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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.

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February 23, 1866

Bryant, William Cullen, 1794-1878

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Bradford R. Wood

Bryant, editor of the New York Evening Post, replies to a letter from Wood, former Representative from New York. Discusses Black suffrage: "I utterly detest the narrow principles of that party which denied equal rights to any of our fellow men on account of race. The right of suffrage is the due of the negro as well as of the white man... But it does not follow from this, that we may employ any means we choose in conferring this right." Regarding Black suffrage, advocates the opinions of Trumbull and Fessenden (probably Senators Lyman Trumbull and William Pitt Fessenden) as opposed to the…

GLC06631.01

January 21, 1878

Bryant, William Cullen, 1794-1878

Autograph quotation signed

Title: [Last lines of Bryant's poem Thanatopsis]

"So live, that when thy summons comes to join/ The innumerable caravan which moves/ To that mysterious realm where each shall take/ His chamber in the silent halls of Death,/ Thou go not, like the quarry slave at night,/ Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed/ By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave/ Like one who wraps the draping of his couch/ About him and lied down to pleasant dreams." Copied 12 January 1878; originally written between the years of 1811 and 1821.

GLC06631.02

18 May 1878

Bryant, William Cullen, 1794-1878

Autograph quotation signed

Title: [Verse from William Cullen Bryant's poem, The Battlefield]

Verse from Bryant's poem, "Truth crushed to earth, shall rise again/The eternal years of God are here. But Error, wounded, writhed in pain/And dies amid his worshippers." Signed and dated, New York, May 18th, 1878.

GLC06631.03

June 28, 1875

Bryant, William Cullen, 1794-1878

Autograph manuscript signed

Title: The death of Lincoln

The poem is copied and signed by William C. Bryant.

GLC00014

June 5, 1866

Bryant, William Cullen, 1794-1878

Autograph letter signed

Title: to James Thomas Fields

Bryant writes to Fields, editor of the Atlantic Monthly. Transmits a poem, "The Death of Slavery" (GLC01543.02). Remarks that the poem was "meditated a year since but written out within the last few days. I had a good deal of trouble with some of the stanzas, or you would have had it earlier. You will publish it if at all, when you please." Relates that his wife is ill. In a postscript, notes, "What shall I call the poem. 'The Death of Slavery,' does not please me much but I can think of nothing else." Accompanied by three collateral prints of Bryant (two depicting an elder Bryant in profile…

GLC01543.01

circa 1866

Bryant, William Cullen, 1794-1878

Autograph manuscript

Title: The death of slavery

Bryant's poem, transmitted to the editor of Atlantic Monthly with a letter written 5 June 1866 (GLC 1543.01).

GLC01543.02

February 11, 1876

Bryant, William Cullen, 1794-1878

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Hamilton A. Hill

Urges that "the present is as favorable a time as we can expect for the agitation of the free trade question." Explains the importance of free trade and elimination of a protective tariff. Declares that "During the war the country went back to a state of ignorance and prejudice on the question of free exchange," and that a new generation "who know nothing of the subject [...] easily adopted the plausibilities of the protectionists." Argues that "the currency question" is "no doubt extremely important," but "who knows when it will be settled? By waiting for it, we may produce the…

GLC02595

11 November 1864

Bryant, William Cullen, 1794-1878

Newspaper

Title: The Evening Post. [Vol. 55, no. 91 (November 11, 1864)]

Announces the re-election of President Abraham Lincoln and lists election returns by state. Also describes plots of Confederate agents in Canada to sink the steamer Michigan and release the prisoners on Johnson's island. Reprints excerpts from General Winfield Scott's biography. Describes the capture of the pirate ship Florida by the Wachusett. Also includes an article on how the poor live in England. Other articles detail Civil War news, local and international news.

GLC08765