The encyclopedia takes a broad, multidisciplinary approach to the history of the period. It includes general and specific entries on politics and business, labor, industry, agriculture, education and youth, law and legislative affairs, literature, music, the performing and visual arts, health and medicine, science and technology, exploration, life on the Western frontier, family life, slave life, Native American life, women, and more than a hundred influential individuals.

Table of Contents

• Introduction: The Civil War Era and Reconstruction, 1861–1877
• A-Z Entries
• A
• Abolitionism
• Agassiz, Louis
• Agriculture
• Alaska
• Alcott, Louisa May
• American Flag
• American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
• Anthony, Susan B.
• Arizona
• Arlington National Cemetery
• Armour, Philip Danforth
• Art and Architecture
• Atchison, Topeka, & Santa Fe Railroad
• Atlanta, Georgia
• B
• Baltimore, Maryland
• Bancroft, George
• Banking and Finance
• Barnum, P.T.
• Barton, Clara
• Bass, Sam
• Baylor, John R.
• Bell, Alexander Graham
• Benjamin, Judah P.
• Bethlehem Steel
• Bicycles
• Black Codes
• Black Communities
• Black Kettle
• Black Marketing
• Black Migration
• Blackmore, William Henry
• Bloomingdale's
• Booth, John Wilkes
• Borden, Gail
• Boston, Massachusetts
• Bozeman Trail
• Brady, Mathew
• Brewing
• Brown, Olympia
• Buffalo
• Buffalo Soldiers
• Burbank, Luther
• Bureau of Agriculture, U.S.
• Bureau of Indian Affairs
• C
• California
• Capitol, U.S.
• Captain Jack
• Carnegie, Andrew
• Carpetbaggers and Scalawags
• Catholicism
• Cattle and Livestock
• Centennial Celebration, U.S.
• Central Pacific Railroad
• Cereals and Grains
• Charleston, South Carolina
• Chase, Salmon P.
• Chesnut, Mary
• Chicago, Illinois
• Chicago Fire
• Child, Lydia Maria
• Children and Childhood
• Chisholm Trail
• Christian Science
• Cincinnati, Ohio
• Cinco de Mayo
• Citizenship
• Civil Rights
• Clothes and Fashion
• Coal and Coal Mining
• Cochise
• Colfax, Schuyler
• Colleges and Universities
• Colorado
• Columbia, South Carolina
• Comstock Act (1873)
• Cooke, Jay
• Cook's Tours
• Copperheads
• Cornell, Ezra
• Cotton
• Crazy Horse
• Crime and Punishment
• Custer, George Armstrong
• D
• Dakota Territory
• Damien, Father
• Davis, Jefferson
• Deering-Milliken & Company
• Democratic Party
• Dentistry
• Department of Justice, U.S.
• Department Stores
• Depression of 1873–1878
• Desert Land Act (1877)
• Dewey, Melvil
• Dickinson, Emily
• Diseases and Epidemics
• Dix, Dorothea
• Dodge City, Kansas
• Douglass, Frederick
• Draft and Draft Riots
• E
• Economy, Business, and Industry
• Education
• Election of 1860
• Election of 1864
• Election of 1868
• Election of 1872
• Election of 1876
• Electricity
• Emancipation Proclamation
• Everett, Edward
• Ex Parte Milligan (1866)
• Exploration
• F
• Family, Community, and Society
• Fessenden, William
• Fetterman Massacre
• Field, Cyrus W.
• Fifteenth Amendment
• Fish, Hamilton
• Fish Commission, U.S.
• Food and Food Preservation
• Foreign Affairs
• Fort System
• Forten, Charlotte
• Four Corners Region
• Fourteenth Amendment
• Fraternal Organizations
• Freedmen's Bureau
• Frontier Life
• G
• Gage, Matilda Joslyn
• Gas Lighting
• Geronimo
• Gettysburg Address
• Gibbs, Josiah Willard
• Godey's Lady's Book
• Gold Rushes
• Gold Standard
• Goodnight-Loving Trail
• Gould, Jay
• Grange Movement
• Grant, Ulysses S.
• Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company
• Great Lakes
• Greeley, Horace
• H
• Habeas Corpus, Suspension of
• Hale, Sarah Josepha
• Hamlin, Hannibal
• Hardin, John Wesley
• Harper, Frances Ellen Watkins
• Harper's Weekly
• Harte, Bret
• Hawaiian Islands
• Hayes, Rutherford B.
• Heinz, H.J.
• Hickok, James Butler “Wild Bill”
• Home Economics
• Homestead Act (1862)
• Horse Breeding
• Horse Racing
• Hospitals and Asylums
• Howard, Oliver Otis
• Howe, Julia Ward
• Hutterites
• I
• Idaho Territory
• Immigration
• Indian Appropriation Act of 1871
• Indian Reservations
• Industry and Manufacturing
• Internal Revenue Act of 1864
• J
• Jacobs, Harriet
• James Gang
• Jehovah's Witnesses
• Jim Crow
• Johnson, Andrew
• Jones, Mother
• Joseph, Chief
• Judaism
• K
• Kansas
• Kemble, Fanny
• King, Richard
• Knights of the White Camellia
• Ku Klux Klan
• L
• Labor and Labor Unions
• Land-Grant Colleges
• Law and Courts
• Law Enforcement
• Lilly, Eli
• Lincoln, Abraham
• Literacy
• Literature
• Little Bighorn, Battle of the
• Long Walk of the Navajo
• Lowe, Thaddeus
• Lumbering
• M
• Macy's
• Mail-Order Brides
• Mangas Coloradas
• Mardi Gras
• Marshall Field
• Mary Celeste
• McClellan, George B.
