Search | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

90,989 items

History Now Essay

Remembering the Alamo

Char Miller

Geography, Government and Civics, World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Just hours before John F. Kennedy was to deliver one of the most important speeches of the 1960 presidential campaign in Houston, Texas, the Massachusetts Democrat stood in front of the Alamo. Here, before some 30,000 San Antonians,...

Appears in:

11 | American Cities Spring 2007

Essay

1945 to the Present

William H. Chafe

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

No event proved more important to the course of modern American history than World War II. The war cast America onto the world stage as a mighty economic and military giant. It rescued the country from the Great Depression, created...

History Now Essay

The Consequences of Defeat in Vietnam

Mark Atwood Lawrence

Government and Civics, World History

As historians of the Vietnam War know all too well, the amount of documentation about the conflict available in US archives—to say nothing of foreign repositories—can be overwhelming. To master even a small slice of this material is a...

Appears in:

27 | The Cold War Spring 2011

History Now Essay

George Washington and the Constitution

Theodore J. Crackel

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

George Washington was among the first of America’s statesmen to recognize the flaws in the government under the Continental Congress and the Articles of Confederation. His experience in the Revolutionary War had convinced him that...

Appears in:

13 | The Constitution Fall 2007

History Now Essay

The Riddles of "Confederate Emancipation"

Bruce Levine

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In July 1861, Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America, was exulting over the victory of his troops at the first Battle of Manassas (or Bull Run) and calling it a sign of eventual triumph in the war as a...

Appears in:

26 | New Interpretations of the Civil War Winter 2010

Essay

The American Civil War

Gary W. Gallagher

6, 7, 8, 9

The Civil War marked a defining moment in United States history. Long simmering sectional tensions reached a critical stage in 1860–1861 when eleven slaveholding states seceded and formed the Confederate States of America. Political...

Essay

The Development of the West

Ned Blackhawk

In the summer of 1876, two dramatically different places captured the American nation’s attention. As the summer began, fairgoers in Philadelphia teemed into the Centennial Exhibition held to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary...

History Now Essay

A Place in History: Historical Perspective on Martin Luther King Jr. Day

James Oliver Horton

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In the late fall of 1983, the US Congress passed a bill declaring the third Monday of January each year as Martin Luther King Jr. Day. President Ronald Reagan signed the bill into law on November 2, 1983, fifteen years after King’s...

Appears in:

4 | American National Holidays Summer 2005

57 | Black Voices in American Historiography Summer 2020

History Now Essay

Lincoln’s Religion

Richard Carwardine

Religion and Philosophy

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

"Lincoln often, if not wholly, was an atheist," insisted one of Lincoln’s political associates, James H. Matheny. The young Lincoln had "called Christ a bastard," "ridiculed the Bible," and duped pious voters into believing he was "a...

Appears in:

18 | Abraham Lincoln in His Time and Ours Winter 2008

History Now Essay

Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Matter of Influence

Hollis Robbins

Literature

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

One hundred years after Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852, the poet Langston Hughes called the novel, "the most cussed and discussed book of its time." Hughes’s observation is particularly apt in that it avoids...

Appears in:

16 | Books That Changed History Summer 2008

Site Search

90,989 items

Remembering the Alamo

1945 to the Present

The Consequences of Defeat in Vietnam

George Washington and the Constitution

The Riddles of "Confederate Emancipation"

The American Civil War

The Development of the West

A Place in History: Historical Perspective on Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Lincoln’s Religion

Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Matter of Influence

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