Primary Sources

Women in the Guilded Age

1. This cartoon depicts the societal dangers of allowing women to vote, displaying a man holding a baby, two women smoking cigars, and a sign claiming that suffragettes are "man tamers".
2. The intended audience is males in American society, as an attempt to emphasis the societal discord that would ensue with allowing women to vote.
3. The point of view here is misogynistic and vehemently against the women's rights movement; the author might have this view due to, historically, the systematic oppression and disenfranchisement of women in Western civilization.
4. This document can be linked to second and third wave feminism in the late twentieth century, the treatment of women in virtually any European country, the legal struggle for African American voting rights, and the social struggle to ensure African American voting rights during the Civil Rights Movement.
5. This document brings to mind the Seneca Falls Convention and the works of the Women's Christian Temperance Union to gain suffrage.


Immigrants in the Gilded Age

(Full speech: http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/4579679?n=3&printThumbnails=no)
1. The speaker is raising the issue of whether or not the Geary Law, which extended the Chinese Exclusion Act, was fairly discussed and debated so as to allow for complete acknowledgment of morality and labor.
2. The intended audience is the House of Representatives and sympathizers of the Chinese.
3. The document establishes an understanding point of view of the Chinese, which possibly stems from a strong moral compass and a doubt in the ethnics of denying the Chinese the right to receive bail in habeas corpus proceedings, the right to bear witness, and forcing them to carry a resident permit (without which there would be a year of deportation or forced labor).
4. This can be linked to American and European Imperialism, the Civil Rights Movement, and the 13th through 15th Ammendments.
5. This document brings to mind the forced labor of the Chinese in building the Transcontinental Railroad.


African Americans in the Gilded Age

1. This demonstrates the gradual progression of African Americans in society, especially the advancements made in higher education.
2. The intended audience is African Americans who are yearning for more opportunities to advance within their community and seek higher education.
3. The point of view established here is pro-civil rights; this could be a result of being able to see past the racist guises of America and the harmful effects of Imperialism.
4. This can be connected to the Civil Rights Movement, the 13th, 14, and 15th Amendments, the Reconstruction Era, and Horace Mann.
5. This document brings to mind the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court Case that ended all legal segregation in America, including segregated schools.