Sundays at 2 p.m. ET (11 a.m. PT) on Zoom
Upcoming Session: July 7, 2024
Author: Alan Taylor, The University of Virginia
Book: American Civil Wars: A Continental History, 1850-1873
Self-Paced Courses: Explore American history with top historians at your own time and pace!
★ ★ ★
Upcoming Session: July 7, 2024
Author: Alan Taylor, The University of Virginia
Book: American Civil Wars: A Continental History, 1850-1873
Free
All Audiences
Every Sunday
The Fourth of July celebrates American independence and the birth of the United States. Explore essays, historical documents, lesson plans, and videos that tell the story of how the United States came to be.
Study with eminent American history professors and dive deep into primary sources with master teachers this summer. Each of our seminars is composed of lectures that you can watch on your own schedule as well as live Zoom sessions featuring the scholar, Gilder Lehrman master teachers, partner organizations, and your peers.
Registration Deadline: 1 week prior to the start of the seminar’s live sessions
Cost: $25 per seminar
10 Seminars
Online
MA students can choose from a wide variety of courses each semester. Browse summer courses, watch lecture previews, meet the professors, and see course details.
Summer II Semester Dates
Through the lens of Abraham Lincoln’s rise in politics, this course will follow the growing nativist response to the rise of Catholic immigration in the 1840s, through to Lincoln’s 1863 and 1864 proposals to expand—and even underwrite—immigration to fill the depleted ranks of the Union military as well as American farming and industry.
Regular Price: $39.99
Affiliate Price: $29.99
15 Professional Development Hours
Explore the role of Jewish Americans in American culture from the arts, to medicine and science, to business, to sports, to literature and civil rights.
Our master’s degree program gives K–12 educators an affordable way to earn a graduate degree while working full time.
Explore American history from your own home, in your own time, and at your own pace! Educators can obtain professional development credit.
These self-paced courses in American history are taught by the nation's top historians and are completely free for high school students.
Deepen your knowledge of this holiday with historical documents, essays, videos, and lesson plans from the Gilder Lehrman Institute.
Lectures by Allen Guelzo, Shilo Brooks, and Matthew Franck on American statesmanship.
Register for lectures given by Michael S. Neiberg, US Army War College.
Scholar: Prof. Steven Mintz
Seminar Dates: July 15-18, 2024
Scholar: Prof. Barbara Perry
Seminar Dates: July 15-18, 2024
Scholar: Prof. Madeline Y. Hsu
Seminar Dates: July 22-25, 2024
Every Sunday at 2:00 pm ET (11:00 am PT) on Zoom
Join us for our weekly interview series in which historians discuss their acclaimed books followed by a Q&A with the at-home audience. Please click any of the upcoming episodes to register. You can purchase any of the books featured on our bookshop.org page, for which we receive an affiliate commission.
American Civil Wars: A Continental History, 1850-1873
Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present
The Explorers: A New History of America in Ten Expeditions
In 1991, Richard Gilder and Lewis Lehrman embarked on a mission to create one of the most important repositories of historical American documents in the country. Today, the Gilder Lehrman Collection contains 86,000+ items documenting the political, social, and economic history of the United States.
Our catalog is free to search. K–12 students, K–12 educators, and parents can access a selection of 7,800+ full-sized images for free. Others can purchase an annual History Resources subscription for $25.
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We hold many rare copies of foundational American documents, like this first draft of the US Constitution
Discover 2,000+ individuals who lived through the American Revolution, like the poet Phillis Wheatley.
Bring history to life with visual sources, like this US War Department recruitment poster (ca. 1944–1945).
In addition to documents, the Collection includes objects, like this campaign button for Lyndon Johnson.
Our Collection highlights the contributions of many Americans, like those of a female pilot in the 1910s.
Explore the fight against slavery through abolitionist writings, like this note by Frederick Douglass.
The Online Journal of the Gilder Lehrman Institute
History Now features essays by the nation’s leading historians and provides the latest in American history scholarship for teachers, students, and general readers.
Learn about the historical research process in this step-by-step guide. As you progress, you will have opportunities to apply what you are learning.
Image: American Servicemen and women in Paris celebrating the unconditional surrender of the Japanese, August 15, 1945 (National Archives, 111-SC-210241)
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