Search | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

Our Collection

At the Institute’s core is the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the great archives in American history. More than 85,000 items cover five hundred years of American history, from Columbus’s 1493 letter describing the New World through the end of the twentieth century.

Start New Search

87506 search results

Filter:

Only return results with full-sized images

Sort by

Advanced search

Keyword

Author

Subjects

Place written

Year

Sub-era

1860/08/13

Blamire, George W., fl. 1860

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Mr. Hurst re: ex-slave writes to former master

"Who would have thought...that I would be leading a band at one of the most fashenable [sic] watering holes in the state and I thank you for it and... do not think I ever shal[l] be able to pay you for the many favors you have sho[w]ne. I can never... forget the way you raised me. I do not think you would have done anymore... if I had been a white boy."

GLC07584

1864 ca.

Photograph

Title: [Tintype of Albert D.J. Cashier]

Cashier, a private in Co. G of 95th Ill. Volunteers, was trans soldier born with the name Jennie Hodgers. Seated 3/4 length tintype portrait with fellow soldier.

GLC07587

1859/11/20

Doyle, Mahala, fl. 1859

Autograph letter signed

Title: to John Brown

By the widow and mother of three men killed by Brown in the Pottawatomie massacre: "My son John whose life I begged of [you] is grown up and is very desirous to be at Charlestown on the day of your execution, would certainly be there if his means would permit it, that he might adjust the rope around your neck."Published in the Liberator, 16 December 1859. Also quoted in Robert Penn Warren's John Brown: The Making of a Martyr (1929).

GLC07590

1874/06/27

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874

Broadside

Title: Open Letter to Frederick Douglass re: treatment of black cadets at West Point

GLC07592

1918 ca.

Photograph

Title: Eighth Illinois Regiment Now in France [half tone printed reproduction]

Black troops active in Europe during WWI. Two slightly different printed versions of the same photograph, one trimmed, and the other printed with a slightly grainer half-tone screen.

GLC07593

1861/03/02

Newspaper

Title: Frank Leslie's illustrated newspaper. [Vol. 11, no. 275 (March 2, 1861)] [uncut]

Abraham Lincoln

GLC07597

1861/02/02

Newspaper

Title: Frank Leslie's illustrated newspaper. [Vol. 10, no. 271 (February 2, 1861)]

GLC07598

1924/02/26

Sinclair, Upton, 1878-1968

Typed letter signed

Title: to Mr. Rankin re: being arrested in San Pedro, CA for reading U.S. Constitution

GLC07599

1910/03/10

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

Header Record

Title: to Walter S. Field re: asking Field to appear for Roosevelt in suits in Oklahoma

Includes four related letters: 1. Roosevelt letter to Walter S. Field 3/10.1910. 2. La Follette, Robert M. TLS: Washington, D.C., to Theodore Roosevelt. 18 January 1910. 1 p. re: land formerly belonging to Kickapoo Indians. 3. Field, Walter S. TLS: Washington, D.C., to Theodore Roosevelt. 21 January 1910. 2 p. re: request to represent Roosevelt in Kickapoo land dispute. 4. Teller, Henry Moore. TLS: Washington, D.C., to Theodore Roosevelt. 26 January 1910, 2 p. re: urging Roosevelt to allow Walter Field to represent him in the Kickapoo land dispute.

GLC07733.02

1862/05/21

Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865

Autograph endorsement signed

Title: Endorsement on 3 p. Thomas Breck ALS to Charles Sumner re: leniency for soldier

Basler, Roy P. The Collected Works Of Abraham Lincoln. (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), Vol. V 1861 - 1862, p. 228

GLC07742

1865/04/15

Bradford, Peleg, fl. 1865

Autograph letter signed

Title: to C.C. McPherson re: Washington, D.C. after Lincoln's assassination

GLC07745

1865/05/29

Doherty, Edward P., fl. 1865

Autograph letter

Title: to Lorenzo P. Thomas re: four accounts of capture of Herold and death of Booth

Forney, a pro-slavery candidate, was "in favor of the maintenance and faithful execution of the fugitive slave laws...and of the suppression of all further agitation of the slavery question."

GLC07747.01

1865/05/22

McQuade, William, fl. 1865

Manuscript document signed

Title: re: eyewitness account of capture of Herold and death of Booth

GLC07747.02

1865/05/22

Ryan, John, fl. 1865

Manuscript document signed

Title: re: eyewitness account of the capture of Herold and death of Booth

GLC07747.03

1865/05/22

Hoyt, Godfrey, fl. 1865

Manuscript document signed

Title: re: eyewitness account of the capture of Herold and death of Booth

GLC07747.04

1865/05/22

Baker, David, fl. 1865

Manuscript document signed

Title: re: eyewitness account of the capture of Herold and death of Booth

Discusses "the rights of master and the interests of the slave."

GLC07747.05

1862/04/04

Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865

Document signed

Title: Authority to affix the seal...to treat...on...suppression of African slave trade

GLC07751

1882/08/20

Douglass, Frederick, 1818-1895

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Sarah Pillsbury re: death of his wife Anna Douglass

Douglass writes "Thanks for your kind letter. Mrs Douglass was all you say of her and more. She was the post in the centre of my house. Different we were in many things. She was conservative and I radical, she was for the old I for the new, She did not care to learn to read - and was thus measurably that out from the things the interested me. but in all the duties of mother and wife, she deserves all you have said of her. Two people could not well live together forty and four years as we have done, without the death of either being a shock and a calamity."

GLC07752.01

February 6, 1843

Lee, Robert E., 1807-1870

Autograph letter signed

Title: to John MacKay

Comments on MacKay's improving health and gives additional advice. Discusses congressional appropriations, reductions in budgets and appointments, and politics in Washington, D.C. at length. Mentions that the Oregon Bill, which expansionist President James K. Polk supported in his campaign, passed the Senate but had a doubtful fate in the House. Lee was then the Superintending Engineer for Fort Hamilton in New York Harbor. Delays and changes in congressional appropriations threatened his improvement projects. MacKay was Lee's closest friend during his days at West Point. He served in the…

GLC07755