185 items
War between Neighbors: The Coming of the Civil War
Edward L. Ayers is Dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Virginia where he is also the Hugh P. Kelly Professor of History. Here he looks at the Civil War’s impact on the lives of people in...
The Mexican-American War: Arguments for and against Going to War
Click here to download this three-lesson unit.
John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights
Fay Yarbrough - "Choctaw Confederates: The American Civil War in Indian Country"
Fay Yarbrough is a professor of history at Rice University. Order Choctaw Confederates at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for supporting our...
"The Merits of This Fearful Conflict": Douglass on the Causes of the Civil War
In the spring of 1871, Frederick Douglass was worried. Six years after Robert E. Lee had surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, Grant was now President of the United States, the Union of northern and southern states was...
Boisterous Sea of Liberty: A Documentary History of America from Discovery through the Civil War
David Brion Davis, Sterling Professor of History at Yale University, and Steven Mintz, Professor of History at the University of Houston, chose 360 original documents from the Gilder Lehrman Collection. The authors have woven these...
Native American Policy
Background: Two conflicting policies have governed this country’s treatment of Native Americans—assimilation and removal. As the United States expanded, it became necessary to issue formal policy statements and make treaties with...
Bruce Levine - "Thaddeus Stevens: Civil War Revolutionary, Fighter for Racial Justice"
Order Thaddeus Stevens at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for supporting our programs!
The Road to War
‘A house divided against itself can not stand’ I believe this government can not endure permanently, half slave, and half free . . . I do not expect the Union to be dissolved - I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it...
American Colonization Society membership certificate, 1833
When James Madison signed this membership certificate as president of the American Colonization Society in 1833, the organization’s effort to repatriate America’s free black population to Africa had been underway for over a decade. On...
African American Lives: An Overview
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute of African American History at Harvard University, speaks about the development of the African American National Biography,...
Nineteenth-Century Native American Viewpoints
Objective Identify and compare the ideas of major Native American leaders from the nineteenth century. Evaluate the impact of those ideas on the United States and Native Americans. Locate the original and final reservation territory...
Van Gosse - "The First Reconstruction: Black Politics in America from the Revolution to the Civil War
Order The First Reconstruction at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for supporting our programs!
Jacqueline Jones - "No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston's Black Workers in the Civil War Era"
Jacqueline Jones is the Ellen C. Temple Professor of Women’s History Emerita at the University of Texas at Austin and a past president of the American Historical Association. Order No Right to an Honest Living at the Gilder Lehrman...
Julie Winch - "Between Slavery and Freedom: Free People of Color in America From Settlement to the Civil War"
Order Between Slavery and 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!
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Roundtable discussion on American Antislavery Writings
On December 2, 2014, four scholars joined Gilder Lehrman president and Barnard College professor James G. Basker for a roundtable discussion on American antislavery writings. The panel included Elizabeth Alexander (Yale), Christopher...
The massacre of American Indian allies, 1818
On April 23, 1818, Captain Obed Wright of the Georgia militia ordered an attack on a Chehaw village, which resulted in the slaughter of several American Indians. In a letter written a week after the attack, Brigadier General Thomas...
American Antislavery Writings: Colonial Beginnings to Emancipation
James G. Basker (Barnard College, Columbia University) discusses his latest book, American Antislavery Writings: Colonial Beginnings to Emancipation (The Library of America, 2012). Basker, who is also the president of the Gilder...
Historical Context: American Slavery in Comparative Perspective
Of the ten to sixteen million Africans who survived the voyage to the New World, more than one-third landed in Brazil and between 60 and 70 percent ended up in Brazil or the sugar colonies of the Caribbean. Only 6 percent arrived in...
Historical Context: American Slavery and Abolition through Hollywood
Throughout the twentieth century, many influential Hollywood films, such as Birth of a Nation , Gone with the Wind , Glory , and Amistad , have helped shape the way Americans have thought about slavery and its legacy. Birth of a...
An African American protests the Fugitive Slave Law, 1850
This 1850 letter written by Henry Weeden is a statement against slavery by a free African American. Weeden was one of Boston’s leading abolitionists. In the 1840s, he had been an activist for the integration of Boston’s schools. [1]...
A Different Perspective on Slavery: Writing the History of African American Enslaved Women
Introduction The accounts of African American slavery in textbooks routinely conflate the story of enslaved men and women into one history. Textbooks rarely enable students to grapple with the lives and challenges of women constrained...
US Treaties with American Indian Nations
After the American Revolution, the United States and Indian tribal nations governed their diplomatic relations through formal treaties. States could not be signatories to these treaties because the US Constitution required that only...
Kate Masur - "Until Justice Be Done: America's First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction"
Order Until Justice Be Done at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for supporting our programs!
Edward L. Ayers —“American Visions: The United States, 1800–1860”
Edward L. Ayers is an American historian, professor, administrator, and university president. Order American Visions at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided....
Paul Ortiz - "An African American and Latinx History of the United States"
Paul Ortiz is an associate professor of history and the director of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at the University of Florida. Order An African American and Latinx History of the United States at the Gilder Lehrman Book...
Alan Taylor - "American Republics: A Continental History of the United States, 1783-1850"
Alan Taylor is the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor of History at the University of Virginia. Order American Republics at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link...
R. Isabela Morales - "Happy Dreams of Liberty: An American Family in Slavery and Freedom"
R. Isabela Morales is a historian who currently serves as the editor of the Princeton & Slavery Project at Princeton University. Order Happy Dreams of Liberty at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission...
Eric Foner, Kathleen DuVal, and Lisa McGirr - "Give Me Liberty! An American History"
Eric Foner is DeWitt Clinton Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University. Kathleen DuVal is a professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Lisa McGirr is a Charles Warren Professor of American...
Jonathan W. White - "A House Built by Slaves: African American Visitors to the Lincoln White House"
Jonathan W. White is professor of American studies at Christopher Newport University. Order A House Built By Slaves at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided....
Rachel L. Swarns - "The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved and Sold to Build the American Catholic Church"
Rachel L. Swarns is a journalism professor at New York University and a contributing writer for the New York Times . Order The 272 at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the...
Abraham Lincoln on Slavery and Race
Background Slavery played a prominent role in America’s political, social, and economic history in the antebellum era. The "peculiar institution" was at the forefront of discussions ranging from the future of the nation’s economy to...
Inside the Vault: David Blight Discusses Frederick Douglass Documents
On February 3, 2022, our curators were joined by Dr. David Blight to discuss his favorite Frederick Douglass documents in the Gilder Lehrman Collection. Click here to download the slides from the presentation. Featured Documents...
Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom
Catherine Clinton, professor of US history at Queen’s University Belfast, has wrtten or edited more than twenty historical books for both children and adults, including The Plantation Mistress: Woman’s World in the Old South and I,...
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