514 items
Gordon Wood discusses the book "The American Revolution: Writings from the Pamphlet Debate 1764-1776".
Inside the Vault: World War II Propaganda
On the October 7, 2021 session of Inside the Vault, Professor Michael Neiberg from the United States Army War College and Stacie Christensen, 2020 Idaho History Teacher of the Year, join us as we discuss World War II propaganda...
Map of the New World, with European settlements and American Indian tribes, 1730
This map, "Recens edita totius Novi Belgii in America Septentrionali," depicts present-day New England, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and parts of Maryland and Pennsylvania. Created by Dutch mapmakers in 1730, the map reflects the...
Travels Through Time: The Impact of Supreme Court Decisions on the Struggle for African American Equality
Overview After the Civil War, African Americans were under attack as they struggled for equal rights in America. Laws were put in place during Reconstruction to assure Freedmen basic civil rights. The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and...
George Pullman: His Impact on the Railroad Industry, Labor, and American Life in the Nineteenth Century
Background George Mortimer Pullman was an influential industrialist of the nineteenth century and the founder of the Pullman Palace Car Company. His innovations brought comfort and luxury to railroad travel in the 1800s with the...
Traitors and Spies in the Time of War: How the Supreme Court Determined Who Would Live and Who Would Die
Overview In April 1865 over 600,000 Americans lay dead from battle wounds and other causes directly related to their service in the armies of the Confederacy and Union during the four-year Civil War. If we adjusted the number of dead...
Inside the Vault: Honoring America’s First Woman Veteran: The Revolutionary War Service of Margaret Corbin
Celebrate Veterans Day and learn about the Revolutionary War service of Margaret “Molly” Corbin! On November 2, 2023, our curators discussed Corbin’s life and legacy with Dr. Holly Mayer of Duquesne University. Margaret “Molly”...
Inside the Vault: Treason in the American Revolution: Benedict Arnold and John André
In September 1780, the discovery of General Benedict Arnold’s plot to surrender West Point to the British was a deeply shocking revelation. Arnold, whose name is now synonymous with the word “traitor,” was once a well-respected...
The Union Army and Juneteenth, 1865
This engraving depicts a White Union soldier reading the Emancipation Proclamation to an enslaved family. It was published in 1864 by Lucius Stebbins, based on a painting by Henry W. Herrick. According to Stebbins, the scene ...
Inside the Vault: Massachusetts 54th
On July 18, 1863, the Massachusetts 54th Volunteer Infantry led an assault against Battery Wagner on Morris Island, South Carolina. The battle demonstrated the bravery and fierce determination of African American soldiers even though...
Inside the Vault: The Surrender of Robert E. Lee
“I ask a suspension of hostilities pending the discussion of the Terms of surrender of this army.” —Robert E. Lee, April 9, 1865 Shortly before noon on April 9, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee sent a message to Union General...
The Western Sanitary Commission reports on suffering in the Mississippi Valley, 1863
In 1863 in the war-torn South, thousands were homeless and starving. Some of those most in need of aid were newly liberated enslaved people. The Western Sanitary Commission was organized on September 5, 1861, by General John C....
The Failure of Compromise
In the spring of 1861, the United States of America split into two hostile countries—the United States and the new Confederate States of America. The two opposing heads of state agreed about what was causing the rupture—the long...
Deadly Diseases: A Fate Worse than Dying on the Battlefield
Background Cannons blasted and bayonets tore through flesh in America’s worst war, the American Civil War. This war was gruesome for many different reasons. It tore the country apart and created divides that exist to this day. One of...
Historians Now: Lincoln’s Selected Writings edited by David S. Reynolds
David S. Reynolds talks about editing the Norton Critical Edition of Lincoln's Selected Writings. The volume not only includes an wide range of annotated texts, but perspectives on Lincoln's writings from his contemporaries and...
Lincoln and Presidential Power
Introduction When Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States in 1860, his experience in politics and government included serving in the Illinois legislature and the US House of Representatives. He had also studied law...
Inside the Vault: Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Voting Rights
On May 4, 2023, our curators were joined by Dr. Andrew Robertson (The Graduate Center and Lehman College, CUNY) to discuss materials related to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century voting rights. Dr. Robertson explained how voting...
“Columbia’s Noblest Sons”: George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, 1865
Abraham Lincoln’s death on April 14, 1865, stunned the nation. He was the first US president to be assassinated and the third to die in office. As Americans mourned, they also began to see him as a martyr and the savior of the Union....
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...
Facing the New Millennium
In 1941, on the eve of Pearl Harbor, Time magazine publisher Henry Luce predicted that the twentieth century would become known as the "American Century." By many measures he was correct. During the next sixty years, the United States...
Historians Now: Mourning Lincoln by Martha Hodes
Martha Hodes discusses her book Mourning Lincoln. Hodes is the first historian to delve into personal and private responses—of African Americans and whites, Yankees and Confederates, men and women, soldiers and civilians, rich and...
Inside the Vault: "Meanwhile Back at the Branch..."
On November 3, 2022, our curators were joined by Barbara Harris Combs of Kennesaw State University. Professor Combs discussed the NAACP pamphlet Meanwhile Back at the Branch... and the many ways in which civil rights activists worked...
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...
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