"The early years of the American republic witnessed wrenching conflict and change. Northerners created an industrial order, which brought with it troubled relationships at work and within families. White southerners extended plantation slavery while the anti-slavery movement grew above the Mason-Dixon line. In the West, Native Americans battled newly arrived yeomen, entrepreneurs, and planters for control over land. Throughout the young nation numerous groups -- African Americans, poor white men, women -- fought for full citizenship, while others vigorously opposed their bids for equality. The Mexican-American War (1846-1848) marked the end of the period with violence that prefigured the Civil War."--Book cover.

What is a document? -- How to read a document -- Introduction -- Note on sources and interpretation -- The people rule, but who are the people? The founders' social vision ; Poor white men's bid for equality ; Middle- and upper-class women's bid for intellectual equality ; The attack on slavery -- Creating a political order. The federalists' political vision ; An elite opposition emerges ; A popular opposition emerges ; The clash of parties ; President Jefferson -- Expanding the national territory. Acquiring the land ; Indians, white settlers, and the federal government ; Squatters and the federal government ; Life in the western farm settlements ; Expanding slavery ; Beyond the Mississippi -- The transformation of the North. Before the Industrial Revolution ; Economic innovators ; Religious innovators ; Innovators in family life ; A new world of wage labor ; Origins of the American labor movement ; The beginnings of mass immigration -- Masters and slaves. The struggle for control ; The world of the enslaved ; Resistance, repression, and rebellion -- Picture essay : Picturing families -- The triumph of partisan democracy. Creating a white male electorate ; Re-creating party politics ; Party issues, party principles ; Politics without parties -- Race, reform, and sectional conflict. A new antislavery movement ; A woman's rights movement emerges ; Southern leaders defend slavery ; Antiabolitionism and a new racial regime in the North -- Epilogue: Becoming a continental nation. Refiguring American nationalism ; Anglos and Mexicans in the conquered territories ; The sectional conflict deepens -- Timeline.