547 items
In 1839, seventeen-year-old Hiram Ulysses Grant received an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. It changed the course of his life—and his name. Grant always disliked his first name and was commonly known...
American Indians' service in World War I, 1920
More than 11,000 American Indians served with the American forces during World War I. Nearly 5,000 Native men enlisted and approximately 6,500 were drafted—despite the fact that almost half of American Indians were not citizens and...
Black Lives in the Founding Era
The “Black Lives in the Founding Era” project restores to view the lives and works of a wide array of African Americans in the period 1760 to 1800. Drawing on our archive of historic documents and our network of scholars and master...
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s advice to high school students, 1922
In 1922, Sharpless Dobson Green, a teacher at Senior High School in Trenton, New Jersey, wrote to influential people around the world to get their advice for his students. In his request, he explained his project: There are about 400...
The US Government and Indigenous Peoples before the Trail of Tears, 1770-1839
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The Union Army and Juneteenth, 1865
This engraving depicts a White Union soldier reading the Emancipation Proclamation to an enslaved family. It was published in 1864 by Lucius Stebbins, based on a painting by Henry W. Herrick. According to Stebbins, the scene ...
The Declaration at 250
“The Declaration at 250” is a multi-year, broad-based initiative by the Gilder Lehrman Institute to recognize the importance of the Declaration of Independence in the history of America, and of the world. The initiative will produce...
Breaking Diplomatic Ties with Iran during the Hostage Crisis, 1980
On April 7, 1980, President Jimmy Carter announced the breaking of diplomatic ties with Iran as a result of the Iran hostage crisis of 1979–1981. The US had first become actively involved in Iran in 1953, when the CIA helped overthrow...
Address to the Nation Announcing Operation Desert Storm, 1991
On January 16, 1991, President George H. W. Bush announced the beginning of the military campaign to end an Iraqi occupation of neighboring Kuwait. The address was broadcast live on radio and television. It was the culmination of five...
American Immigration History
Widely considered a wellspring for US greatness, immigration has also been a source and expression of our deepest conflicts. Immigrant diversity made the United States different from other countries in ways that have been essential to...
“What the Constitution Means to Me”
The Gilder Lehrman Institute has collaborated with the producers of the exciting new Broadway play What the Constitution Means to Me by playwright and two-time Obie Award–winning actor Heidi Schreck, showing at the Helen Hayes Theater...
A Civil War soldier’s satirical take on the news, 1863
Between battles, marches, and military exercises, Civil War soldiers spent their free time in camp playing music, writing and reading letters, and, for those with the skill, sketching scenes from the day. This unknown soldier’s...
Black Volunteers in the Nation’s First Epidemic, 1793
The new republic was only four years old, its capital recently established in Philadelphia, when the country suffered its first catastrophic epidemic. Yellow fever broke out in August 1793 and ravaged the city for three months, only...
The Map Proves It, ca. 1919
Supporters of women’s rights used maps such as the one shown here to demonstrate where women were allowed to vote, when they won that right, and which elections they could vote in. The source of this map is unknown. Originally printed...
An appeal for suffrage support, 1871
The National Woman Suffrage and Educational Committee was formed in the spring of 1871. The Washington DC-based committee pledged to act as the “centre of all action upon Congress and the country.” The group was also dedicated to the...
Voting restrictions for African Americans, 1944
In 1944 a group of southern editors and writers documented cases of voter suppression in southern states. They took this step because, in the presidential election of 1944, only 28 percent of potential voters in the South participated...
Thomas Rowe and Joshua Hooper: Sedition charges, 1815
Even though the Sedition Act of 1798 had expired in 1801, individuals could still be charged with sedition. On January 20, 1815, Thomas Rowe and Joshua Hooper, publishers of the Massachusetts newspaper The Yankee , printed an article...
The Sedition Act, 1798
On August 14, 1798, the Columbian Centinel , a Boston newspaper aligned with the Federalist Party, printed this copy of the Sedition Act. It was the last in a series of legislation known as the Alien and Sedition Acts passed by the...
The Boston Massacre: Paul Revere and Captain Thomas Preston, 1770
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