Front cover image for The American reader : words that moved a nation

The American reader : words that moved a nation

The American Reader is a stirring and memorable anthology that captures the many facets of American culture and history in prose and verse. The 200 poems, speeches, songs, essays, letters, and documents were chosen both for their readablility and for their significance. These are the words that have inspired, enraged, delighted, chastened, and comforted Americans in days gone by. Gathered here are the witings that illuminate---with wit, eloquence, and sometimes sharp words---significant aspects of the national consciousness. They reflect the part that all Americans---black and white, native born and immigrant, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American, poor and wealthy---have played in creating the nation's character
Print Book, English, 2000
Rev. 2nd ed View all formats and editions
Perennial, New York, NY, 2000
Sources
xxiii, 629 pages ; 21 cm
9780062737335, 0062737333
43798534
The Mayflower Compact
The Landing / William Bradford
Poor Richard's Almanack / Benjamin Franklin
List of Virtues / Benjamin Franklin
Defense of Freedom of the Press / Andrew Hamilton
A Demand to Limit Search and Seizure / James Otis
Yankee Doodle
Liberty and Knowledge / John Adams
The Liberty Song / John Dickinson
Chief Logan's Lament
The Slaves' Appeal to the Royal Governor of Massachusetts
Speech to the Second Virginia Convention / Patrick Henry
The Declaration of Independence / Thomas Jefferson
A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom in Virginia / Thomas Jefferson
Common Sense / Thomas Paine
The American Crisis / Thomas Paine
Liberty Tree / Thomas Paine
Correspondence with John / Abigail Adams
Letters from an American Farmer / J. Hector St. John De Crevecoeur
The Federalist, No. 1 / Alexander Hamilton
Farewell Address / George Washington
Hail, Columbia / Joseph Hopkinson
First Inaugural Address / Thomas Jefferson
The Star-Spangled Banner / Francis Scott Key
The Old Oaken Bucket / Samuel Woodworth
Home, Sweet Home / John Howard Payne
A Visit from St. Nicholas / Clement Clarke Moore
The Meaning of Patriotism in America / Frances Wright
Against Nullification / Daniel Webster
Woodman, Spare That Tree / George Perkins Morris
The Height of the Ridiculous / Oliver Wendell Holmes
Old Ironsides / Oliver Wendell Holmes
America / Samuel F. Smith
Concord Hymn / Ralph Waldo Emerson
Self-Reliance / Ralph Waldo Emerson
On Top of Old Smoky
Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean
The Raven / Edgar Allan Poe
A Psalm of Life / Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Village Blacksmith / Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Paul Revere's Ride / Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Civil Disobedience / Henry David Thoreau
Walden / Henry David Thoreau
The Barefoot Boy / John Greenleaf Whittier
Against the Mexican War / Thomas Corwin
The Case for Pubic Schools / Horace Mann
Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions
Address to the Ohio Women's Rights Convention / Sojourner Truth
Oh! Susanna / Stephen Foster
Old Folks at Home / Stephen Foster
Address to the Legislature of New York on Women's Rights / Elizabeth Cady Stanton
A Disappointed Woman / Lucy Stone
Success / Emily Dickinson
Walker's Appeal / David Walker
Prospectus for The Liberator / William Lloyd Garrison
Stanzas for the Times / John Greenleaf Whittier
Predjudice Against the Colored Man / Theodore S. Wright
Bearing Witness Against Slavery / Angelina Grimke
An Address to the Slaves of the United States of America / Henry Highland Garnet
The Present Crisis / James Russell Lowell
Independence Day Speech at Rochester / Frederick Douglass
The House Divided Speech / Abraham Lincoln
The Lincoln-Douglas Debates
Last Statement to the Court / John Brown
The Cooper Union Speech / Abraham Lincoln
Go Down, Moses
Dixie / Daniel Decatur Emmett
First Inaugural Address / Abraham Lincoln
The Bonnie Blue Flag / Harry MacArthy
Maryland, My Maryland / James Ryder Randall
Battle Cry of Freedom / George F. Root
The John Brown Song
Battle Hymn of the Republic / Julia Ward Howe
Barbara Frietchie / John Greenleaf Whittier
The Gettysburg Address / Abraham Lincoln
Second Inaugural Address / Abraham Lincoln
I Hear America Singing / Walt Whitman
O Captain! My Captain! / Walt Whitman
Speech to the American Anti-Slavery Society / Frederick Douglass
The Blue and the Gray / Francis Miles Finch
Women's Right to Vote / Susan B. Anthony
The Ballad of John Henry
Home on the Range
I've Been Working on the Railroad
A Century of Dishonor / Helen Hunt Jackson
Speech at the National Convention of Colored Men / Frederick Douglass
The New Colossus / Emma Lazarus
Clementine
Casey at the Bat / Ernest Lawrence Thayer
When the Frost Is on the Punkin / James Whitcomb Riley
When de Co'n Pone's Hot / Paul Laurence Dunbar
What Does the Working Man Want? / Samuel Gompers
