The Birth Certificate
eBook - ePub

The Birth Certificate

An American History

  1. 320 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

The Birth Certificate

An American History

About this book

For many Americans, the birth certificate is a mundane piece of paper, unearthed from deep storage when applying for a driver’s license, verifying information for new employers, or claiming state and federal benefits. Yet as Donald Trump and his fellow “birthers” reminded us when they claimed that Barack Obama wasn’t an American citizen, it plays a central role in determining identity and citizenship.

In The Birth Certificate: An American History, award-winning historian Susan J. Pearson traces the document’s two-hundred-year history to explain when, how, and why birth certificates came to matter so much in the United States. Deftly weaving together social, political, and legal history, The Birth Certificate is a fascinating biography of a piece of paper that grounds our understanding of how those who live in the United States are considered Americans.

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Yes, you can access The Birth Certificate by Susan J. Pearson in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & North American History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover Page
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Dedication
  5. Contents
  6. List of Illustrations
  7. Introduction: The Life of a Document
  8. Part One. Building Birth Registration
  9. Part Two. Living with Birth Registration
  10. Part Three. Contesting Birth Registration
  11. Conclusion: From Bibles to Bathrooms
  12. Acknowledgments
  13. Notes
  14. Bibliography
  15. Index