162 items
John Brown’s final speech, 1859
On Sunday evening, October 16, 1859, radical abolitionist John Brown led a party of twenty-one men into the town of Harpers Ferry, Virginia, with the intention of seizing the federal arsenal there. Encountering no resistance, Brown’s...
The Western Sanitary Commission reports on suffering in the Mississippi Valley, 1863
In 1863 in the war-torn South, thousands were homeless and starving. Some of those most in need of aid were newly liberated enslaved people. The Western Sanitary Commission was organized on September 5, 1861, by General John C....
Sharecropper contract, 1867
Immediately after the Civil War, many former slaves established subsistence farms on land that had been abandoned by fleeing white Southerners. President Andrew Johnson, a Democrat and a former slaveholder, soon restored this land to...
President Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address, 1861
On March 4, 1861, the day Abraham Lincoln was first sworn into office as President of the United States, the Chicago Tribune printed this special pamphlet of his First Inaugural Address. In the address, the new president appealed to...
The "House Divided" Speech, ca. 1857–1858
By 1850, the extension of slavery into the new territories won through the Mexican-American War of 1846–1848 provided a testing ground for competing visions of America. The passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850 and the Kansas...
The Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863
The Emancipation Proclamation was shaped by both pragmatic considerations and Lincoln’s deeply held, lifelong hatred of slavery. It was timed, after the Union victory at Antietam, to strike a military blow against the South’s economic...
President Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, 1865
Just 701 words long, Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address took only six or seven minutes to deliver, yet contains many of the most memorable phrases in American political oratory. The speech contained neither gloating nor rejoicing....
Enslaved Children of New Orleans, 1863
Photographs of emancipated children were sold to raise money for the education of freed slaves in New Orleans. The children featured in this photograph drew attention to the fact that slavery was not solely a matter of color. If a...
The Fifteenth Amendment, 1870
The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments gave constitutional status to emancipation’s promise. The Fifteenth Amendment provided suffrage for black men, declaring that “the right of citizens of the United States to vote...
Historical Context: "Birth of a Nation"
In 1915, fifty years after the end of the Civil War, D. W. Griffith released his epic film Birth of a Nation . The greatest blockbuster of the silent era, Birth of a Nation was seen by an estimated 200 million Americans by 1946. Based...
Historical Context: Black Soldiers in the Civil War
By early 1863, voluntary enlistments in the Union army had fallen so sharply that the federal government instituted an unpopular military draft and decided to enroll Black as well as White troops. Indeed, it seems likely that it was...
Historical Context: The Confederacy Begins to Collapse
By early 1863, the Civil War had begun to cause severe hardship on the southern home front. Not only was most of the fighting taking place in the South, but also as the Union blockade grew more effective and the South's railroad...
Manisha Sinha - "The Slave's Cause: A History of Abolition"
Order The Slave's Cause at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for supporting our programs!
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...
James Oakes - "The Crooked Path to Abolition: Abraham Lincoln and the Antislavery Constitution"
Order The Crooked Path to Abolition at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for supporting our programs!
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Brandon Byrd - "The Black Republic: African Americans and the Fate of Haiti"
Order The Black Republic at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for supporting our programs!
Ilisa Barbas and Molly Rogers - "To Make Their Own Way in the World: The Enduring Legacy of the Zealy Daguerreotypes"
Order To Make Their Own Way in the World at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for supporting our programs!
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Ed Ayers - "The Thin Light of Freedom: The Civil War and Emancipation in the Heart of America"
Order The Thin Light 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!
Thavolia Glymph - "The Women's Fight: The Civil War's Battles for Home, Freedom, and Nation"
Order The Women's Fight at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for supporting our programs!
Kate Masur - "Until Justice Be Done: America's First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction"
Order Until Justice Be Done at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for supporting our programs!
Clint Smith - "How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery across America"
Order How the Word is Passed at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for supporting our programs!
Bruce Levine - "Thaddeus Stevens: Civil War Revolutionary, Fighter for Racial Justice"
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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...
Inside the Vault: David Blight Discusses Frederick Douglass Documents
On February 3, 2022, our curators were joined by Dr. David Blight to discuss his favorite Frederick Douglass documents in the Gilder Lehrman Collection. Click here to download the slides from the presentation. Featured Documents...
Jonathan W. White - "A House Built by Slaves: African American Visitors to the Lincoln White House"
Jonathan W. White is professor of American studies at Christopher Newport University. Order A House Built By Slaves at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided....
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...
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...
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!
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...
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,...
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...
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 ,...
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...
Pioneering New Methods to Expand Voting, 1865–1920
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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. A new chapter in voting rights began when the Civil War ended in 1865....
Sharecropping Contracts in the Reconstruction-Era South, 1867-1870
Click here to download this three-lesson unit.
Richard J. M. Blackett - "Samuel Ringgold Ward: A Life of Struggle"
Richard J. M. Blackett is Andrew Jackson Professor of History, Emeritus, at Vanderbilt University. Order Samuel Ringgold Ward at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link...
Brenda Stevenson - "What Sorrows Labour in My Parent's Breast? A History of the Enslaved Black Family"
Brenda E. Stevenson holds the Hillary Rodham Clinton Chair in Women’s History at St. John’s College, Oxford University and the Nickoll Family Endowed Chair in the Department of History at the University of California, Los Angeles ...
Witnessing History: The Pardon of Homer Plessy
In conjunction with our panel, Witnessing History: The Pardon of Homer Plessy (presented in partnership with the Office of the Governor of Louisiana), the Gilder Lehrman Institute has compiled this list of resources on the Plessy v....
Edward L. Ayers —“American Visions: The United States, 1800–1860”
Edward L. Ayers is an American historian, professor, administrator, and university president. Order American Visions at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided....
Inside the Vault: Lincoln’s Refusal to Pardon Nathaniel Gordon
“It becomes my painful duty to admonish the prisoner that, relinquishing all expectation of pardon by Human Authority, he refer himself alone to the mercy of the Common God and Father of all men.” —Abraham Lincoln, February 4, 1862...
"On Juneteenth": A Conversation with Annette Gordon-Reed
Recording of a Book Talk on On Juneteenth presented by author Annette Gordon-Reed (Harvard University) in conversation with Edward L. Ayers (University of Richmond).
"The Escape of Robert Smalls: A Daring Voyage Out of Slavery"
The mist in Charleston Inner Harbor was heavy, but not heavy enough to disguise the stolen Confederate steamship, the Planter, from Confederate soldiers. In the early hours of May 13, 1862, in the midst of the deadly U.S. Civil War,...
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