FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NEW YORK, NY (JUNE 2, 2006) – On Friday, June 2nd, thirty A.P. American History students from five Gilder Lehrman schools in New York traveled to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York to participate in an interactive forum with Professor Michael E. Latham, Associate Professor of American History and Associate Chair for Undergraduate Study at Fordham University. The discussion, titled FDR as Commander-in-Chief, drew upon the exhibit, Freedom from Fear: FDR as Commander-in-Chief, currently on display at the museum.

The students represented Frederick Douglass Academy (Manhattan), High School of American Studies at Lehman College (Bronx), DeWitt Clinton High School (Bronx), Academy of American Studies (Queens), and Patchogue-Medford High School (Suffolk County). They also viewed primary-source documents and took a tour of the exhibit and Roosevelt’s home guided by the National Park Service.

In preparation for the lecture, each student received a booklet of primary source documents from the Gilder Lehrman Collection and the museum’s archive. They analyzed the documents in their A.P. history classes and prepared questions for the forum.

The Gilder Lehrman Institute sponsors 31 history schools and 14 Saturday academies nationwide. Gilder Lehrman history schools are rigorous, college-preparatory schools centered on American history. They have a track record of raising test scores and sending more than 90 percent of graduating seniors to college. At the core of these schools is a four-year sequence of courses in American history. In many of these schools, the entire student body participates in the Gilder Lehrman program. In other schools, a select portion of the student body participates.

Founded in 1994, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History promotes the study and love of American history. Increasingly national and international in scope, the Institute targets audiences ranging from students to scholars to the general public. It creates history-centered schools and academic research centers, organizes seminars and enrichment programs for educators, partners with school districts to implement Teaching American History grants, produces print and electronic publications and traveling exhibitions, and sponsors lectures by eminent historians. The Institute also funds awards including the Lincoln, Frederick Douglass and George Washington Book Prizes and offers fellowships for scholars to work in history archives, including the Gilder Lehrman Collection.

The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum is America's first Presidential Library and the only one used by a sitting President. The Library was the model for the nation's presidential library system, which is administered by the National Archives and Records Administration.The Library's archival holdings include 17 million pages of documents including 3 million pages of Eleanor Roosevelt's papers. More than 700 researchers use the research room yearly making it one of the busiest in the Presidential Library System. The Museum collection includes approximately 25,000 objects including personal items belonging to Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt, FDR's original collection of more than 200 ship models and 1200 naval prints and paintings, Presidential gifts and campaign memorabilia.