The following is the Introduction to the second edition, written by the set’s Editor in Chief, Kelli McCoy (Point Loma Nazarene University).

The second edition of Milestone Documents in American History brings together 170 of the most significant primary source documents in U.S. history alongside context and analysis from scholars. This collection provides students and educators with an in-depth foundation for analyzing primary sources and learning the crucial twenty-first century skills of information literacy and critical thinking. The structure and scholarly guidance for each document encourages students to build independence and proficiency.

This comprehensive resource provides scaffolding for learning how to analyze primary sources. Companion pieces written by experts explain the context, meaning, audience, impact, and more for each document. These brief articles provide multiple layers of support for students of wide-ranging skill levels. For students conducting more advanced projects, the Further Reading section provides an excellent launching point for additional research.

The second edition substantially expands on the first, with nearly 40 new primary source documents included in the set. These milestone documents include foundational sources from the National Archives, landmark Supreme Court cases, government documents, and significant speeches and writings from influential Americans. Together, they represent many of the most significant political, legal, social, and economic ideas and events in U.S. history, spanning the colonial era to the present. The new additions include recent developments in legal, legislative, and presidential history, but they also include a range of significant documents that reflect the breadth and complexities of U.S. history. The expansive new material in the second edition makes this an even more inclusive group of sources, with significant additions in the areas of African American history, women's history, LGBTQ history, and immigration history.

The addition of Virginia's Act III and XII show the development of laws about race and slavery in colonial America. Ida B. Wells, the pioneering journalist and civil rights campaigner, wrote a powerful condemnation of racial violence in “Lynching: Our National Crime.” Her work is so enduring that, in 2020, she was posthumously honored with a Pulitzer Prize citation. Her fight to end lynching more than a century ago continues to be relevant today, as the first national lynching memorial, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, opened in Alabama in 2018. In 2020 the U.S. House of Representatives voted to make lynching a federal hate crime, after more than a hundred years of work by Wells and many others. The monumental significance of other documents already found in the first edition, including those by Martin Luther King, Jr., are even better understood alongside these added ones.

Recent Supreme Court decisions remind us that the iconic documents from the first edition are not simply of historic importance, but continue to profoundly shape the nation today. This new edition includes the landmark case on same-sex marriage, Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), as well as the article that brought the argument for same-sex marriage to the mainstream in 1989, Andrew Sullivan's “A (Conservative) Case for Gay Marriage.” Obergefell was based on the Fourteenth Amendment, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the legal precedent of the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas case, all of which were already in this collection of milestone documents.

This edition also includes significant milestones in women's history. Abigail Adams's famous “Remember the Ladies” letter reminds readers that questions about women's political participation in the new American democracy were present from the beginning of the new nation. Margaret Fuller's “Woman in the Nineteenth Century” and Jane Addams's “Why Women Should Vote” help chart the rise of the women's rights movement in the U.S. and the growing demands for political equality. Ida B. Wells's work reminds us of the intersection of racial and gender equality. Griswold v. Connecticut and the National Organization for Women's Statement of Purpose show the ways in which the women's rights movement continued and expanded in the 1960s. The Equal Rights Amendment, included in the first edition, continues to be a subject of political debate. More states have voted to ratify the ERA in recent years, and the U.S. House of Representatives voted in 2020 to remove the previous deadline for ratification. The questions and issues about political, legal, social, and racial equality raised in these historic documents continue to be current and relevant in the United States today.

Significant additions in the area of immigration history provide important companion pieces to some of the documents in the first edition, including the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Fourteenth Amendment. The Immigration Acts of 1891 and 1924 help explore the development of immigration restrictions and regulations, which remain areas of fierce, ongoing debate. The landmark Supreme Court case United States v. Wong Kim Ark, resulting from the Chinese Exclusion Act and based on the Fourteenth Amendment, established the Supreme Court's decision on birthright citizenship in 1898. However, the case continues to be debated today, as the parameters of birthright citizenship and laws about immigration continue to be very hotly contested in the country.

A collection of the most significant documents in American history will never be complete. It grows as new documents are created and new issues debated. Sometimes, we realize that the new issues are not actually new at all and call for us to reassess which documents from our past have most contributed to shaping the present and the future. While many foundational documents have always been recognized as indisputably central to U.S. history, like the Declaration of Independence and Constitutional amendments, others grow in significance with time, as ideas, court cases, and laws build on or respond to their precedent. That is why a collection of historical documents is not static but requires updated new editions that expand our understanding. No collection of documents is ever perfectly complete and universally agreed upon, nor does it need to be; instead, it is a beginning. The second edition of Milestone Documents in American History provides a thorough foundation for building knowledge and the skills of analysis, critical thinking, and information literacy needed in the twenty-first century. We hope it will promote a lifelong love of learning and foster a desire to pursue further research and understanding of current events.

• Kelli McCoy
• Professor of History
• Point Loma Nazarene University
• San Diego, California