Brown v. Board of Education: On This Day, May 17

Posted by Anna Khomina on

On May 17, 1954, the US Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, unanimously ruling that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional. The decision overturned the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson, which infamously permitted "separate but equal" facilities. Chief Justice Earl Warren responded directly to the 60-year-old case when he declared, "In the field of public education, the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."

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Theodore Roosevelt and the National Park System

As part of the Era of Theodore Roosevelt, a Gilder Lehrman online course, Professor Bruce Schulman of Boston University visited the Gilder Lehrman Collection to view stereo-cards of Theodore Roosevelt. In the video below, Professor Schulman explains the origins of Roosevelt’s famous appreciation for and desire to conserve America’s natural resources and the ways in which he helped redefine the role of the president as a “steward of citizens’ general welfare” by establishing the first national park system.
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Frederick Douglass Writes to His Former Owner: On This Day, 1857

On October 4, 1857, Frederick Douglass penned a letter to Hugh Auld, his former owner, hoping to begin a correspondence. “My heart tells me that you are too noble to treat with indifference the request I am about to make,” he begins.
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Pure Food and Drug Act Passed: On This Day, 1906

On June 30, 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act, marking an achievement in federal regulation of the food industry.
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A Poem by John Quincy Adams on Love and Friendship

The Gilder Lehrman Collection has a multitude of personal letters and writings by prominent politicians, which often reveal a lighter side to their austere public personas.
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National Poetry Month, Part 3: Poem on a Civil War Death

In the Battle of Ball’s Bluff, Virginia, on October 21, 1861, the 1st Minnesota Volunteers had just one casualty: a man named Lewis Mitchell. Mitchell was “only a private,” one of the approximately 750,000 casualties in the Civil War.
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National Poetry Month, Part 1: Phillis Wheatley on Tyranny & Slavery

In celebration of National Poetry Month, we’ll be highlighting some of the intriguing, eloquent, and historically significant poems in the Gilder Lehrman Collection. These poems shed a personal light on momentous events in American history, from the American Revolution to World War I.
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Recent Press Mentions

Graduation Ceremony Held for the Gettysburg College–Gilder Lehrman MA in American History

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On Saturday, July 15, Gettysburg College celebrated the achievements of graduates of the Gettysburg College–Gilder Lehrman MA in American History.
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International Press for GLI's Spanish-American Curriculum Partnership with the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute

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The Sentinel Interviews Kevin Weddle on Winning the Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military History

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"In today’s 5 Questions, The Sentinel gave Weddle the opportunity to delve deeper into the research and findings of his book that recently earned him the Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military History."
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