch Trials

Trials during puritan era, claimed women were posseted by the devil and accused of witchcraft.

John Winthrope

Puritan leader, "a city on a hill", believed they were chosen people and their colonies would be an example to the rest of the world.

Views on the world and Native Americans

Seen them as animalistic and devilish.

Mary Rowlandson

Shay's Rebellion

Opposition to high taxes and poor economic decisions by government.

Nat Turners rebellion

Rebellion where 200 people died, this caught the eye of white southerners and abolitionists and is the preface to a lot of American injustices in terms of legislation decisions.

Cotton Mathers
"...we shall soon Enjoy Halcyon Days, with all the vultures of Hell Trodden under our Feet. He has wanted his Incarnate Legions to Persecute us, as the People of God have in the other Hemisphere been Persecuted".

Extremist perspective, god is testing the colonists to see if they were a chosen generation of men.

Chinese Exclusion Act

An act that banned the Chinese from immigration to America during the late 19th century.

E.A. Ross

"y their presence the foreigners necessarily lower the general plane of intelligence, self-restraint, refinement, orderliness, and efficiency. With them, of course, comes an increase of drink and of the crimes from drink. The great excess of men among them leads to sexual immorality and the diffusion of private diseases. A primitive midwifery is practiced, and the ignorance of the poor mothers fills the cemetery with tiny graves. The women go about their homes barefoot, and their rooms and clothing reek with the odors of cooking and uncleanliness. The standards of modesty are Elizabethan".

Booker T. Washington

African American reformer during reconstruction. Spokesperson for African Americans at the time.

W.E.B. Du Bois

First African American to earn a PhD from Harvard, civil rights activist.

Thoreau

"I heartily accept the motto,—"That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe,—"That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient."

Speaks of less government intervention, more self governing and self reliance with an awareness to industrialization and science.

frederick douglass

American abolitionist, published three autobiographies, helped fight racial prejudice during reconstruction.

Benjamin Franklin
"It will be remark'd that, tho' my scheme was not wholly without religion, there was in it no mark of any of the distinguishing tenets of any particular sect. I had purposely avoided them; for, being fully persuaded of the utility and excellency of my method, and that it might be serviceable to people in all religions, and intending some time or other to publish it, I would not have anything in it that should prejudice anyone, of any sect, against it..."

Leading figure during the era of enlightenment, preached the idea of having a schedule along with talking responsibility of ones self.

Malcolm X

Civil rights figure known for taking an aggressive stance for African American rights.

Martin Luther King, Jr

Civil rights figure known for taking a passive stance for African American rights.

Betty Friedan

Early leader of Womens rights movement. Writer of The Feminine Mystique.

Phyllis Schlafly

Anti-feminist who believed that womens rights were already protected under the constitution.

Phyllis Wheatley
First American slave to have her work published.