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History Now Essay

"Show Them What an Indian Can Do": The Example of Jim Thorpe

Joseph Bruchac

Although the twentieth century produced many great athletes, there is no one who stood out more than Jim Thorpe. That is not just my opinion. When Jim Thorpe won two gold medals at the 1912 Olympic Games, the king of Sweden said to...

Appears in:

59 | American Indians in Leadership Winter 2021

History Now Essay

From the Editor

Carol Berkin

To most Americans, the names of Squanto, Sacagawea, Geronimo, and Sitting Bull are relatively familiar—although how they are described usually depends on their relationship to the White culture of their day. Their individual histories...

Appears in:

59 | American Indians in Leadership Winter 2021

Video: Inside The Vault

Inside the Vault: Primary Sources about Enslaved People

6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

While conducting research for the film Twelve Years a Slave , director Steve McQueen and his team came to the Gilder Lehrman Collection to view original primary sources. In this session, Antuan Raimone from Hamilton and Corey...

History Now Essay

Indigenous Americans in World War II: The Navajo Code Talkers

Laura Tohe

In the summer of 1983, my son and I visited my father, Benson Tohe. He and other Navajo Code Talkers had recently been honored in Washington, DC, with a parade and given a medal for their service in World War II. That was the first...

Appears in:

59 | American Indians in Leadership Winter 2021

News

Submit Your Hamilton Education Program Online Videos for Spring 2021!

The Gilder Lehrman Institute is pleased to announce that the national competition and lottery are now open for spring 2021 submissions for the Hamilton Education Program Online. EduHam Online is an easily adaptable, fully online...

Program/Event

Who Will Tell Your Story? Get Creative with EduHam

Have you seen other students’ performance pieces from the Hamilton Education Program and wondered, “How do I do that?” In this class, we will look at primary source documents on the Hamilton Education Program website and find their...

News

Celebrate Black History Month with Inside the Vault

This February Inside the Vault , the online program that highlights unique primary sources from the Gilder Lehrman Collection, celebrates Black History Month with explorations of major Black writers and orators of the eighteenth and...

News

Announcing the 2021 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize Finalists

The Lincoln Prize has been awarded annually since 1990 to a work that enhances the general public’s understanding of the Civil War era. Prize winners have included Doris Kearns Goodwin (2006), Eric Foner (2011), and David Blight (2002...

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Announcing the 2021 Lincoln Prize Finalists

Gettysburg College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History have announced the finalists for the 2021 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize. They are • Alice Baumgartner , South to Freedom: Runaway Slaves to Mexico and the Road to...

News

K-8 Educators Offered Unique NEH Summer Institute Program on The Making of America

The Making of America: Colonial Era to Reconstruction is a virtual, weeklong 2021 NEH Summer Institute that offers K–8 educators the opportunity to explore the people, ideas, and events that made America into a cultural, social, and...

News

Book Breaks in February Explore Slavery, Desegregation, and Self-Determination

Since the summer of 2020, Gilder Lehrman Book Breaks has featured the most exciting history scholars in America discussing their books live with host William Roka followed by a Q&A with home audiences. This February, the books...

Video: Read Along

"Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop: The Sanitation Strike of 1968"

This historical fiction picture book presents the story of nine-year-old Lorraine Jackson, who in 1968 witnessed the Memphis sanitation strike—Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s final stand for justice before his assassination—when her...

News

Free Workshop Series & Symposium in Partnership with the Council on Foreign Relations

In partnership with World101 from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), we are pleased to offer four free digital professional development sessions and a symposium in spring 2021. On MARCH 6 the first workshop on American...

News

Register Now for Spring History School

Building on the success of our summer and fall Gilder Lehrman History School , we are pleased to offer free courses this spring for elementary, middle, and high school students. History School provides engaging live interactive...

Video: Inside The Vault

Inside the Vault: The Lives and Works of Phillis Wheatley and Elizabeth Keckley

Literature

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

On the February 4, 2021 session of Inside the Vault: Highlights from the Gilder Lehrman Collection , our curators talk with English Language Arts educator Jeanette Providence and Hamilton cast member Krystal Mackie about the lives...

Collection Item

Autograph letter signed

n.d.

Unknown

Letters to cousin

GLC03135.13.082

History Now Essay

Yellow Fever 1793

Richard Brookhiser

Government and Civics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

Late in August 1793 Philadelphia was struck by a strange and virulent disease. Patients developed aches, chills, and fever, vomited black bile, and turned yellow. Some recovered, but many died. The yellow fever, as it was called, had...

