Search | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

90,988 items

History Now Essay

F. Scott Fitzgerald and the Age of Excess

Joshua Zeitz

Economics, Literature

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, were guilty of many things. They were impetuous, they were known to drink too much, and they were prone to bouts of serious depression and self-destructive behavior, but no one could ever...

Appears in:

16 | Books That Changed History Summer 2008

History Now Essay

The Legal Status of Women, 1776–1830

Marylynn Salmon

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

State law rather than federal law governed women’s rights in the early republic. The authority of state law meant that much depended upon where a woman lived and the particular social circumstances in her region of the country. The...

Appears in:

7 | Women's Suffrage Spring 2006

History Now Essay

Women in American Politics in the Twentieth Century

Sara Evans

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

At the beginning of the twentieth century, women were outsiders to the formal structures of political life—voting, serving on juries, holding elective office—and they were subject to wide-ranging discrimination that marked them as...

Appears in:

7 | Women's Suffrage Spring 2006

History Now Essay

Labor Day: From Protest to Picnics

Joshua B. Freeman

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In the 1880s a surge in growth of the American labor movement led to the creation of two workers’ holidays, Labor Day and May Day. May Day soon spread abroad, as European unions and socialist groups adopted it as an occasion to...

Appears in:

4 | American National Holidays Summer 2005

History Now Essay

The Pueblo Revolt

Edward Countryman

Government and Civics, Religion and Philosophy

In 1680 the people known collectively as "Pueblos" rebelled against their Spanish overlords in the American Southwest. Spaniards had dominated them, their lives, their land, and their souls for eight decades. The Spanish had...

Appears in:

28 | American Indians Summer 2011