Affiliate School FAQs

The Affiliate School Program is a special gateway to education resources, events, and tools designed to bring American history to life in the classroom. Initially created with the support of a "We the People" Challenge Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the program is free of cost to schools and their districts. To become familiar with the Institute, its mission, and offerings, please explore our website.

The Affiliate School Program allows teachers and schools special access to resources in the Gilder Lehrman Collection and our website, as well as exclusive consideration for our Teacher Seminars, one small traveling exhibition at no cost, and essay contests for students.

Affiliate Schools receive

• Invitations to professional development opportunities for teachers, including exclusive access to Gilder Lehrman’s renowned teacher seminars
• Free and discounted Gilder Lehrman materials throughout the year
• Special access to the Gilder Lehrman Collection and traveling exhibitions
• Additional website content and features available only to teachers in Affiliate Schools

We ask that each Affiliate School complete an annual survey to help us track and improve the effectiveness of the program. This allows the Institute to evaluate history education needs. The annual survey is sent out in June and takes no more than fifteen minutes to complete.

To register, please get your principal’s approval and then complete the Affiliate School registration form. The registration should take no more than five minutes to complete. You can save a draft of your registration form and return to it at a later time. Submitted forms are reviewed daily. Before you begin, we suggest you have the following information at hand:

• Advisor’s contact information (first and last name, email)—the designated point of contact for the Gilder Lehrman Institute
• Principal’s contact information (first and last name, email)
• Brief demographic information about your school, including how many students are in each grade level, the racial/ethnic breakdown of your school, and school location

Registration forms are reviewed by our education department, and schools are accepted on a daily basis. Once accepted into the program, a school receives a welcome email from affiliate@gilderlehrman.org.

We encourage school districts and consortiums to make information about the program available to their schools, but each school must register individually. A district or organization can choose to assign one main point of contact to serve as the Affiliate School advisor for their schools.

Homeschool co-ops are eligible to register to the program but individual homeschoolers are not eligible.

Once your school’s registration has been processed, teachers and students can create an account on the Gilder Lehrman website by visiting gilderlehrman.org/register. Teachers will have to fill out their school information to receive Affiliate School access to the site, indicated by a key icon on their personal profile.

The Gilder Lehrman Collection contains more than 65,000 documents addressing the political and social history of the United States. The Collection’s holdings include handwritten letters, diaries, maps, photographs, printed books, and pamphlets ranging from 1493 through modern times. For more detailed information about Collection holdings, please browse the Primary Sources section of our website or contact our reference librarian at reference@gilderlehrman.org. Teachers and students from Affiliate Schools can request free electronic copies of Gilder Lehrman Collection documents from the reference librarian at reference@gilderlehrman.org.

Affiliate Schools are eligible to receive one small exhibition at no cost. You may book a traveling exhibit online by completing a short application form. In the application, make sure to state that your school is a member of the Affiliate School Program. Exhibitions are booked four to six months in advance and are scheduled upon availability.

Please complete the Teacher Seminar application, which opens each fall and closes in the early spring. A complete listing of seminars, deadlines, and the application can be found on the Teacher Seminars section of our site. If you have further questions, please email seminars@gilderlehrman.org or affiliate@gilderlehrman.org.

Please email us at affiliate@gilderlehrman.org for your 25% discount code.