516 items
In the late nineteenth century, Democrats and Republicans fought over whether the gold standard ought to be retained or if the United States should switch to a free silver system. In 1890, the Sherman Silver Purchase Act was passed,...
People’s Party campaign poster, 1892
In July 1892, the Populist Party (or People’s Party), formed by farmers and labor supporters, held its first convention in Omaha, Nebraska. At that convention, the party created and ratified its Omaha Platform and nominated James B....
Disfranchisement of African American voters in Virginia, 1901
In February 1901, the Virginia General Assembly authorized a constitutional convention to draft election reforms. The convention, supported vehemently by Democrats, aimed to disfranchise African Americans without violating the...
Birth of a Nation, 1915
This "Advice Sheet" flyer was distributed with D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation to theaters when the film was released in 1915. Significantly, the distributors are adamant that "NEGROES MUST NOT BE ADMITTED . . . under any...
Frederick Douglass on the disfranchisement of Black voters, 1888
Frederick Douglass, a former enslaved man and premier champion of civil rights for African Americans and women, was the nineteenth century’s most famous Black leader. In this letter, written in December 1888, he protests the...
Prescription for alcohol during Prohibition, 1923
At midnight, January 16, 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment to the US Constitution prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcohol took effect. The Eighteenth Amendment banned the manufacture and sale (but not the possession, consumption,...
Women's suffrage poster, 1915
Opponents to women’s suffrage argued that voting would be detrimental to women’s character and to their families. This broadside, published around 1915 refutes those accusations. It declares that if a woman is responsible for taking...
Susan B. Anthony on suffrage and equal rights, 1901
Writing at the age of eighty, having just retired from a long public life as an advocate for abolition and women’s rights, Susan B. Anthony trenchantly summarized the gains that had been made in women’s rights. Her energetic tone...
Theodore Roosevelt on the sinking of the Lusitania, 1915
On May 7, 1915, the British passenger ship Lusitania , sailing from New York to Liverpool, was torpedoed by a German U-boat. The Lusitania sank, killing 1,195 people on board, including 123 Americans. The incident created sharp...
Recruiting posters for African American soldiers, 1918
These two World War I recruiting posters aim to encourage African Americans to enlist. In the first poster, “Colored Man Is No Slacker,” a black soldier takes his leave against a background of African American patriotism, self...
Treaty of Versailles and President Wilson, 1919 and 1921
The Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I, was drafted at the Paris Peace Conference in the spring of 1919 and shaped by the Big Four powers—Great Britain, France, Italy, and the United States. This souvenir copy of the Paris...
Sacco and Vanzetti, 1921
On May 31, 1921, Nicola Sacco, a 32-year-old shoemaker, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, a 29-year-old fish peddler, went on trial for murder in Boston. More than a year earlier, on April 15, 1920, a paymaster and a payroll guard had been...
Herbert Hoover's Inaugural Address, 1929
In November 1928, Republican Herbert Hoover was elected president over the Democratic nominee Al Smith. Hoover had served in the Harding and Coolidge administrations and won the nomination after Coolidge declined to run for a third...
President Reagan’s First Inaugural Address, 1981
Ronald Reagan’s election to the White House came at a time of great economic and international turmoil for the United States. His first inaugural address on January 20, 1981, highlights many major issues of the day, including rising...
President Ford’s remarks in Japan, 1974
In November 1974, Gerald Ford became the first sitting American president to visit Japan—the trip was also Ford’s first abroad since replacing Nixon in August of that year. He used the trip to reinforce US-Japanese relations, and in...
Ronald Reagan on economics and political parties, 1962
In May 1962, Ronald Reagan wrote this letter expressing his ideas about economic policy and the nation’s political parties. Reagan wrote as a supporter of the conservative Republican Senator Barry Goldwater. Reagan had spent much of...
Discovering a mass grave in Iraq, 2003
Mark Rickert wrote this email while serving as a journalist with the 372nd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment in Iraq. On this day, he and his group were investigating rumors of a mass grave. The letter is written to his grandfather,...
Christmas in Kuwait, 1990
Cpl. Brett G. Coughlin arrived with Delta Company in Saudi Arabia at the port of Al Jubail on September 13, 1990. For the next three months the company trained in the northern desert of Saudi Arabia. By Christmas, its headquarters...
