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.

[Abolitionist broadside]

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC09332 Author/Creator: Place Written: s.l. Type: Broadside Date: 1 December 1859 Pagination: 2 p. : Order a Copy

Abolitionist broadside endorsed "Distributed in the streets of Boston Thursday evening Dec.1, 1859, the day before the execution of John Brown." Bold text reads: "Let their epitaphs remain unwritten until the not distant day when no slave shall clank his chains in the shades of Monticello or by the graves of Mount Vernon." Brown was hanged on Dec. 2, 1859.

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