275 items
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, a lifelong advocate of equal rights, used her position as First Lady to advocate against discrimination in the United States. However, Mrs. Roosevelt’s ideas were not embraced by everyone in the pre-civil...
America’s First Ladies on Twentieth-Century Issues
Unit Overview Over the course of three to four lessons the students will analyze five primary source documents. These documents are the abridged transcripts of speeches by five of our country’s first ladies: Eleanor Roosevelt, Betty...
The end of the Vietnam War: conscience, resistance, and reconciliation, 1973
Vietnam was "America’s longest war." While US operations tended to be very limited between 1945 and 1964, escalation in the early months of 1965 eventually led to the deployment of more than 2.5 million military personnel to South...
The Cold War in the classroom, 1952
As the Cold War pervaded domestic as well as international spheres, Duck and Cover , an educational film produced by the Federal Civil Defense Administration and Archer Productions Inc., showed children how to react in case of a...
Robert F. Kennedy on Vietnam, 1967
On May 15, 1967, CBS broadcast Town Meeting of the World , a program in which Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York and Governor Ronald Reagan of California answered questions posed by the moderator, Charles Collingwood; students from...
President Dwight Eisenhower’s Farewell Address to the Nation, 1961
Click here to download this four-lesson unit.
JFK’s Inaugural Address
Unit Objective This lesson on President John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core–based units. These units were written to enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original...
John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address, 1961
On January 20, 1961, John F. Kennedy was sworn in as the thirty-fifth President of the United States. His short, fourteen-minute inaugural address is best remembered for a single line: "My fellow Americans: ask not what your country...
Hubert Humphrey’s Speech to the 1948 Democratic National Convention
Unit Introduction As the United States moved into the post-WWII world, it faced struggles over diversity and race relations. Soldiers returning from Europe recognized the disparities between races in the United States and, by the late...
Lyndon B. Johnson proclaims a national day of mourning for JFK, 1963
On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, by Lee Harvey Oswald. The next day, the newly sworn-in Lyndon B. Johnson issued his first presidential proclamation. In a statement that was broadcast...
Environmentalism, Love Canal, and Lois Gibbs, 1953-1997
Click here to download this four-lesson unit
The Civil Rights Movement: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X
Click to download this three-lesson unit.
Dinner with the nuclear family, 1950
The threat of invasion and subversion in the Cold War era led Americans to seek consensus and conformity, in politics and in culture. The rise of consumer culture in the same period, driven by an economic boom, a population surge, and...
African American Voting Rights
African American Voting Rights from The Gilder Lehrman Institute on Vimeo .
Inside the Vault: "Your future rests… in your hands!”
Keisha Rembert, Assistant Professor of Teacher Preparation, National Louis University, and Nate McAlister, History Educator at Seaman High School in Topeka, Kansas, joined the Gilder Lehrman Collection curators in this session of...
Inside the Vault: Jackie Robinson
Originally broadcast on May 29, 2020, this session of Inside the Vault: Highlights from the Gilder Lehrman Collection explores a comic book about Jackie Robinson’s rookie year and letters written by Richard Nixon and Robert Kennedy...
Inside the Vault: Highlights from the Collection
In the first session of Inside the Vault: Highlights from the Gilder Lehrman Collection on April 3, 2020, Collection Director Sandy Trenholm, Assistant Curator Allison Kraft, Curatorial Assistant Laura Hapke, and Hamilton Education...
"Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop: The Sanitation Strike of 1968"
This historical fiction picture book presents the story of nine-year-old Lorraine Jackson, who in 1968 witnessed the Memphis sanitation strike—Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s final stand for justice before his assassination—when her...
Tomiko Brown-Nagin - "Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality"
Tomiko Brown-Nagin is dean of Harvard Radcliffe Institute, Daniel P. S. Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School, and professor of history in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Order Civil Rights Queen at the...
Inside the Vault: Jewish American Soldiers & Jewish Refugees after World War II
In the wake of World War II, American servicemen helped Jewish refugees come to the United States. Join us as we learn more about the servicemen’s work through primary sources. Who were these people? What are their stories? On...
Anastasia C. Curwood - "Shirley Chisholm: Champion of Black Feminist Power Politics"
Anastasia Curwood is a professor of history and director of the Commonwealth Institute for Black Studies at the University of Kentucky. Order Shirley Chisholm at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from...
James Traub - "True Believer: Hubert Humphrey's Quest for a More Just America"
James Traub is a historian, journalist, and scholar. Order True Believer at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for supporting our programs!
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Dylan C. Penningroth - "Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights"
Dylan C. Penningroth is Alexander F. & May T. Morrison Professor of American History & Citizenship at the University of California, Berkeley. Order Before the Movement at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate...
Eddie Glaude Jr. - "We Are the Leaders We Have Been Looking For (The W. E. B. Du Bois Lectures)"
Eddie S. Glaude Jr. is an American academic, author, and pundit. He is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University. Order We Are the Leaders We Have Been Looking For...
Race and Renaissance: African Americans in Pittsburgh Since World War II
Professor of History and Social Justice and Department Head, Carnegie Mellon University Professor Trotter talks about his recent book, Race and Renaissance: African Americans in Pittsburgh Since World War II .
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The Arab-Israeli Conflict and the Cold War
Aaron David Miller, Vice President for New Initiatives, The Wilson Center, argues that in the Arab-Israeli conflict national interest, moral interest, and the capacity of America to make a difference are closely aligned. Miller...
Nature, Culture, and Native Americans
Daniel Wildcat is a Yuchi member of the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma and Director of the American Indian Studies Program at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas. He discusses the importance of distinguishing between...
Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945
David M. Kennedy is the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History at Stanford University. Freedom from Fear focuses primarily on political and economic developments, recounting how presidents and citizens responded to the two great...
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