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58 | Resilience, Recovery, and Resurgence in the Wake of Disasters Fall 2020

History Now Essay

The Influenza of 1918 and the Coronavirus of 2020: Some Parallels and Differences

John M. Barry

Government and Civics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

Sometime prior to late January 1918, a virus jumped species from birds to humans, probably after passing through another mammal. It spawned a lethal pandemic. Sometime prior to late December 2019, a virus jumped species from bats to...

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58 | Resilience, Recovery, and Resurgence in the Wake of Disasters Fall 2020

History Now Essay

Invisible Threats and the Politics of Disaster: Three Mile Island and Covid-19

Natasha Zaretsky

Government and Civics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

An invisible, potentially deadly threat. Elected officials saying one thing, and public health experts saying another. A citizenry hungry for information and guidance. A cultural divide between those who are afraid of the threat and...

Appears in:

58 | Resilience, Recovery, and Resurgence in the Wake of Disasters Fall 2020

History Now Issue

Resilience, Recovery, and Resurgence in the Wake of Disasters

#58 Fall 2020

History Now Essay

History in the Making: COVIDCalls and the COVID-19 Pandemic

Scott Gabriel Knowles and Bucky Stanton

Disasters are now a permanent feature of American life—no longer confined to predictable seasons or geographies—in the era of hyperglobalization and its related climate change, a disaster in one part of the world affects all of us....

Appears in:

58 | Resilience, Recovery, and Resurgence in the Wake of Disasters Fall 2020

News

Get to Know Sergio de Alba, 2020 National History Teacher of the Year

Sergio de Alba, a teacher at R. M. Miano Elementary School in Los Baños, California, was named the 2020 National History Teacher of the Year and will be honored in a recorded ceremony on October 7, 2020. Register here for A Tribute to...

History Now Essay

Excerpt from Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, "Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People During the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia, in the Year 1793" (1794), with an introduction by James G. Basker

Absalom Jones and Richard Allen

Paragraphs

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58 | Resilience, Recovery, and Resurgence in the Wake of Disasters Fall 2020

History Now Essay

The Importance of Studying Disasters: Ideas and Advice for the Classroom

Liz Skilton

I was sitting in Algebra when I heard the news that an incident had occurred in New York City. My history teacher, Mr. Turner, appeared suddenly at the door—interrupting the Pythagorean theorem lesson—to say that something was...

Appears in:

58 | Resilience, Recovery, and Resurgence in the Wake of Disasters Fall 2020

History Now Essay

From the Editor

Carol Berkin

A disaster often reveals as much about the society wrestling with it as it does about its origins and its physical effects. If scientists focus on the source of the danger—a virus, bacteria, climatic shifts, or disease-carrying...

Appears in:

58 | Resilience, Recovery, and Resurgence in the Wake of Disasters Fall 2020

Site Search

90,989 items

"Show Them What an Indian Can Do": The Example of Jim Thorpe

From the Editor

Inside the Vault: Primary Sources about Enslaved People

Indigenous Americans in World War II: The Navajo Code Talkers

Submit Your Hamilton Education Program Online Videos for Spring 2021!

Who Will Tell Your Story? Get Creative with EduHam

Celebrate Black History Month with Inside the Vault

Announcing the 2021 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize Finalists

Announcing the 2021 Lincoln Prize Finalists

K-8 Educators Offered Unique NEH Summer Institute Program on The Making of America

Book Breaks in February Explore Slavery, Desegregation, and Self-Determination

"Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop: The Sanitation Strike of 1968"

Free Workshop Series & Symposium in Partnership with the Council on Foreign Relations

Register Now for Spring History School

Inside the Vault: The Lives and Works of Phillis Wheatley and Elizabeth Keckley

Yellow Fever 1793

The Influenza of 1918 and the Coronavirus of 2020: Some Parallels and Differences

Invisible Threats and the Politics of Disaster: Three Mile Island and Covid-19

Resilience, Recovery, and Resurgence in the Wake of Disasters

History in the Making: COVIDCalls and the COVID-19 Pandemic

Get to Know Sergio de Alba, 2020 National History Teacher of the Year

Excerpt from Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, "Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People During the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia, in the Year 1793" (1794), with an introduction by James G. Basker

The Importance of Studying Disasters: Ideas and Advice for the Classroom

From the Editor

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