Search | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

90,988 items

History Now Essay

Navigating the Age of Exploration

Ted Widmer

Geography, World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Two thousand and seven seems a worthy year to reappraise the Age of Exploration, and not merely because a season of anniversaries is upon us. Of course, Jamestown’s 400th was widely publicized, thanks to a number of new books and...

Appears in:

12 | The Age Of Exploration Summer 2007

History Now Essay

The Antifederalists: The Other Founders of the American Constitutional Tradition?

Saul Cornell

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The Great Debate The publication of the Constitution in September 1787 inaugurated one of the most vigorous political campaigns in American history. In the process of arguing over the merits of the new plan of government, Americans...

Appears in:

13 | The Constitution Fall 2007

Essay

Admiration and Ambivalence: Frederick Douglass and John Brown

David W. Blight

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

John Brown did not make it easy for people to love him—until he died on the gallows. Frederick Douglass, from his first meeting with Brown in 1847, through a testy but important relationship in the late 1850s, had long viewed the...

History Now Essay

Different Perspectives on the Civil Rights Movement

Anthony J. Badger

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In 1984 Jimmy Carter reflected on growing up in the segregated South. He recalled that as a young child, he, like many white children, had had an African American child as his closest friend. The two children spent all their play time...

Appears in:

8 | The Civil Rights Movement Summer 2006

History Now Essay

Women and the Early Industrial Revolution in the United States

Thomas Dublin

Economics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The industrial revolution that transformed western Europe and the United States during the course of the nineteenth century had its origins in the introduction of power-driven machinery in the English and Scottish textile industries...

Appears in:

10 | Nineteenth Century Technology Winter 2006