The Pledge of Allegiance
The Mountains of California / John Muir
Solitude / Ella Wheeler Wilcox
America the Beautiful / Katharine Lee Bates
Little Boy Blue / Eugene Field
The Atlanta Exposition Address / Booker T. Washington
Reply to Booker T. Washington / John Hope
Dissent from Plessy v. Ferguson / John Marshall Harlan
In Praise of the Strenuous Life / Theodore Roosevelt
Against Imperialism / George Frisbie Hoar
No / Jose De Diego
The Solitude of Self / Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Women and Economics / Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Man with the Hoe / Edwin Markham
Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing / James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson
Should Higher Education for Women Differ? / M. Carey Thomas
The Battle with the Slum / Jacob A. Riis
Prejudice Against Women / Carrie Chapman Catt
The Talented Tenth / W.E.B. Du Bois
Advice to a Black Schoolgril / W.E.B. De Bois
The Niagara Movement Declaration of Principles
Take Me Out to the Ball Game / Albert von Tilzer and Jack Norworth
The Preacher and the Slave / Joe Hill
Trees / Joyce Kilmer
The New Freedom / Woodrow Wilson
Protest to President Wilson / William Monroe Trotter
Statement of Principles / Calvin Coolidge
Anne Rutledge / Edgar Lee Masters
Mending Wall / Robert Frost
The Road Not Taken / Robert Frost
Fire and Ice / Robert Frost
Evolution / Alice Duer Miller
Chicago / Carl Sandburg
Solidarity Forever / Ralph Chaplin
Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight / Vachel Lindsay
The Leaden-Eyed / Vachel Lindsay
I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier / Alfred Bryan and Al Piantadosi
I Have a Rendezvous with Death / Alan Seeger
War Message to Congress / Woodrow Wilson
Against Entry into the War / George Norris
Over There / George M. Cohan
Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning / Irving Berlin
The Marines' Hymn
The Field Artillery Song / Edmund L. Gruber
Grass / Carl Sandburg
Statement to the Court / Eugene Victor Debs
The Right to One's Body / Margaret Sanger
First Fig / Edna St. Vincent Millay
Poems of Angel Island
A Korean Discovers New York / Younghill Kang
American Names / Stephen Vincent Benet
America / Claude McKay
Yet Do I Marvel / Countee Cullen
O Black and Unknown Bards / James Weldon Johnson
The Negro Speaks of Rivers / Langston Hughes
I, Too / Langston Hughes
The America System of Self-Government / Herbert Hoover
Happy Days Are Here Again / Milton Ager and Jack Yellen
First Inaugural Address / Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Second Inaugural Address / Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? / E.Y. Harburg and Jay Gorney
Union Maid / Woody Guthrie
So Long, It's Been Good to Know Yuh (Dusty Old Dust) / Woody Guthrie
Which Side Are You On? / Florence Reece
I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night / Alfred Hayes
FDR at the DAR / Franklin Delano Roosevelt
God Bless America / Irving Berlin
This Is the Army, Mr. Jones / Irving Berlin
This Land Is Your Land / Woody Guthrie
Freedom / E.B. White
High Flight / John Gillespie Magee, Jr
Anchors Aweigh / Charles A. Zimmerman
The Four Freedoms / Franklin Delano Roosevelt
War Message to Congress / Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Poems of the Issei
The Army Air Corps / Robert Crawford
Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition / Frank Loesser
The Spirit of Liberty / Learned Hand
Elegy for a Dead Soldier / Karl Shapiro
The Baruch Plan for Control of Atomic Energy / Bernard Baruch
Confirmation Hearings / David Lilienthal
A Plea for Civil Rights / Hubert Humphrey
Inaugural Address / Harry S. Truman
Declaration of Conscience / Margaret Chase Smith
Nobel Acceptance Speech / William Faulkner
The Silent Generation / Louis Simpson
Refugee in America / Langston Hughes
Harlem / Langston Hughes
Brown v. Board of education
Farewell Address / Dwight D. Eisenhower
It Could Be a Wonderful World / Hy Zaret and Lou Singer
Duty, Honor, Country / Douglas MaCarthur
Inaugural Address / John F. Kennedy. Where Have All the Flowers Gone? / Pete Seeger
Address to the Broadcasting Industry / Newton Minow
The Port Huron Statement / Tom Hayden
Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream / Ed McCurdy
Silent Spring / Rachel Carson
Letter from Birmingham City Jail / Martin Luther King, Jr
Speech at the Berlin Wall / John F. Kennedy
The March on Washington / Martin Luther King, Jr
We Shall Overcome
O Freedom
If I Had a Hammer / Lee Hayes and Pete Seeger
Blowin' in the Wind / Bob Dylan
Ballad of Birmingham / Dudley Randall
The Feminine Mystique / Betty Friedan
Little Boxes / Malvina Reynolds
Howard University Address / Lyndon B. Johnson
On the Death of Martin Luther King, Jr. / Robert E. Kennedy
Stupid America / Abelardo Delgado
The Wilderness Idea / Wallace Stegner
Speech at Moscow State University / Ronald Reagan
The American Idea / Theodore H. White