Barack Obama’s First Inaugural Address, 2009
The inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States in 2009 was a historic moment not only because Obama was the first African American ever sworn into executive office but also because he entered the presidency at a...
Charles Guiteau's reasons for assassinating President Garfield, 1882
Charles Julius Guiteau employed the unusual medium of poetry to plead his innocence while on trial for assassinating President James Garfield. Guiteau’s odd behavior in court made him a media sensation, and the Gilded Age press...
Immigration cartoon, 1916
This political cartoon appeared as the nation debated new restrictions on immigration. After 1917, immigrants entering the United States had to pass a literacy test. In the cartoon, the literacy test appears as an insurmountable...
The United Nations and the international community, 1967
In this 1967 letter, Dr. Israel Goldstein, a prominent American rabbi and Zionist, comments on the United Nations as a peacekeeping organization. After World War II, Goldstein, with other rabbis, had lobbied members of the newly...
Reporting on the Spanish Influenza, 1918
These newspaper articles illustrate the impact on American society of Spanish Influenza (H1N1), which first appeared in the United States in March 1918. [1] There were periodic, minor outbreaks for six months, but in September a...
Diary of World War I nurse Ella Osborn, 1918–1919
At the outbreak of World War I, Ella Jane Osborn was a surgical nurse at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. In January 1918, she volunteered to serve with the American Expeditionary Forces as a member of the Red Cross’s nursing...
Why Black men fought in World War I, 1919
During World War I, approximately 370,000 black men in the US military served in segregated regiments and were often relegated to support duties such as digging trenches, transporting supplies, cleaning latrines, and burying the dead....
Selling World War I: "Buy Liberty Bonds!" 1917-1919
When the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917, it needed funds to support the war effort. The Civil War had demonstrated that simply printing more currency would lead to inflation and economic trouble. During World War...
Rules for discharging disabled veterans, 1919
When World War I ended in 1918 more than 4.6 million men returned to the United States from war. The American people and the US government were unprepared to reintegrate and care for the men who returned with physical injuries and...
Emma Goldman on the restriction of civil liberties, 1919
Emma Goldman was born to a Jewish family in Kovno, Russia (present-day Lithuania). In 1885, at the age of sixteen, she emigrated to the United States, becoming a well-known author and lecturer promoting anarchism, workers’ rights,...
Eric Foner - "The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Made the Constitution"
Eric Foner is the DeWitt Clinton Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University. Order The Second Founding at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank...
John Barry - "The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Plague in History"
John Barry is an author, historian, and adjunct faculty at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. Order The Great Influenza at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every...
Richard Stengel - "Information Wars: How We Lost the Global Battle against Disinformation and What We Can Do about It"
Richard Stengel served as the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center and is a former Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy. Order Information Wars at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate...
Ted Widmer - "Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington"
Ted Widmer is a professor of history at Macaulay Honors College, CUNY. Order Lincoln on the Verge at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for...
Carol Berkin - "Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America's Independence"
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Martha Jones - "Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All"
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Alan Taylor - "Thomas Jefferson's Education"
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Richard Brookhiser - "Give Me Liberty: A History of America's Exceptional Idea"
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Rick Atkinson - "The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777"
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Harold Holzer - "The Presidents Vs. The Press: The Endless Battle between the White House and the Media—from the Founding Fathers to Fake News"
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Chris Brown - "Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism"
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Lonnie Bunch - "A Fool's Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump"
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Kariann Yokota - "Unbecoming British: How Revolutionary America Became a Postcolonial Nation"
Kariann Yokota is an associate professor of history at the University of Colorado, Denver. Order Unbecoming British at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided....
David Blight - "Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom"
Order Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for supporting our programs! Classroom-Ready Resources Video...
Susan Eisenhower - "How Ike Led: The Principles Behind Eisenhower's Biggest Decisions"
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Colin Calloway - "The Indian World of George Washington: The First President, the First Americans, and the Birth of the Nation"
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Serena Zabin - "The Boston Massacre: A Family History"
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Victoria Phillips - "Martha Graham's Cold War: The Dance of American Diplomacy"
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James Oakes - "The Crooked Path to Abolition: Abraham Lincoln and the Antislavery Constitution"
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Mary Beth Norton - "1774: The Long Year of Revolution"
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