A summary of each of the administrations from the post Civil War era through the Gilded Age is presented here. Each president has his own page, featuring election maps, innaugural addresses, photographs, political cartoons, and images of artifacts. By the turn of the century, several presidents have committed their voices to wax. The section concludes with the McKinley administration, leading into the Spanish-American War section below.
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Some of the earliest known recordings are presented here, including a recording of Thomas Edison, a commercial for P.T. Barnum, and early political recordings from 1889, 1892 and 1896.
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Miscellaneous images of engravings, prints, and artifacts are presented. Subjects include Reconstruction, Civil Rights the Gilded Age, and the West. Several nice images of a stereoptic viewer, a popular entertainment device, are also included.
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The war with Spain in 1898 marks the beginning of what's been dubbed, "The American Century." This section is divided into four parts: a prelude to war, the Philippine Campaign, the Cuban and Puerto Rican Campaigns, and an afterward.
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This pioneering work of photojournalism by Jacob Riis focused on the plight of the poor in the Lower East Side, and greatly influenced future "muckraking" journalism. The original work featured fifteen halftone images and forty-three drawings based on photographs. Due to the recent invention of magnesium flash, Riis was able to venture into the dimly lit areas of tenements and document the wretched conditions in which the "other half" lived and worked. Later editions of his work were printed with photographs replacing most of the drawings, possible thanks to improved printing techniques. Riis's work was also pioneering in that he mostly attributed the plight of the poor to environmental conditions. However, his work was not without its flaws. He divided the poor into two categories: deserving of assistance (mostly women and children) and undeserving (mostly the unemployed and intractably criminal). He wrote with prejudice about Jews, Italians, and Irish, and he stopped short of calling for government intervention. Still, the catalyst of his work was a genuine sympathy for his subjects, and his work shocked most wealthy New Yorkers who had no idea such a world existed within a few miles of their own opulent neighborhoods. [enter]

This section contains dozens of political cartoons from the post-Civil War era, including a nice selection of Puck magazine covers. Cartoons about the Spanish-American War are presented in that section above.
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The purpose of this section is to educate about the power of imagery in the stereotyping of race. By understanding how it happened, we can recognize it happening now. Once aware, we can make a conscious effort to avoid the messy thinking stereotyping promotes that leads to fear, prejudice, hate, and discrimination. Increasing sensitivy to these stereotypes can promote racial tolerance. Ultimately, civilivation depends on learning to value the racial and cultural diversity of our histories, our nations, and the world in which we live.
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