• Medicine and Health
• Medicine Lodge Treaty (1867)
• Memorial Day
• Mennonites
• Metric Act of 1866
• Metropolitan Life Insurance
• Midway Islands
• Mining
• Minor v. Happersett (1875)
• Minting and Currency
• Missions and Missionaries
• Mississippi River
• Missouri, Kansas, & Texas Railroad
• Molly Maguires
• Montana Territory
• Montgomery Ward
• Mormons
• Muir, John
• Munn v. Illinois (1877)
• Music
• N
• Nast, Thomas
• National Academy of Sciences
• National Rifle Association
• Native Americans
• Nebraska
• Nevada
• New Mexico Territory
• New York City
• Newspapers and Magazines
• Nursing
• O
• Oil and Oil Industry
• Oklahoma Territory
• Olmsted, Frederick Law
• Oregon
• Oregon Trail
• Orphans and Orphanages
• P
• Pacific Railway Act (1862)
• Pacifism
• Paiute
• Panama Canal
• Parker, Ely
• Parker, Isaac
• Pennsylvania Railroad
• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Photography
• Pillsbury, Charles Alfred
• Pinkham, Lydia
• Plantation System
• Politics and Government
• Polygamy
• Population and Demographics
• Port Royal Experiment
• Post Office and Postal Service
• Poverty and Wealth
• Powell, John Wesley
• Prisons and Penitentiaries
• Pullman, George M.
• Q
• Quakers
• Quantrill, William
• R
• Railroad, Transcontinental
• Railroads
• Ranching
• Range Wars
• Reconstruction
• Reconstruction Acts (1867–1868)
• Recreation and Amusements
• Red Cloud
• Religion
• Republican Party
• Revels, Hiram
• Richmond, Virginia
• Roads and Bridges
• S
• San Francisco, California
• Sand Creek Massacre
• Science
• Secret Service, U.S.
• Seward, William Henry
• Sewing Machine
• Ships and Shipping
• Silver Strikes
• Sitting Bull
• Slaughterhouse Cases (1873)
• Slaves and Slavery
• Smith, Sophia
• Sojourner Truth
• Sports
• St. Louis, Missouri
• Stagecoach Travel
• Standard Oil
• Stanford, Leland
• Stanton, Edwin M.
• Stanton, Elizabeth Cady
• Statehood
• Steel and Steel Industry
• Stephens, Alexander
• Stetson, John Batterson
• Stevens, Thaddeus
• Stewart, Alexander Turney
• Stone, Lucy
• Strauss, Levi
• Stuyvesant, Rutherford
• Sumner, Charles
• T
• Taney, Roger
• Taxes and Tax Law
• Technology and Invention
• Telegraph and Telephone
• Temperance Movement
• Texas Rangers
• Thanksgiving
• Theater
• Thirteenth Amendment (1865)
• Tilden, Samuel J.
• Trade and Tariffs
• Treaty of Washington (1871)
• Turner, Henry McNeal
• Twain, Mark
• Tweed, William Magear
• Typewriter
• U
• Underground Railroad
• Union Pacific Railroad
• Urbanization and City Life
• Utah Territory
• V
• Vanderbilt, Cornelius
• Veterans and Veterans’ Affairs
• W
• Wade, Benjamin
• Waite, Morrison
• Washington, D.C.
• Washington Territory
• Washita Massacre
• Weapons
• Welles, Gideon
• West Virginia
• Western Union Telegraph
• Wheeler, William A.
• Whitman, Walt
• Wilmington, Delaware
• Wise, Isaac Mayer
• Women and Women's Rights
• Woodhull, Victoria
• Wyoming Territory
• Y
• Yellowstone National Park
• Yosemite Valley
• Primary Documents
• First Inaugural Address, Jefferson Davis (1861)
• The Firing on Fort Sumter, from A Diary of Dixie, by Mary Boykin Chesnut (1861)
• “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” Song by Julia Ward Howe (1862)
• Homestead Act (1862)
• Pacific Railway Act (1862)
• Morrill Land-Grant Act (1862)
• Proclamation Suspending Writ of Habeas Corpus (1863)
• The Story of the Life of John Anderson, the Fugitive Slave, Excerpt (1863)
• Emancipation Proclamation (1863)
• “Men of Color, To Arms!” Speech by Frederick Douglass (1863)
• Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln (1863)
• “The Wound-Dresser” (1863) and “O Captain! My Captain!” (1865) by Walt Whitman
• Freedmen's Bureau Act (1865)
• Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln (1865)
• Articles of Surrender, Army of Northern Virginia (1865)
• Black Codes of Mississippi (1865)
• Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1865)
• Ex parte Milligan (1866)
• Civil Rights Act of 1866
• “We Are All Bound Up Together,” Speech by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1866)
• First Reconstruction Act (1867)
• Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1868)
• “The Yosemite,” Diary Entry of Visit by John Muir (1869)
• “Hold Each Other in True Fellowship,” Sermon by Henry Ward Beecher (1869)
• Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1870)
• Ku Klux Klan Act (1871)
• Yellowstone Act (1872)
• Roughing It, by Mark Twain, Excerpt (1872)
• Speech After Being Convicted of Voting in the 1872 Presidential Election, by Susan B. Anthony (1873)
• Minor v. Happersett (1875)
• “Intemperance, the Work of the Devil,” Sermon by Dwight L. Moody (1877)
• “I Will Fight No More Forever,” Surrender Speech by Chief Joseph (1877)
• “We Are Vanishing From the Earth,” Geronimo's Story of His Life, Excerpt (1906)
• Chronology
• Glossary
• Master Bibliography
• Primary Sources
• Secondary Sources
• Web Sites