Inside the Vault on May 4: Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Voting Rights

Inside the Vault: Highlights from the Gilder Lehrman Collection is an online program focusing on unique primary sources from the Gilder Lehrman Collection. From iconic historical treasures, such as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Emancipation Proclamation, to personal letters that reveal the contributions of ordinary American citizens, each session investigates primary sources and discusses their background, impact, and potential use in the classroom.

Our curators discussed voting rights in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with Dr. Andrew Robertson, associate professor of history at the Graduate Center and Lehman College, CUNY. The program highlighted documents from the Gilder Lehrman Collection that demonstrate the relationship between federal and state governments as they expanded and contracted the right to vote from the Revolutionary era through the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Watch the recording of the full event here.