History Web Links: The Reagan Revolution

Dr. Chris Schutz, Tennessee Wesleyan College

 
 
 

Ronald Reagan's Show Business Career

Overview of Reagan's Film Career (from The Chicago Sun-Times)

website to Reagan's birthplace and boyhood home

Ronald Reagan's October 23, 1947 testimony before the anti-Communist HUAC committee of the House of Representatives

 

Period of Reagan's Early Political Career

1960 Sharon Statement of the conservative student group, Young Americans for Freedom

1962 Port Huron Statement introduction (landmark statement of the emerging student movement)

Reagan's famous 1964 speech in support of Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater

1964 Republican Convention Acceptance speech by presidential candidate Barry Goldwater (considered by many to be the grandfather of the Conservative movement of the 1980s and beyond)      -- 1964 Goldwater campaign commercials (including one featuring Ronald            Reagan)

Reagan's 1967 California Governor's Inaugural Address

George Wallace (Segregationist Alabama Governor & National       Presidential Candidate George Wallace):         --George Wallace's famous 1963 confrontational, segregationist speech              which heightened racial tensions in the deep South       --Wallace's June 1963 "Speech at the Schoolhouse Door," temporaily              blocking the University of Alabama's door to integration       --Alabama Dept of Archives and History site profile on George Wallace       --PBS website on George Wallace       --Account of George Wallace's 1968 presidential campaign       --Profile on Arthur Bremer (attempted assassin of Wallace in 1972)       -- An interview with Wallace biographer Dan Carter on Wallace's legacy

Watergate:      The controversial 1970 Nixon administration "Huston Plan," calling for           questionable surveillance activities      Nixon Administration's "Plumbers Unit" Documents (a unit of White House            employees who engaged a series of controversial surveillance activites for            the Nixon administration)      Nixon's 1974 Resignation Speech

Reagan's 1976 Republican Convention Speech

President Jimmy Carter’s July 1979 "Crisis of Confidence" Speech

Reagan's 1980 Republican Convention Acceptance Speech

 
 

The Reagan Presidency

1987 Report on the Iran-Contra Scandal in the Reagan administration

Reagan's 1st Inaugural Speech

Reagan's 1983 speech depicting the Soviet Union as "the Evil Empire" to the National Association of Evangelicals

Famous Reagan 1987 speech in Berlin demanding that Soviet Premier "Tear down this wall"

video clips of 1980's important events in the CNN video archive

Reagan's speech to the British House of Commons, June 8, 1982

Reagan 1984 speech at GM Plant in Michigan

Reagan's 1984 Nomination Acceptance Speech (8/23/84)

 
 
 
 

wreckage of South Central Los Angeles, after the infamous 1992 riots there

Race and the Reagan Revolution

1978 Bakke "reverse discrimination" case

PBS Newshour online report of the Rodney King incident and subsequent L.A. riots in 1992

a radio series on the 10 year anniversary of the 1992 L.A. racial riots

 
 

Post-Reagan Administration Conservative Developments

1994 Republican Congressmen's "Contract With America" proposing a conservative reform agenda if they gain a Congressional majority

Conservative Congressional Republican leader Newt Gingrich:      -- 1989 Vanity Fair article on Newt Gingrich      -- 1995 Gail Sheehy article on Newt Gingrich      -- 1978 speech to College Republicans during his third run (and first             successful run for Congress (providing a glimpse of how early on Newt             envisioned changing the Republican Party, politics and America)      -- Famous quotes from Newt Gingrich      -- a chronology of Newt Gingrich's career      -- an interview with Republican strategist Paul Weyrich on Newt Gingrich             (A leading figure of the Religious Right, Weyrich is president of Free             Congress Foundation and founded NET, National Empowerment             Television. Gingrich met Weyrich in 1975 while attending a Republican             campaign school in Wisconsin. Weyrich says he taught Gingrich            everything he knows.)       -- an interview with former Republican Congressman Vin Weber on Gingrich            (A former Republican Congressman from Minnesota, Weber was part of             Gingrich's Conservative Opportunity Society. C.O.S. was a rebellious             faction of House Republicans, the "Young Turks" committed to the             conservative cause.

 
 

September 11 Attacks and Their Implications

Smithsonian Institution’s online exhibit of 9/11 Recollections

September 11 Digital Archive