Search | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

90,988 items

History Now Essay

The League of the Iroquois

Matthew Dennis

Government and Civics

No Native people affected the course of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century American history more than the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois, of present-day upstate New York. Historians have been attempting to explain how and why ever since,...

Appears in:

28 | American Indians Summer 2011

History Now Essay

"The Politics of the Future Are Social Politics": Progressivism in International Perspective

Thomas Bender

Economics, Government and Civics, World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The American Progressive movement was not simply a response to the domestic conditions produced by industrialization and urbanization. Instead, it was part of a global response to these developments during an era of unregulated...

Appears in:

17 | Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Era Fall 2008

History Now Essay

Lincoln and Whitman

David S. Reynolds

Government and Civics, Literature

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The relationship between Walt Whitman and Abraham Lincoln has long been the stuff of legend. According to one report, in 1857 Lincoln in his Springfield law office picked up a copy of Whitman’s poetry volume Leaves of Grass , began...

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History Now Essay

Angelina and Sarah Grimke: Abolitionist Sisters

Carol Berkin

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Angelina Grimke and her sister Sarah Grimke were legends in their own lifetimes. Together these South Carolina sisters made history: daring to speak before "promiscuous" or mixed crowds of men and women, publishing some of the most...

Appears in:

5 | Abolition Fall 2005

History Now Essay

The Columbian Exchange

Alfred W. Crosby

Economics, Geography, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, World History

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

Millions of years ago, continental drift carried the Old World and New Worlds apart, splitting North and South America from Eurasia and Africa. That separation lasted so long that it fostered divergent evolution; for instance, the...

Appears in:

12 | The Age Of Exploration Summer 2007