565 items
On May 5, 2022, our curators discussed documents written by President Theodore Roosevelt. Joined by his great-grandson Tweed Roosevelt, we learned more about Roosevelt and his legacy. This session of Inside the Vault was sponsored by...
Paul Ortiz - "An African American and Latinx History of the United States"
Paul Ortiz is an associate professor of history and the director of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at the University of Florida. Order An African American and Latinx History of the United States at the Gilder Lehrman Book...
Linda Colley - "The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen"
Linda Colley is the Shelby M. C. Davis 1958 Professor of History at Princeton University. Order The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link...
Brenda Stevenson - "What Is Slavery?"
Order What Is Slavery? at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for supporting our programs!
Theodore Roosevelt supports women’s suffrage, 1912
In this letter written in July 1912, during his campaign for a thrid term as president, Theodore Roosevelt informs the state and county chairmen of the Progressive Party of his plan to support women’s suffrage. The document shows the...
Marcia Chatelain - "Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America"
Marcia Chatelain is a Provost's Distinguished Associate Professor of History and African American Studies at Georgetown University. Order Franchise at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every...
The Declaration of Independence and the Long Struggle for Equality in America: An Introduction
Whatever else the Declaration of Independence encompassed—a proclamation of political sovereignty, an indictment against the King of England, an appeal for allies—its assertion that “all men are created equal” shines as the polestar...
An Introduction to Juneteenth
Juneteenth is the most widely recognized, long-lived Black commemoration of slavery’s demise. Juneteenth marks June 19, 1865, when federal troops commanded by General George Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, to proclaim freedom to...
Megan Kate Nelson - "Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America"
Megan Kate Nelson is a writer and historian who has written about the Civil War, US western history, and American culture for the New York Times , the Washington Post , The Atlantic , Time , and Smithsonian Magazine . Order Saving...
C. Patrick Burrowes - "Liberia & the Quest for Freedom"
Carl Patrick Burrows is a leading Liberian historian. He has served as vice president for academic affairs at Cuttington University and the Carter G. Woodson Distinguished Professor at Marshall University. Order Liberia & the...
Jeanne Theoharis - "A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History"
Jeanne Theoharis is a Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College. Order A More Beautiful and Terrible History at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the...
What Does Liberty Look Like?
" We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ." Declaration of...
David Hackett Fischer - "African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals"
David Hackett Fischer is University Professor and Earl Warren Professor of History, Emeritus at Brandeis University. Order African Founders at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase...
World War I, African American Soldiers, and America’s War for Democracy
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Eric Rauchway - "Why the New Deal Matters"
Eric Rauchway is a professor of history at the University of California, Davis. Order Why the New Deal Matters at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank...
Peter Cozzens - "Tecumseh and the Prophet: The Shawnee Brothers Who Defied a Nation"
Peter Cozzens is a retired US foreign service officer and winner of the 2017 Gilder Lehrman Prize in Military History. Order Tecumseh and the Prophet at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every...
Gary Gallagher - "The Enduring Civil War: Reflections on the Great American Crisis"
Gary Gallagher is the John L. Nau III Professor in the History of the American Civil War Emeritus at the University of Virginia. Order The Enduring Civil War at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from...
Justin Gage - "We Do Not Want the Gates Closed between Us: Native Networks and the Spread of the Ghost Dance"
Justin Gage is an assistant professor of history at the University of Florida. Order We Do Not Want the Gates Closed between Us at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link...
Eric Foner, Kathleen DuVal, and Lisa McGirr - "Give Me Liberty! An American History"
Eric Foner is DeWitt Clinton Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University. Kathleen DuVal is a professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Lisa McGirr is a Charles Warren Professor of American...
Tamara Payne - "The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X"
Tamara Payne is a journalist and primary researcher for The Dead Are Arising. Order The Dead Are Arising at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for...
Inside the Vault: "Meanwhile Back at the Branch..."
On November 3, 2022, our curators were joined by Barbara Harris Combs of Kennesaw State University. Professor Combs discussed the NAACP pamphlet Meanwhile Back at the Branch... and the many ways in which civil rights activists worked...
Bruce A. Ragsdale - "Washington and the Plow: The Founding Farmer and the Question of Slavery"
Bruce A. Ragsdale has served as the director of the Federal Judicial History Office at the Federal Judicial Center. Order Washington and the Plow at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase...
"No Small Potatoes: Junius G. Groves and His Kingdom in Kansas"
Junius G. Groves came from humble beginnings in the Bluegrass State. Born in Kentucky into slavery, freedom came when he was still a young man and he intended to make a name for himself. Along with thousands of other African...
Paul Escott - "Black Suffrage: Lincoln's Last Goal"
Paul D. Escott is Reynolds Professor (Emeritus) of History at Wake Forest University. Order Black Suffrage at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you...
Inside the Vault: Black Enfranchisement and Education: Selected Gilder Lehrman Collection Items on Exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum
On January 5, 2023, our curators discussed documents from the Morgan Library & Museum’s exhibition Fighting to Learn: Black Enfranchisement and Education in the Gilder Lehrman Collection . They were joined by Dr. Jesse Erickson,...
Kostya Kennedy - "True: The Four Seasons of Jackie Robinson"
Kostya Kennedy is the editorial director at Dotdash Meredith and a former senior writer at Sports Illustrated . Order The Four Seasons of Jackie Robinson at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every...
