The following documents demonstrate the tremendous concern of the Association of Manhattan Project Scientists toward nuclear power in peacetime. On the right is one of many drafts that shaped a collective statement from the scientists released just after the war. These drafts were edited by Dr. Francis Bonner and Dr. Irving Kaplan, lead...
The Lincoln-Douglas debates were a series of seven joint discussions between Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, and Stephen A. Douglas, a Democrat, held during the summer and fall of 1858 in Illinois. Lincoln and Douglas had been debating each other for more than twenty years before their famous contest for the U.S. Senate in 1858. They were...
Abraham Lincoln's views on slavery and its abolition were clearly expressed in speeches and action throughout his political career. This online exhibition, based on a document booklet of the same title produced in partnership with President Lincoln's Cottage at the Soldiers' Home in Washington DC (...
Dred Scott was born a slave in Virginia around 1800 and died a free man in Missouri in 1858. Most contemporary accounts describe his life and habits as typical for someone of his place and time. Yet along the way, he gave his name to what has become the most infamous Supreme Court decision in American history.
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Two hundred years after his birth, Abraham Lincoln’s historical importance endures. . . . A man for all times, Lincoln has become a global figure. People around the world take inspiration from the principles, words, and resolute leadership of the sixteenth President of the United States.
William Walker may be largely forgotten today, but to Americans in the 1850s, he was a major celebrity, one of many so-called filibusters who would swoop into Central American countries to conquer and spread the ideals of American-style democracy—exploits neatly summed up by the often-used phrase of the era, “manifest destiny.”
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On June 18, 1812, the United States declared war on Great Britain in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars. This Boston newspaper, the Columbian Centinel, published on September 5, 1812, reveals New Englanders’ concerns over the international crisis as well as concerns at home. Click here to launch this interactive feature.
This exhibition presents a variety of original documents and images highlighting the story of the abolition of slavery between 1787 and 1865 in England and America. Each item has its own historic significance as well as a place in the broader progress of abolitionist thinking, from the moment William Wilberforce joined the British...
For more than 225 years the principle of freedom and our understanding of its implications have evolved dramatically. The selections from this exhibition invite you to read the words and see the images of the men and women who forged this nation. Their words and images provide insights into the complexity of the past. James G. Basker, the president of the Gilder Lehrman Institute, guides viewers through this exploration of the evolution of liberty in the United States.
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On October 16, 1859, John Brown and a band of followers, black and white, attacked the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. The raid was part of a larger plan to destroy the slave system by freeing and arming slaves. The raiders were captured and John Brown was executed on December 2, 1859. The unique documents discussed here examine John Brown’s beliefs and actions in the context of growing national divisions over slavery in the 1850s.