Reference Reviews

Reference for Students

Gilded Age and Progressive Era Primary Sources. By Rebecca Valentine. 1 vol. 226 p. $63.00.

Included in this volume are speeches and excerpts by Sitting Bull, Theodore Roosevelt, Andrew Carnegie, Frances Willard, Ida B. Wells, Charles Dana Gibson, Ida M. Tarbell, Upton Sinclair, and Ruth Dodge with One Congressional Law and a Supreme Court opinion. Examples of plans for homes sold by Sears, Roebuck and Company will amaze students for their price and a good math exercise is to look at those in terms of change to today's dollar. Offered between 1908 and 1940, no one considered it necessary to offer a home with more than one bathroom. Each entry begins with an explanation of the speech, the date, the source (sometimes a website), and a quote. The text which follows helps the student better understand the primary source. Sidebars, grey inset boxes, and margin notes offer more information and some definitions. Each article ends with questions about "what happened next," other things the student might not know, some things to consider and a bibliography of books and Web sites.