The 1894 Pullman Strike was a turning point in American labor law, and heralded a permanent change in the relations between workers and management in the private sector, as well as helping to usher in what would become a new era in government regulation of labor and business. Taken alongside the era's historic immigration and rapid urbanization, it is a perfect viewpoint on the times and the issues that helped to define them. Explore these questions through a set of…

This seminar offers an overview of the background principles and ideas that inform the American idea and the documents that embody them. These principles and ideas will be illustrated through a close study of the texts that serve as a precursor to the American Revolution and the founding of America. Registration opens at 9:00 am Access program materials here REGISTER HERE

This seminar, led by Robert McDonald of the United States Military Academy at West Point, will discuss readings that shed light on the political developments in North America and the British Empire that gave rise to arguments for and against independence and culminated in the Declaration of Independence. Other readings will illuminate the Revolutionary War as a military, social and cultural event in the development of the American nation and state, and the United States under the Articles of Confederation.…

  James Madison and Alexander Hamilton were allies as authors of the Federalist Papers, and yet their views on how the new government should function and what it should do grew increasingly different, and opposed, as time passed. This program explores their similarities and differences about how the Constitution should be interpreted and implemented, what powers the new government and its officials should wield, and how these positions shaped the early party system and have, in fact, impacted American political…

Louis Schultze. Dred Scott, 1888. Public domain, from the Missouri Historical Society. Of the many direct and contributing causes of the Civil War, two stand near the top of the list that brought slavery - the most essential cause - to the forefront of American politics, life, and debate. Dig deeply into how Missouri statehood and the infamous Dred Scott court case did so much to set the stage for the political fracturing that took place in the late 1850s and…