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A Worker Recalls Her Time at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory
In this oral history conducted by historian Joan Morrison, Pauline Newman told of getting a job at the Triangle Company as a child, soon after arriving in the United States from Lithuania in 1901. Newman described her life as an immigrant and [...]
A Shoemaker Describes His Role in the Boston Tea Party
In 1773, the British parliament passed the Tea Act, which gave the British East India Company a monopoly on tea imports into the colonies. Angry colonists responded by refusing to allow ships carrying the tea to land or unload their cargo. In [...]
A Vietnamese General Remembers "Uncle Ho"
Vo Nguyen Giap (b. 1912) served as Vietnam's leading military commander during three decades of war against the French, Japanese, and Americans. He was a strong supporter of Vietnamese independence and, like Ho Chi Minh, became a Communist [...]
Ex-Slaves Recall Sunday Meetings
Between 1936 and 1938, the Federal Writers Project conducted interviews with thousands of former slaves, part of a larger project to collect first-hand biographies of "ordinary" American people. The excerpts below are from two of those interviews, [...]
Former Slaves Remember Resistance
While the harsh punishments meted out under slavery meant instances of open resistance were rare, many slaves nonetheless defied their masters in day-to-day life. The following excerpts are from interviews with former slaves, conducted as part of [...]
A War Worker Finds New Independence on the Job
When Los Angeles resident Beatrice Morales Clifton went to work at the Lockheed Aircraft plant in Burbank, California, she was a married mother of four children. In this excerpt from a longer interview, Morales Clifton, the daughter of Mexican [...]
A Volunteer Medic Describes Combat in Vietnam
Wayne Smith grew up in Providence, Rhode Island. He was the second of eleven children and the oldest son. When he was ten years old, his father died in a fire in their home, and the family had to move into public housing. Smith served in Vietnam as [...]
A Midwestern Runaway Remembers the CCC
During the Great Depression, many young people left home to search for economic opportunity (and sometimes adventure) on the open roads of America. Jim Mitchell was a sophomore in high school when his father lost his job, sending the family into [...]
A Midwestern Runaway Remembers the CCC (with text supports)
Jim Mitchell, who joined the CCC in 1933, recalls how joining the program gave him a sense of purpose and pride, as well as skills. This document includes text supports, including definitions.
Black Hawk Remembers Village Life Along the Mississippi
Black Hawk was a Sauk Indian who lived in a village at the junction of the Rock and Mississippi Rivers in Illinois. After the Louisiana Purchase, Sauk and other tribal leaders signed a treaty that ceded Indian lands east of the Mississippi River to [...]