287 items
Walter Isaacson, president of the Aspen Institute and author of Kissinger: A Biography, traces Benjamin Franklin’s life from runaway apprentice to Founding Father, exploring the breadth of his passions and accomplishments as writer,...
Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln
In this short clip, historian David Blight discusses the relationship between Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.
Understanding Slavery via Narratives
James Oliver Horton speaks about slave narratives as an important resource for understanding American history.
Slavery and the Making of America
James Oliver Horton, the Benjamin Banneker Professor of American Studies and History at George Washington University, and Lois E. Horton, Professor of Sociology at George Mason University, have collaborated on several books,...
Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation
Joseph J. Ellis, Professor of History at Mount Holyoke College, discusses his Pulitzer Prize–winning book Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, explains the emergence of the men who led the Revolutionary War and created...
The Real American Dream: A Meditation on Hope
Julian Clarence Levi Professor in the Humanities and Director of the American Studies Program at Columbia University, Andrew Delbanco examines the evolution of the American Dream--the idea that anyone may rise above his or her...
Africans’ Appropriations of the Symbolism of Abraham Lincoln
Noted Lincoln historians discuss Lincoln's legacy at the Gilder Lehrman-sponsored Global Lincoln Symposium held at Oxford University.
Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America
Ira Berlin is a professor of history at the University of Maryland and winner of the 1999 Bancroft Prize in American History. His talk draws upon Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America in tandem with...
The Post-Revolutionary Generation
Joyce Appleby, Professor Emerita, University of California, Los Angeles, explores how the men and women born after the American Revolution experienced and developed the theoretical ideas of liberty and independence put in place by...
The Slaughterhouse Cases
The first major post-Civil-War Supreme Court decision, popularly know as the Slaughterhouse Cases, resulted in a pivotal interpretation of the relatively new Fourteenth Amendment. Larry Kramer, Dean at Stanford Law School, discusses...
Killing for Coal: America’s Deadliest Labor War
Thomas G. Andrews, an associate professor of history at the University of Colorado Boulder, discusses his Bancroft Prize–winning book, Killing for Coal: America’s Deadliest Labor War, and the interconnection between railroads, coal,...
Generations in Captivity: Slavery in America
Ira Berlin, Distinguished University Professor of History at the University of Maryland, describes how the complex interplay of regional and generational factors shaped the development of slavery in the antebellum United States.
...
The Legal Battle for Racial Equality, 1787–1954
What does the Constitution say about racial equality? Larry Kramer, Dean at Stanford Law School, explains the role of the Reconstruction amendments and the challenges faced by the Supreme Court in shaping Civil Rights legislation in...
Frederick Douglass on Lincoln and Reconstruction
Dickinson College historian Matthew Pinsker describes changes in Frederick Douglass’s opinion of Abraham Lincoln between Lincoln’s assassination in 1865 and the unveiling of the Freedmen’s Monument in Lincoln Park, Washington, DC, in...
Emancipation and the Question of Agency: The Power of the Enslaved, the Power of Policy
Historian James Oakes (The Graduate Center, City University of New York) addresses the timeless question of agency in emancipation—who freed the slaves?—by suggesting that the query demands greater nuance. The agency of slaves and...
Showing results 101 - 150