Erin Kelly and Patsy Rembert - "Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist's Memoir to the Jim Crow South"
Erin Kelly is a professor of philosophy at Tufts University and Patsy Rembert is a youth advocate and the wife of the artist Winfred Rembert. Order Chasing Me to My Grave at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate...
R. Isabela Morales - "Happy Dreams of Liberty: An American Family in Slavery and Freedom"
R. Isabela Morales is a historian who currently serves as the editor of the Princeton & Slavery Project at Princeton University. Order Happy Dreams of Liberty at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission...
Ilyon Woo - "Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey From Slavery to Freedom"
Ilyon Woo is a writer whose work has appeared in the Boston Globe and the Wall Street Journal . Her research has received support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Antiquarian Society. Order Master Slave...
Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham - "From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans"
Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham is the Victor S. Thomas Professor of History and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. Order From Slavery to Freedom at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate...
Inside the Vault: Food Purity, Prohibition, and the 1884 Election
On March 2, 2023, our curators were joined by Lisa M. F. Andersen, Director of Academic Strategy at the Gilder Lehrman Institute, to discuss an 1884 pamphlet accusing presidential candidate Grover Cleveland of favoring “adulterated”...
Samantha Seeley - "Race, Removal, and the Right to Remain: Migration and the Making of the Early United States"
Samantha Seeley is an assistant professor of history at the University of Richmond. Order Race, Removal, and the Right to Remain at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link...
David Waldstreicher - "The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet's Journeys through American Slavery and Independence"
David Waldstreicher is a Distinguished Professor of History, American Studies, and Africana Studies at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center. Order The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We...
Ken Burns - "Our America: A Photographic History"
Ken Burns, the producer and director of numerous film series, including The Roosevelts: An Intimate History and Country Music , founded his own documentary film company, Florentine Films, in 1976. His landmark film, The Civil War ,...
David P. Cline - "Twice Forgotten: African Americans and the Korean War"
David P. Cline is a professor of history and director of the Center for Public and Oral History at San Diego State University. Order Twice Forgotten at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every...
Inside the Vault: Lynching and Anti-Lynching Materials
On April 6, 2023, our curators were joined by Dr. Terry Anne Scott (Director, Institute for Common Power). Dr. Scott used primary sources to discuss the history of anti-lynching activism and the dreadful events that gave rise to it,...
Beth Bailey - "An Army Afire: How the U.S. Army Confronted Its Racial Crisis in the Vietnam Era"
Beth Bailey is a Foundation Distinguished Professor in the Department of History at The University of Kansas and the founding director of the Center for Military, War, and Society Studies. Order An Army Afire at the Gilder Lehrman...
Cuffee Saunders
Cuffee Saunders Revolutionary War Born into slavery, Cuffee Saunders secured his freedom by serving during the Revolutionary War. Image Source: Benjamin Huntington, Oath certifying Cuffee Saunders's purchase of freedom, 1821, Gilder Lehrman...
John W. Rogers Sr.
John W. Rogers Sr. World War II In World War II, John W. Rogers was one of the original twenty-eight Black airmen recruited to the 99th Pursuit Squadron, also known as the Tuskegee Airmen. Rogers flew more than 120 missions in Europe. Image Source:...
Perry Watkins
Perry Watkins Cold War Perry Watkins served fifteen years in the Army as an openly gay man. Despite this, in 1980, the Army revoked his security clearance and had him discharged because he was gay, a discharge he successfully fought in court. Image...
Alan G. Rogers
Alan G. Rogers Iraq & Afghanistan Alan G. Rogers served in the Army during the Gulf and Iraq Wars. For his master’s thesis in policy management from Georgetown, Rogers wrote about the effect of the US military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on...
Jacqueline Jones - "No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston's Black Workers in the Civil War Era"
Jacqueline Jones is the Ellen C. Temple Professor of Women’s History Emerita at the University of Texas at Austin and a past president of the American Historical Association. Order No Right to an Honest Living at the Gilder Lehrman...
The Right to Vote, Part 1: The Early Republic through the Civil War
The Right to Vote: Part 1 The Early Republic through the Civil War
Who could vote in the founding and Jacksonian eras? Scroll through to view the exhibition (above). Recorded readings of select components in the exhibition...
The Right to Vote, Part 2: Reconstruction and the Jim Crow Era
The Right to Vote: Part 2 Reconstruction and the Jim Crow Era
How did access to the vote evolve during the Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras? Scroll through to view the exhibition (above). Recorded readings of select...
The Right to Vote, Part 3: Women's Suffrage
The Right to Vote: Part 3 Women's Suffrage
What was the path to the Nineteenth Amendment? Scroll through to view the exhibition (above). Recorded readings of select components in the exhibition are available by clicking ...
The Right to Vote, Part 4: The Civil Rights Era to the 2000s
The Right to Vote: Part 4 The Civil Rights Era to the 2000s
How has access to the vote expanded and contracted over the past sixty years? Scroll through to view the exhibition (above). Recorded readings of select components...
Voting Rights and Restrictions in Pre-Emancipation America
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> Access this essay as a PDF , including key vocabulary terms and discussion questions, or read the text of the essay below. The concept of “democracy” changed throughout early American history. In...
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