749 items
On the 200th anniversary of the ratification of the US Constitution, Thurgood Marshall, the first African American to sit on the Supreme Court, said that the Constitution was "defective from the start." He pointed out that the framers...
Historical Context: The First National Census
Early in August 1790, David Howe, an assistant federal marshal, began the difficult task of counting all the people who lived in Hancock County, Maine. One of 650 federal census takers, charged with making "a...perfect enumeration.....
Historical Context: The Survival of the US Constitution
The United States has the oldest written national framework of government in the world. At the end of the twentieth century, there were about 159 other national constitutions in the world, and 101 had been adopted since 1970. While...
Historical Context: The Post-World War I Red Scare
The end of World War I was accompanied by a panic over political radicalism. Fear of bombs, Communism, and labor unrest produced a “Red Scare.” In Hammond, Indiana, a jury took two minutes to acquit the killer of an immigrant who had...
Revolutionary in America
The image is so clear in our minds, seen first in elementary school and reinforced countless times since: a few dozen gentlemen with powdered wigs and period suits (coats, waistcoats, and knee-length breeches) gathered in a large...
Reporting on the Spanish Influenza, 1918
These newspaper articles illustrate the impact on American society of Spanish Influenza (H1N1), which first appeared in the United States in March 1918. [1] There were periodic, minor outbreaks for six months, but in September a...
Selling World War I: "Buy Liberty Bonds!" 1917-1919
When the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917, it needed funds to support the war effort. The Civil War had demonstrated that simply printing more currency would lead to inflation and economic trouble. During World War...
Rules for discharging disabled veterans, 1919
When World War I ended in 1918 more than 4.6 million men returned to the United States from war. The American people and the US government were unprepared to reintegrate and care for the men who returned with physical injuries and...
Emma Goldman on the restriction of civil liberties, 1919
Emma Goldman was born to a Jewish family in Kovno, Russia (present-day Lithuania). In 1885, at the age of sixteen, she emigrated to the United States, becoming a well-known author and lecturer promoting anarchism, workers’ rights,...
Eric Foner - "The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Made the Constitution"
Eric Foner is the DeWitt Clinton Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University. Order The Second Founding at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank...
Richard Stengel - "Information Wars: How We Lost the Global Battle against Disinformation and What We Can Do about It"
Richard Stengel served as the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center and is a former Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy. Order Information Wars at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate...
Ted Widmer - "Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington"
Ted Widmer is a professor of history at Macaulay Honors College, CUNY. Order Lincoln on the Verge at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for...
Carol Berkin - "Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America's Independence"
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Martha Jones - "Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All"
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Alan Taylor - "Thomas Jefferson's Education"
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Richard Brookhiser - "Give Me Liberty: A History of America's Exceptional Idea"
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Rick Atkinson - "The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777"
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Harold Holzer - "The Presidents Vs. The Press: The Endless Battle between the White House and the Media—from the Founding Fathers to Fake News"
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Lonnie Bunch - "A Fool's Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump"
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Kariann Yokota - "Unbecoming British: How Revolutionary America Became a Postcolonial Nation"
Kariann Yokota is an associate professor of history at the University of Colorado, Denver. Order Unbecoming British at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided....
David Blight - "Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom"
Order Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for supporting our programs! Classroom-Ready Resources Video...
Susan Eisenhower - "How Ike Led: The Principles Behind Eisenhower's Biggest Decisions"
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Colin Calloway - "The Indian World of George Washington: The First President, the First Americans, and the Birth of the Nation"
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Serena Zabin - "The Boston Massacre: A Family History"
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James Oakes - "The Crooked Path to Abolition: Abraham Lincoln and the Antislavery Constitution"
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Mary Beth Norton - "1774: The Long Year of Revolution"
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Kabrina Baumgartner - "In Pursuit of Knowledge: Black Women and Educational Activism in Antebellum America"
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Ed Ayers - "The Thin Light of Freedom: The Civil War and Emancipation in the Heart of America"
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Mia Bay - "Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance"
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Kate Masur - "Until Justice Be Done: America's First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction"
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John Avlon - "Washington's Farewell: The Founding Father's Warning to Future Generations"
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Alexander Keyssar - "Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College?"
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Martha Saxton - "The Widow Washington: The Life of Mary Washington"
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Van Gosse - "The First Reconstruction: Black Politics in America from the Revolution to the Civil War
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David Head - "A Crisis of Peace: George Washington, the Newburgh Conspiracy, and the Fate of the American Revolution"
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Robert Watson - "George Washington's Final Battle: The Epic Struggle to Build a Capital City and Nation"
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Matthew Costello - "The Property of the Nation: George Washington's Tomb, Mount Vernon, and the Memory of the First President"
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David Armitage - "The Declaration of Independence: A Global History"
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Adrian Brettle - "Colossal Ambitions: Confederate Planning for a Post-Civil War World"
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Julie Winch - "Between Slavery and Freedom: Free People of Color in America From Settlement to the Civil War"
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Fredrik Logevall - "JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956"
Fredrik Logevall is the Laurence D. Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and a professor of history at Harvard University. Order JFK at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an...
Johann Neem - "Democracy's Schools: The Rise of Public Education in America"
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Caroline Janney - "Ends of War: The Unfinished Fight of Lee's Army after Appomattox"
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Carl Smith - "Chicago’s Great Fire: The Destruction and Resurrection of an Iconic American City"
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Inside the Vault: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy
On the November 4, 2021, Inside the Vault , our curators are joined by Dr. Barbara Perry, the Gerald L. Baliles Professor and director of Presidential Studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, and Gilder Lehrman Master...
H. W. Brands - "Our First Civil War: Patriots and Loyalists in the American Revolution"
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Claude A. Clegg III - "The Black President: Hope and Fury in the Age of Obama"
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John Demos - "The Enemy Within: 2,000 Years of Witch-Hunting in the Western World"
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