10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America

This American labor union was considered to be the one of the most influential independent labor organizations in the world—“the most powerful craft union in the country at the end of the nineteenth century” (104). Amalgamated was at the heart of the Homestead Strike that took place just outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1892.

The ACLU was founded in 1920 as an organization “fighting to protect the right of pacifists from serving in World War I” (155). According to Gillon, the organization later “expanded its agenda to address the broad concerns of preserving minority rights from majority power” (155). When Tennessee passed the Butler Act in 1925, which barred educators from teaching “any theory that denies the Story of the Divine Creation of Man as taught in the Bible” (154), the ACLU sought out a volunteer teacher to challenge the law in court, leading to the famous Scopes trial.

Approved by the Second Continental Congress in 1777, the Articles of Confederation served as the first frame of government for the United States. Gillon argues that the Articles were dysfunctional because “the central government lacked the power to regulate trade or collect taxes” (33). Instead, “each state was responsible for developing its own plan for paying back the staggering Revolutionary War debt” (33).