Search | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

90,988 items

History Now Essay

Are Artists “Workers”? Art and the New Deal

Elizabeth Broun

Art

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

As I write this essay in February 2009, the nation is engaged in a great discussion about how to restore confidence during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. One contentious issue is whether and how cultural...

Appears in:

The Great Depression

History Now Essay

Theodore Roosevelt: The Making of a Progressive Reformer

Kathleen Dalton

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Theodore Roosevelt’s interesting life often tempts biographers to write about him with the history left out. His story offers plenty of drama. Born in 1858 to a wealthy family in New York City he waged a life and death struggle...

Appears in:

17 | Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Era Fall 2008

Essay

Slavery and Anti-Slavery

David Brion Davis

Abolitionism emerged in America as part of a massive fusion of reform movements related to religious revivals and dedicated to the goal of creating a righteous society capable of fulfilling America’s high ideals. [1] In part, the...

History Now Essay

Photography in Nineteenth-Century America

Martha A. Sandweiss

Art, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

During the mid-nineteenth century, American commentators pronounced that new technological innovations in transportation and communications represented nothing less than the "annihilation of space and time." On steamships and...

Appears in:

10 | Nineteenth Century Technology Winter 2006

History Now Essay

The Emancipation Proclamation: Bill of Lading or Ticket to Freedom?

Allen C. Guelzo

Economics, Government and Civics

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

Of all the speeches, letters, and state papers he had written, Abraham Lincoln believed that the greatest of them was his Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863. With one document of only 713 words, Lincoln declared more than...

Appears in:

6 | Lincoln Winter 2005