Search | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

90,989 items

History Now Essay

John Brown: Villain or Hero?

Steven Mintz

Economics, Literature, Religion and Philosophy

9, 10, 11, 12

In 1856, three years before his celebrated raid on Harpers Ferry, John Brown, with four of his sons and three others, dragged five unarmed men and boys from their homes along Kansas’s Pottawatomie Creek and hacked and dismembered...

Appears in:

5 | Abolition Fall 2005

History Now Essay

The US Banking System: Origin, Development, and Regulation

Richard Sylla

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Banks are among the oldest businesses in American history—the Bank of New York, for example, was founded in 1784, and as the recently renamed Bank of New York Mellon it had its 225th anniversary in 2009. The banking system is one of...

Appears in:

24 | Shaping the American Economy Summer 2010

History Now Essay

Cahokia: A Pre-Columbian American City

Timothy R. Pauketat

Almost a thousand years ago, American Indians built a city along the Mississippi River in the middle of North America. Located opposite modern-day St. Louis, Missouri, this city is called Cahokia by archaeologists, and it was as large...

Appears in:

28 | American Indians Summer 2011

History Now Essay

Amateurism and Jim Thorpe at the Fifth Olympiad

Kate Buford

7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Thorpe’s deception and subsequent confession deals amateur sport in America the hardest blow it has ever had to take and disarranges the scheme of amateur athletics the world over. New York Times , January 28, 1913 The early years of...

Appears in:

23 | Turning Points in American Sports Spring 2010

History Now Essay

The Battle of the Sexes

Gail Collins

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

It’s hard to explain, if you weren’t there at the time, why the "Battle of the Sexes"—the 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs—was so important. The most enduring image from the event was the picture of Billie...

Appears in:

23 | Turning Points in American Sports Spring 2010

Essay

The War for Independence

Ray Raphael

World History

On July 4, 1774, exactly two years before the United States declared independence, a patriotic club in Worcester, Massachusetts, decided that each member should have in the ready two pounds of gunpowder and twelve flints. With the...

History Now Essay

New Orleans and the History of Jazz

Loren Schoenberg

Art, Geography

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

New Orleans is a city built in a location that was by any measure a mistake. North American settlers needed a way to import and export goods via the Mississippi River, so a city was created atop swamps. By virtue of its location and...

Appears in:

11 | American Cities Spring 2007

History Now Essay

Women and the Great Depression

Susan Ware

Economics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In 1933 Eleanor Roosevelt’s It’s Up to the Women exhorted American women to help pull the country through its current economic crisis, the gravest it had ever faced: "The women know that life must go on and that the needs of life must...

Appears in:

19 | The Great Depression Spring 2009

Essay

"Hidden Practices": Frederick Douglass on Segregation and Black Achievement, 1887

Edward L. Ayers

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Frederick Douglass recalled his feelings when slavery came to an end, after so much work and so many sacrifices. "I felt that I had reached the end of the noblest and best part of my life," he admitted. But Douglass hardly...

History Now Essay

Economic Policy through the Lens of History

Roger E. A. Farmer

Economics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be...

Appears in:

24 | Shaping the American Economy Summer 2010

Site Search

90,989 items

John Brown: Villain or Hero?

The US Banking System: Origin, Development, and Regulation

Cahokia: A Pre-Columbian American City

Amateurism and Jim Thorpe at the Fifth Olympiad

The Battle of the Sexes

The War for Independence

New Orleans and the History of Jazz

Women and the Great Depression

"Hidden Practices": Frederick Douglass on Segregation and Black Achievement, 1887

Economic Policy through the Lens of History

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