251 items
In 1609, Henry Hudson was chosen by the Dutch East India Company to search for a passage to Asia. In September of that year, Hudson landed on the shores of the river that would be named for him and claimed the lands along it for the...
Indian Wars: The Battle of Washita, 1868
The Battle of Washita on November 27, 1868, pitted US Army troops commanded by General George Custer against the Southern Cheyenne. An excerpt from Custer’s report on a return to the battlefield ten days later is presented here. The...
William T. Sherman on the western railroads, 1878
After Ulysses S. Grant’s election as president, William Tecumseh Sherman, known for leading the "March to the Sea" in the closing months of the Civil War, was appointed commanding general of the United States Army. Headquartered in St...
Andrew Jackson to the Cherokee Tribe, 1835
Elected president in 1828, Andrew Jackson supported the removal of American Indians from their homelands, arguing that the American Indians’ survival depended on separation from whites. In this 1835 circular to the Cherokee people,...
Secotan, an Algonquian village, ca. 1585
In the 1570s and 1580s, John White served as an artist and mapmaker to several expeditions around the Carolinas. White made numerous watercolor sketches depicting the Algonquian people and stunning American landscapes. This engraving...
Horace Greeley on a woman’s reform newspaper, 1851
In February 1851, suffragist reformer Elizabeth Oakes Smith wrote to New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley about her interest in starting a newspaper dedicated to women’s rights issues. Greeley answered with this rather brusque reply...
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, 1911
On March 25, 1911, a devastating fire started at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City. Workers had been locked in the factory to discourage theft and prevent labor organization, and they were unable to escape when the fire...
Women's suffrage poster, 1915
Opponents to women’s suffrage argued that voting would be detrimental to women’s character and to their families. This broadside, published around 1915 refutes those accusations. It declares that if a woman is responsible for taking...
Susan B. Anthony on suffrage and equal rights, 1901
Writing at the age of eighty, having just retired from a long public life as an advocate for abolition and women’s rights, Susan B. Anthony trenchantly summarized the gains that had been made in women’s rights. Her energetic tone...
Historical Context: Go West ... and Grow Up with the Country
In 1854 Horace Greeley, a New York newspaper editor, gave Josiah B. Grinnell a famous piece of advice. "Go West, young man, and grow up with the country," said Greeley. Grinnell took Greeley's advice, moved west, and later founded...
Historical Context: Life on the Trail
Each spring, pioneers gathered at Independence and St. Joseph, Missouri, and Council Bluffs, Iowa, to begin a 2,000 mile journey westward. For many families, the great spur for emigration was economic: the financial depression of the...
Diary of World War I nurse Ella Osborn, 1918–1919
At the outbreak of World War I, Ella Jane Osborn was a surgical nurse at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. In January 1918, she volunteered to serve with the American Expeditionary Forces as a member of the Red Cross’s nursing...
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,...
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...
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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Catherine Clinton - "Stepdaughters of History: Southern Women and the American Civil War"
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Elaine Weiss - "The Woman's Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote"
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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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Thavolia Glymph - "The Women's Fight: The Civil War's Battles for Home, Freedom, and Nation"
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Catherine Kerrison - "Jefferson's Daughters: Three Sisters, White and Black, in a Young America"
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Martha Saxton - "The Widow Washington: The Life of Mary Washington"
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Tamika Nunley - "At the Threshold of Liberty: Women, Slavery, and Shifting Identities in Washington, D.C."
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Anna Malaika Tubbs - "The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation"
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Jessica Marie Johnson - "Wicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World"
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Sally Hemings
Exploring extraordinary Black lives of the Founding Era, such as that of Sally Hemings, can transform our understanding of American history. Born in Virginia in 1773, Sally Hemings was an enslaved woman in the household of Thomas...
Melanie Kirkpatrick - "Lady Editor: Sarah Josepha Hale and the Making of the Modern American Woman"
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Alaina E. Roberts - "I've Been Here All the While: Black Freedom on Native Land"
Alaina E. Roberts is an assistant professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh. Order I’ve Been Here All the While at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link...
Alan Taylor - "American Republics: A Continental History of the United States, 1783-1850"
Alan Taylor is the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor of History at the University of Virginia. Order American Republics at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link...
Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross - "A Black Women's History of the United States"
Daina Ramey Berry is the Michael Douglas Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Kali Nicole Gross is the National Endowment for the Humanities Professor of African American Studies at Emory...
Inside the Vault: Mary Katherine Goddard
On March 3, 2022, our curators were joined by Dr. Martha J. King to discuss Mary Katherine Goddard. Goddard was a newspaper publisher and printer, producing one of the first copies of the Declaration of Independence, and served as...
Woody Holton - "Liberty Is Sweet: The Hidden History of the American Revolution"
Woody Holton is the McCausland Professor of History at the University of South Carolina. Order Liberty Is Sweet at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank...
Jeanne Theoharis - "The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks"
Jeanne Theoharis is a Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College. Order The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the...
Keisha N. Blain - "Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer's Enduring Message to America"
Keisha N. Blain is a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow, Class of 2022 Carnegie Fellow, Full Professor Africana Studies and History at Brown University, and columnist for MSNBC. Order Until I Am Free at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an...
Mary Sarah Bilder - "Female Genius: Eliza Harriot and George Washington at the Dawn of the Constitution"
Mary Sarah Bilder is Founders Professor of Law at Boston College Law School. Order Female Genius at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for...
Native American Cultures and the Impact of the Boarding Schools
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Inside the Vault: The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt
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...
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...
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...
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...
Dorothy Wickenden - "The Agitators: Three Friends Who Fought for Abolition and Women's Rights"
Dorothy Wickenden is the executive editor of The New Yorker . Order The Agitators at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for supporting our programs...
Fay Yarbrough - "Choctaw Confederates: The American Civil War in Indian Country"
Fay Yarbrough is a professor of history at Rice University. Order Choctaw Confederates at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for supporting our...
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...
Ira Hayes: An Archetype of 20th-Century American Indian Veterans
Tom Holm (Creek/Cherokee) is a professor in the American Indian Studies Program, which he helped found, at the University of Arizona. This video was filmed as part of the Gilder Lehrman Institute’s partnership with the Veterans...
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...
US Treaties with American Indian Nations
After the American Revolution, the United States and Indian tribal nations governed their diplomatic relations through formal treaties. States could not be signatories to these treaties because the US Constitution required that only...
Barbara Perry - "Jacqueline Kennedy: First Lady of the New Frontier"
Barbara Perry is the Gerald L. Baliles Professor and director of Presidential Studies at the University of Virginia. Order Jacqueline Kennedy at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase...
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