ContextUS is home to the core texts in the American political tradition. We provide free access to texts, translations, and commentaries so that everyone can participate in the ongoing process of studying, interpreting, and creating American political history.
Explore the Foundational Documents
Browse the Library
American Priors
Influential religious, philosophical, and legal texts from Antiquity through the Enlightenment that shaped the American political tradition
Toward Independence
Pivotal texts from the colonial era that spurred the American Revolution and established the United States in the aftermath of victory, 1620-1787
Constituting America
Political debates, conventions, constitutions, and commentaries that stimulated the early republican experiment in the United States, 1787-1800
Forging these United States
Illuminating texts that spotlight the social, political, economic, and philosophical consequences of expanding Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democracy, 1800-1836
The Coming of the Civil War
Significant texts from the Antebellum period that highlight the Second Party System, the market revolution, reform movements, and the struggles over slavery, 1837-1860
Civil War and Reconstruction
Crucial documents that explore the conduct, controversies, and consequences of the war as well as the revolutionary expansion of equality and rights in postwar America, 1861-1877
The Gilded Age
Primary texts covering the period dubbed by author Mark Twain as "The Gilded Age:" a postwar period of economic expansion and rapid industrialization, underscored by deep tensions between various identity groups of American society, 1877-1900.
The Progressive Era and World War I
Documents from the era of the Progressives, including America’s entry into the First World War, and the reaction of the “Roaring Twenties,” 1901-1929.
A Living Library of the American Tradition
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