One of the recurrent themes in the history of the United States is the degree to which immigration has altered not only the nature of the nation but the ways in which the nation thinks about itself. The issue of immigration is so important that it may deserve several lectures during the course of the year. While many immigrants came to the United States for religious and political freedom, most came for economic opportunity. A lecture on factors of "push" and "pull" during the middle third of the nineteenth century will help clarify and underline this vital matter. The lecture would do well to foreshadow the so-called new immigration at the century's end and the "fourth wave" after 1965. Although the focus here is mid-nineteenth century, the longer perspective is valuable for enhanced understanding. See Franklin D. Scott, The Peopling of America: Perspectives on Immigration (1984), one of many valuable American Historical Association pamphlets, and also Roger Daniels, Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life (1990). See also the excellent recommendations for further reading at the conclusion of Chapter 13 in the text.

Closely related to a treatment of the push and pull factors in immigration is a closer analysis of American reactions to the arrival of foreigners. Their labor surely was welcome in the building of the nation--but competition for employment was not. And significant differences in dress, deportment, religion, culture, and custom made both native-born Americans and earlier arrivals uncomfortable. A lecture dealing with American reactions to immigration will be instructive. A productive approach is to provide an overview and then concentrate on one or two different groups and/or one or two incidents. Here the focus might properly be on anti-Catholicism with an emphasis on the Bible riots, the Maria Monk affair, or the hostility toward the Irish and the Roman Catholic church. Consult Kerby A. Miller, Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to America (1985); Lawrence J. McCaffery, The Irish Diaspora in America (1976); and Oscar Handlin, Boston's Immigrants: A Study of Acculturation (revised edition; 1959). An older but still useful volume is Ray Allen Billington, The Protestant Crusade, 1800-1860: A Study of the Origins of American Nativism (1938).

In the vocabulary of the late twentieth century, aggression by one nation against another is viewed as inappropriate, unfair, wrong. Perhaps for this reason the actions of the United States against the Republic of Mexico are often not clearly defined north of the border. But was the United States an aggressor? Or was the Mexican army itching for a fight? A lecture dealing with this topic in the context of Manifest Destiny may be very illuminating for students. See Otis Singletary's brief account in The Mexican War (1960); K. Jack Bauer's much fuller account in The Mexican War, 1846-1848 (1993); and Ramón Eduardo Ruiz, editor, The Mexican War: Was It Manifest Destiny? (1963). This volume in the American Problem Studies Series has excerpts from writings that offer a spectrum of differing interpretations of responsibility. See also Bernard DeVoto's Years of Decision, 1846 (1943) for popular history in the best sense. What happened after the war may also throw some light on earlier U.S. intentions. See Richard Griswold del Castillo, The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo: A Legacy of Conflict (1990).

A lecture filled with action and excitement can be created by focusing attention on the famous battle of the Alamo. Its fame lives on. Knowledge about it does not. One of the remarkable things about the Alamo is precisely that fame. Instructors may wish to explore public reaction and the use of the Alamo as a rallying point. See Holly Beachley Brear, Inherit the Alamo: Myth and Ritual at an American Shrine (1995), and Timothy M. Matovina, The Alamo Remembered: Tejano Accounts and Perspectives (1995). It may also be interesting to contrast one of the famous incidents on the Mexican side, the actions of the niños héroes at the battle of Chapultepec. See Robert W. Johannsen, To The Halls of the Montezumas: The Mexican War in the American Imagination (1985). Chapter 9, "The Historian's War," looks at the question of interpretation as well. And see Susan P. Schoelwer and Tom W. Glaser, Alamo Images: Changing Perceptions of a Texas Experience (1985). A useful account of the niños héroes in English from the Mexican perspective is more difficult to come by. Josefina Zoraida Vásquez and Lorenzo Meyer, The United States and Mexico (1985), contains an excellent bibliography. Consult Cecil Robinson, editor, The View from Chapultepec: Mexican Writers on the Mexican-American War (1989).

There is opportunity here for a "colorful character" lecture, one that will tell a good story and will also reveal important issues facing the nation: the life and times of Sam Houston. Refer in particular to Marquis James, The Raven: The Story of Sam Houston (1929), or the more recent biography by Marshall De Bruhl, Sword of San Jacinto: A Life of Sam Houston (1993). Moreover, Houston's views on secession will later provide a lead-in, a connection with the crisis atmosphere at the end of the 1850s.