Fasttrack to America's Past
   Teacher Key
Return to Originating Page



Page 90
 Page 90 - Section 4 Title Page

The pictures:

1.  An early steam powered ship with paddle wheels on the side.  The invention of steam powered boats and railroads was an important aspect of the Transportation Revolution of the early 1800s.

2.  A woman making cloth in a textile factory.  This was the era of the Industrial Revolution, which had a great impact on women's lives as well as on men.  Most early textile factories were in the New England states.

3.  A famous image used by the abolition movement that was widely printed in the early 1800s.  The question across the bottom forced many people to confront the moral contradictions of slavery for the first time.


The famous quotes:

1.  "Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner..."

   These lines are from "The Star Spangled Banner," the national anthem of the United States.  They were written by Francis Scott Key during the War of 1812.  Key had gone on board a British ship in the waters off Baltimore, Maryland, to negotiate the release of an American who was being held prisoner.  That night, Sept. 13, 1814, the British began bombarding Fort McHenry, which guards the entrance to the Baltimore Harbor.  Key watched through the night as the shells and rockets fired from British ships lit up the sky over the fort, where an American flag waved in the breeze.  In the morning, the flag was still there, and Key wrote his famous poem.  It was later set to music, and became the national anthem. 

2.  "Go West, young man!"

   This well known line is usually credited to newspaperman Horace Greeley.  He wrote an editorial in the New York Tribune advising young men of the 1850s to seek their fortune in the western parts of the country.  As Greeley himself pointed out, the line actually appeared first in an article in an Indiana newspaper.

3.  "We hold these truths to be..."

   These lines are almost identical to lines in the Declaration of Independence, except that they read, "all men and women are created equal."  They are from a very famous document written at a women's rights convention held in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848.  The convention's Declaration of Sentiments listed ways society at the time restricted women's legal rights, and called for an immediate recognition of women as citizens with all rights enjoyed by men. 

4.  "A house divided against itself..."

   This warning was made by Abraham Lincoln in 1858 as the political split over the slavery issue grew wider and more vocal.  Lincoln went on to win the Republican nomination for president and the election itself in 1860.  He became president as the Civil War began in 1861.






Copyright Notice

   Copyright 2018 by David Burns.  All rights reserved.  Illustrations and reading selections appearing in this work are taken from sources in the public domain and from private collections used by permission.  Sources include: the Dover Pictorial Archive, the Library of Congress, The National Archives, The Hart Publishing Co., Corel Corporation and its licensors, Nova Development Corporation and its licensors, and others.  Maps were created or adapted by the author using reference maps from the United States Geological Survey and Cartesia Software.  Please see the home page for this title for more information.