This online exhibition explore the role of the portable printing press in conveying information during the Civil War. The ability to communicate quickly in wartime can profoundly affect military actions and outcomes. The invention of portable tabletop printing presses at the time of the American

During the Civil War, Libby Prison held over 125,000 men, mostly Union officers. This knife, fork, and plate was issued to prisoner of war Colonel John S. Crocker, 93rd Infantry Regiment, New York Volunteers, by the commandant of Libby Prison, Richmond, Virginia, and used by him at Libby and

Soldiers who were held prisoner faced enormous boredom. They would often find debris and use it to make objects to pass the time.

From 1961 to 1973, the North Vietnamese and Vietcong held hundreds of Americans captive. In North Vietnam alone, more than a dozen prisons were scattered in and around the capital city of Hanoi. American POWs gave them nicknames: Alcatraz, Briarpatch, Dirty Bird, the Hanoi Hilton, the Zoo. Condit

In this lesson plan, students analyze news sources from the Vietnam War era to describe how POWs and their families were represented in the media, then write letters from the perspective of the relative of a POW that describes the concerns of POW families. This resource was produced to accompany

The drawings included in this online exhibition are first-person records of military conflicts, cultural life, and "Americanization." The website shares an American Indian perspective on westward expansion through primary sources. In the late 19th century, life was changing rapidly for the N

The evolving civil rights movement of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s revolutionized the consciousness of young people across the United States. As in African American communities, a new sense of mobilization spread among Mexican Americans. Many adopted a more political identity—chicano an

Laying the groundwork for the Chicano movement of the 1960s, organizations like the American G.I. Forum began advocating on behalf of Hispanic veterans who were denied the educational, health care, housing, and other rights guaranteed by the G.I. Bill. Often working in concert with the League of

From 1861-1865, Americans battled over preserving their Union and ending slavery.  The Civil War is the focus of this section of The Price of Freedom: Americans at War, an online exhibition. This pivotal and complicated period of American history is divided into sections that allow

From 1956-1975, Americans fought a protracted and divisive war against Communist expansion in Southeast Asia. Students will focus on the war in Vietnam and its effects on public opinion back home, look an in-depth at the realities faced by American prisoners of war, and the legacie