Encyclopedias

John Charles Frémont was known as “the Pathfinder” because he charted the best route to Oregon in the frontier days of the American West. A man of adventure, he helped…

Although the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that the right to vote may not be denied anyone because of race or color, in the early 1960s civil rights…

On May 4, 1961, thirteen civil-rights activists—seven blacks and six whites—led by James Farmer (1920–1999) set out in two buses from Washington, D.C. They called themselves freedom riders, and they…

Before 1966, American citizens could get information about the government only on an unclearly defined “need to know” basis. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) of 1966 provided the public…

U.S. Congress established the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (also called the Freedmen’s Bureau) in 1865 and gave the bureau the job of aiding and protecting the four…

The Free Soil Party formed during the presidential election of 1848. It contained members who had left the two major parties, the Whig Party and the Democratic Party, over the…

Benjamin Franklin is considered to be one of the founding fathers of the United States. Unlike many of his contemporaries, however, Franklin had a life outside politics as well. He…

When the U.S. Constitution was written in 1787, it contained few guarantees of individual freedom and liberty. The Federalist Party argued that such guarantees were unnecessary because the Constitution did…

Congress proposed three amendments to the U.S. Constitution in the years after the American Civil War (1861–65). The second proposal, which became the Fourteenth Amendment, established the rights of American…

Gerald R. Ford became president of the United States in 1974 when President Richard Nixon (1913–1994; served 1969–74) resigned after being accused of wrongdoing. An uneventful childhood Gerald R. Ford…