A collection of interpreted primary source documents designed to complement textbooks used in US history survey courses, Containing Multitudes: A Documentary Reader of the American Past is a collaboration with the Department of History at the University of North Texas that supports the learning experience by providing a curated selection of letters, literature, journalism, art, and other documents, with analysis and instructional support from the university’s teacher-historians.

This two-volume work includes nearly two hundred primary documents and images that narrate many aspects of United States history from the period before European contact and colonization through the twenty-first century. The sources assembled capture the voices of Americans of varied age, race, ethnicity, and gender, historical actors who represent not only diverse subject positions but also a wide variety of belief systems and varied circumstances. Combined with interpretive headnotes and discussion questions, the layered approaches of the contributors deliver an unusually complex and rich portrait of the American past while also offering readers glimpses of the many dimensions of the historians’ craft.

Wesley Phelps is assistant professor of history and director of undergraduate studies at the University of North Texas. He is the author of A People's War on Poverty: Urban Politics and Grassroots Activists in Houston.

Jennifer Jensen Wallach is chair and professor of history at the University of North Texas. She is the author or editor of nine books, including Every Nation Has Its Dish: African American Food and the Politics of Eating in the Twentieth Century, and the coeditor of the series Food and Foodways at the University of Arkansas Press.