But these elements of history are largely the story of elites. This textbook also provides social history captured in the recognizable lives of ordinary people. Presidents, congressmen, and corporate executives are quoted throughout the book. So are soldiers, slaves, indentured servants, cowboys, working girls and women, and civil rights activists. Firsthand America, using more than 2,000 quotations, therefore gives due place both to the traditional leaders and to the myriad Americans never named in formal historians.

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