Museum Exhibitions
To see original documents, photographs, and other materials from the Gilder Lehrman Collection, please visit the museums listed below.
Gilder Lehrman Exhibitions
The New-York Historical Society
1863: Turning Points in the Civil War, an exhibition of Gilder Lehrman Collection materials curated and selected by the Gilder Lehrman Institute, is on display February 8, 2013–December 2013 at the New-York Historical Society.
After twenty months of civil war, President Abraham Lincoln used his war powers to strike a blow against slavery with the final Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. It transformed the war from a struggle to save the Union to a war to restore the Union and to end slavery.
The year began with the Confederates in high spirits. Southern armies retained a foothold in Tennessee while Union troops in Virginia were reeling from their loss at Fredericksburg. Confederate independence might never have been closer to realization. The battles of Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Fort Wagner in July, however, turned the tide and reawakened Union resolve. These battles and the Emancipation Proclamation put the nation on course for the “new birth of freedom” Lincoln proclaimed in the Gettysburg Address. Despite these important developments, it would be another year and a half before the “great civil war” would end.
The New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West at 77th Street, New York, New York
On View Nationally
George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate, Museum and Gardens
The Books and Manuscripts Gallery frequently features documents from the Gilder Lehrman Collection. Five pivotal documents from the Revolutionary War and the founding era.
The Book and Manuscript Gallery focuses on George Washington’s insatiable hunger for knowledge, his keen curiosity, and his lifelong desire to better understand the world around him, as shown through manuscripts, maps, prints, and books. These rare and important objects from two premier collections—that of Mount Vernon and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History—address broader topics such as our country’s founding documents, slavery, and Washington’s Last Will and Testament. It is also enriched by loans from the Boston Athenaeum, the keeper of the largest collection of original books owned by Washington.
George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate, Museum and Gardens, George Washington Memorial Parkway, Mount Vernon, Virginia
Gettysburg National Military Park Museum & Visitor Center
In the Main Gallery two items from the Gilder Lehrman Collection, including the diary of William Woodlin of the 8th Regiment US Colored Troops and an inkwell from Appomattox, are currently on display.
The Gettysburg Museum of the American Civil War offers visitors a twenty-first-century museum experience that tells the story of the Battle of Gettysburg and its significance to our nation’s history within the context of the American Civil War. The Gettysburg Museum galleries showcase a collection of artifacts and archival items that provides visitors perspectives from President Abraham Lincoln and Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Generals George Gordon Meade and Robert E. Lee, soldiers, war correspondents, and civilians.
Gettysburg National Military Park Museum & Visitor Center, 1195 Baltimore Pike, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
The New-York Historical Society
Abolishing Slavery: The 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, January 01, 2013 - February 18, 2013.
The New-York Historical Society commemorates the sesquicentennial of the Emancipation Proclamation with a display of rare documents from the Gilder Lehrman Collection, including an important 1864 printing of the Emancipation Proclamation and a congressional copy of the Thirteenth Amendment resolution, both bearing the signature of Abraham Lincoln.
The Emancipation Proclamation, which went into effect on January 1, 1863, was a major step towards the abolition of slavery in America, helping to fulfill the promise of the Declaration of Independence and renew the nation’s founding philosophy of human liberty.
While the Emancipation Proclamation stands as the most important accomplishment of Abraham Lincoln’s presidency, Lincoln realized as the Civil War raged on that that the issue of slavery could only be settled permanently by changing the Constitution itself. By the end of 1864, the Senate had approved the abolition amendment, although it was still two votes short of the two-thirds necessary for passage in the House of Representatives. At Lincoln’s urging, the amendment was re-introduced, and finally passed on January 31, 1865. Lincoln, felled by an assassin’s bullet on April 15, 1865, did not live to see the amendment become law. When it finally was ratified eight months later, the Thirteenth Amendment freed nearly one million slaves still held in bondage in the states not covered by the Emancipation Proclamation.
New York Rising, ongoing, includes slave shackles meant for a young child and several letters from the Gilder Lehrman Collection.
Explore the story of New York and America in the newly designed Robert H. and Clarice Smith New York Gallery of American History. Covering the period from the American Revolution through the New-York Historical Society’s 1804 founding, a contemporary interpretation of a nineteenth-century salon-style display uses some of New-York Historical’s most treasured objects and cutting-edge technology to convey the historical narrative.
Liberty/Liberté by artist Fred Wilson, ongoing, includes slave identification tag and shackles from the Gilder Lehrman Collection.
Slave shackles and identification tags from the Gilder Lehrman Collection are displayed in artist Fred Wilson’s installation entitled Liberty/Liberté, which offers the viewer access to the multiple layers of interpretation of the history and historical figures of the Age of Revolution.
The New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West at 77th Street, New York, New York
The National Constitution Center
An anti-Jackson broadside from the Gilder Lehrman Collection is part of the Constitution Center’s core exhibition, The Story of We the People. The exhibition tells the story of the Constitution, its history, and its contemporary relevance through more than 100 multimedia exhibits, film, photographs, text, sculpture, and artifacts. It also features a powerful, award-winning theatrical performance, “Freedom Rising,” and Signers’ Hall. The exhibit experience will take you through important events in our nation’s history and through unique, interactive exhibits, showing you how the United States Constitution is as important today as it was 224 years ago.