67 items
Margaret Corbin
Margaret Corbin Revolutionary War Margaret “Molly” Corbin was the first woman in the United States to earn a military pension, based on her service at the Battle of Fort Washington. Image Source: Herbert Knotel, Twentieth-century sketch representing...
Cuffee Saunders
Cuffee Saunders Revolutionary War Born into slavery, Cuffee Saunders secured his freedom by serving during the Revolutionary War. Image Source: Benjamin Huntington, Oath certifying Cuffee Saunders's purchase of freedom, 1821, Gilder Lehrman...
Henry Knox
Henry Knox Revolutionary War Henry Knox rose through the ranks during the American Revolution to become chief of artillery in George Washington’s army. Image Source: Gilbert Stuart, Oil painting of Henry Knox, 1806, The Museum of Fine Arts Boston
...
Federico Fernández Cavada
Federico Fernández Cavada Civil War Cuban-born Federico Fernández Cavada served in the Union Army during the Civil War as an engineer and topographer with the Balloon Corps, sketching Confederate forces from the air. Image Source: Mathew B. Brady,...
Pauline Cushman
Pauline Cushman Civil War Pauline Cushman served as a spy for the Union Army and is buried at San Francisco National Cemetery. She was an actress who used her skills to gather intelligence for the Union Army. Image Source: Mathew Brady Studio,...
Edward Day Cohota
Edward Day Cohota Civil War Edward Day Cohota served in the Union Army for thirty years and was one of approximately 300 Asians and Pacific Islanders who fought in the Civil War. Image Source: Photograph of Edward Day Cohota, ca. 1880-1890, Cape Ann...
Louis Santop Loftin
Louis Santop Loftin World War I Louis Santop Loftin, Hall of Fame baseball player and WWI Veteran, is buried at the Philadelphia National Cemetery. Loftin played baseball in the Negro Leagues from 1909 to 1926 and was one of the league’s first star...
Ella Osborn
Ella Osborn World War I Ella Jane Osborn, a nurse deployed to France during World War I, is buried at Wainscott Cemetery in New York. She kept a remarkable diary in 1918 and 1919 that captured her experiences during the war. Image Source: Ella Jane...
Yeiichi “Kelly” Kuwayama
Yeiichi “Kelly” Kuwayama World War II Yeiichi Kuwayama served as a platoon medic in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, composed of Japanese Americans. His unit fought in some of the fiercest World War II battles in Italy and France. Image Source:...
Joe Morris Sr.
Joe Morris Sr. World War II Joe Morris Sr. was one of four hundred “code talkers” who memorized a code that substituted traditional Navajo words for military phrases. The contributions of the Navajo code talkers were classified until 1968. Image...
Annie Fox
Annie Fox World War II Annie Fox was Station Hospital’s chief nurse during the attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawai'i. On October 26, 1942, Fox became the first woman in America to be awarded the Purple Heart for her heroism during the attack. Image...
Walter Schirra Jr.
Walter Schirra Jr. Cold War After completing ninety combat missions during the Korean War, Walter Schirra Jr. was named one of seven test pilots for NASA’s Project Mercury. Image Source: Yvette Smith, Photograph of Walter Schirra emerging from the...
Perry Watkins
Perry Watkins Cold War Perry Watkins served fifteen years in the Army as an openly gay man. Despite this, in 1980, the Army revoked his security clearance and had him discharged because he was gay, a discharge he successfully fought in court. Image...
Grace Murray Hopper
Grace Murray Hopper Cold War Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper was a naval computer scientist who held the rank of rear admiral when she retired in 1985. Image Source: Lynn Gilbert, Photograph of Grace Murray Hopper in her office in Washington, DC,...
Alan G. Rogers
Alan G. Rogers Iraq & Afghanistan Alan G. Rogers served in the Army during the Gulf and Iraq Wars. For his master’s thesis in policy management from Georgetown, Rogers wrote about the effect of the US military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on...
Jose Angel Garibay
Jose Angel Garibay Iraq & Afghanistan In 1979, Simona Garibay and her youngest son, Jose Angel Garibay, came to the United States from Jalisco, Mexico. After his death in Iraq, the US government awarded Cpl. Jose Garibay posthumous citizenship....
Ashley White-Stumpf
Ashley White-Stumpf Iraq & Afghanistan Ashley White-Stumpf served in the Army during the Afghanistan War. She was posthumously awarded a Bronze Star and the Purple Heart for her service. Image Source: Photograph of the unveiling ceremony for...
Infographic: The Vietnam War Military Statistics
Download Infographic as PDF Questions for Discussion In what year were the greatest number of US service members stationed in Vietnam? In what year were there the greatest number of US battle deaths in Vietnam? How many...
Why Documents Matter: An Interactive Digital Edition
Welcome to Why Documents Matter: An Interactive Digital Edition —a selection of primary sources from the Gilder Lehrman Collection curated and annotated for K–12 classrooms (print edition available here ). Scroll through the entire...
Alexander Hamilton: Witness to the Founding Era
This series of online exhibitions explores the importance of Alexander Hamilton to the founding of the United States. Each mini-exhibition features locations where Alexander Hamilton made history and documents written by or about him...
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: Immigration Policy in World War II
The day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt suspended naturalization proceedings for Italian, German, and Japanese immigrants, required them to register, restricted their mobility, and prohibited them from owning...
Historical Context: Mexican Americans and the Great Depression
In February 1930 in San Antonio, Texas, 5000 Mexicans and Mexican Americans gathered at the city’s railroad station to depart the United States for settlement in Mexico. In August, a special train carried another 2000 to central...
Historical Context: Post-World War I Labor Tensions
The years following the end of World War I were a period of deep social tensions, aggrevated by high wartime inflation. Food prices more than doubled between 1915 and 1920; clothing costs more than tripled. A steel strike that began...
Historical Context: The Confederacy Begins to Collapse
By early 1863, the Civil War had begun to cause severe hardship on the southern home front. Not only was most of the fighting taking place in the South, but also as the Union blockade grew more effective and the South's railroad...
Historical Context: The Economics of Slavery
Like other slave societies, the South did not produce urban centers on a scale equal with those in the North. Virginia's largest city, Richmond, had a population of just 15,274 in 1850. That same year, Wilmington, North Carolina's...
Historical Context: The First National Census
Early in August 1790, David Howe, an assistant federal marshal, began the difficult task of counting all the people who lived in Hancock County, Maine. One of 650 federal census takers, charged with making "a...perfect enumeration.....
Historical Context: The Post-World War I Red Scare
The end of World War I was accompanied by a panic over political radicalism. Fear of bombs, Communism, and labor unrest produced a “Red Scare.” In Hammond, Indiana, a jury took two minutes to acquit the killer of an immigrant who had...
Historical Context: Why Do People Migrate?
In trying to understand why people migrate, some scholars emphasize individual decision-making, while others stress broader structural forces. Many early scholars of migration emphasized the importance of "push" and "pull" factors....
Historical Context: The Global Effect of World War I
A recent list of the hundred most important news stories of the twentieth century ranked the onset of World War I eighth. This is a great error. Just about everything that happened in the remainder of the century was in one way or...
Statistics: The Growth of Cities
Urban Growth Number of Cities 1860 1900 100,000-499,999 7 32 500,000 or more 2 6 Percent of Total Population 1860 1900 100,000-499,999 4% 8% 500,000 or more 4% 11% Questions for Discussion What factors contributed to the growth of...
Statistics: Education in America, 1860-1950
Resources Invested in Education Spending on Education Spending Per Child 15-19 Percentage of GNP 1860 $60 $5.33 1.4 1900 $503 $20.53 2.9 Improvements in Education % Illiteracy 10 or older High School Graduates College Enrollment Total...
Showing results 1 - 50