90,957 items
New York City’s African Burial Ground
Michael L. Blakey is the NEH Professor of Anthropology and American Studies and the director of the Institute for Historical Biology at the College of William and Mary. He is the editor, with Lesley M. Rankin-Hill, of The Skeletal...
Preparing for Your Field Trip
Preparing for Your Field Trip Review these guidelines before booking your field trip to the Gilder Lehrman Collection. Make a reservation: Fill out the form on the Book Your Field Trip page of our website. We will contact you by email...
Rarely Seen Hamilton Letters from the Gilder Lehrman Collection at the Morgan Library
Head over to the Morgan Library & Museum to view Treasures from the Vault , a selection of the Gilder Lehrman Institute’s recently acquired letters by Alexander Hamilton, his family, and friends. The exhibition includes the only...
Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth Schuyler Marry: December 14, 1780
Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth Schuyler married on December 14, 1780, at the Schuyler family home in Albany, New York. The romance between Elizabeth and Alexander had moved quickly—within a month of meeting, they decided to marry....
Theodore Roosevelt and the National Park System
As part of the Era of Theodore Roosevelt, a Gilder Lehrman online course, Professor Bruce Schulman of Boston University visited the Gilder Lehrman Collection to view stereo-cards of Theodore Roosevelt. In the video below, Professor...
Washington Writes from Valley Forge: A Museum Mystery
On December 19, 1777, the Continental Army set up its winter encampment at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. The 9,000-strong army was in a desperate state—many soldiers were ill or wounded, and, by Washington's estimation, at least one...
A family torn apart by war, 1777
The Revolutionary War divided families. In 1774, eighteen-year-old Lucy Flucker married twenty-four-year-old Henry Knox. Lucy’s parents were powerful, wealthy Tories, and they were not happy with the match. Henry Knox was the son of...
Top 10 Featured Primary Sources of 2017
Your favorite Featured Primary Sources from the old Gilder Lehrman website are now Spotlights on a Primary Source. See them all here . The Top 10 Most-Viewed Spotlights on a Primary Source in 2017 are Herbert Hoover on the Great...
Announcing a Special Funding Opportunity for Public Libraries
Public libraries are invited to apply for Revisiting the Founding Era, a nationwide project that will use historical documents to spark public conversations about the Founding Era’s enduring ideas and themes and how they continue to...
Get to Know the 2017 History Teachers of the Year: Rosalee Tela-Shoulders and David Alcox
This year, the Gilder Lehrman Institute recognized 52 State History Teachers of the Year for their tireless and innovative efforts to make history come alive for their students. But who are they, really? We asked these talented...
A Christmas V-Mail from World War II
V-mail, or Victory Mail, was a WWII-era operation to expedite mail service for Americans serving overseas. V-mail was written on standardized stationery, photographed onto 16mm microfilm, transported to the US or other destination,...
Get to Know the 2017 History Teachers of the Year: Carol Grossi, California
In 2017, the Gilder Lehrman Institute recognized 52 State History Teachers of the Year for their tireless and innovative efforts to make history come alive for their students. But who are they, really? We asked these talented teachers...
Get to Know the 2017 History Teachers of the Year: Kevin Martell and Diane Walker
In 2017, the Gilder Lehrman Institute recognized 52 State History Teachers of the Year for their tireless and innovative efforts to make history come alive for their students. But who are they, really? We asked these talented teachers...
Get to Know the 2017 History Teachers of the Year: Elizabeth Doughty, Washington
In 2017, the Gilder Lehrman Institute recognized 52 State History Teachers of the Year for their tireless and innovative efforts to make history come alive for their students. But who are they, really? We asked these talented teachers...
Get to Know the 2017 History Teachers of the Year: Casey Swift, Wyoming
In 2017, the Gilder Lehrman Institute recognized 52 State History Teachers of the Year for their tireless and innovative efforts to make history come alive for their students. But who are they, really? We asked these talented teachers...
Get to Know the 2017 History Teachers of the Year: Richard Ochoa, Utah
In 2017, the Gilder Lehrman Institute recognized 52 State History Teachers of the Year for their tireless and innovative efforts to make history come alive for their students. But who are they, really? We asked these talented teachers...
Get to Know the 2017 History Teachers of the Year: Margaret Duncan, Georgia
In 2017, the Gilder Lehrman Institute recognized 52 State History Teachers of the Year for their tireless and innovative efforts to make history come alive for their students. But who are they, really? We asked these talented teachers...
Martin Luther King Jr.: Classroom Resources
2018 marks the 50th anniversary of the civil rights leader’s assassination in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. To commemorate King’s work, we are sharing Gilder Lehrman lesson plans, primary sources, videos, and essays on Martin...
Teacher Meghan Thomas’s Gilder Lehrman Experience
Meghan Thomas is the 2016 Illinois History Teacher of the Year and teaches at Von Steuben Metropolitan Science Center in Chicago, Illinois. Last February, she and her students took part in the Hamilton Education Program. Here, she...
“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....
Revisiting the Founding Era at the National Constitution Center
On January 10 historians Carol Berkin and Denver Brunsman, community leader Farah Jimenez, and the Constitutional Sources Project’s executive director, Julie Silverbrook, gathered for a town hall at the National Constitution Center in...
Frederick Douglass at 200
This February marks the 200-year anniversary of Frederick Douglass’s birth. In commemoration, the Gilder Lehrman Institute is featuring the great African American orator and abolitionist throughout the year. Activist for Equality:...
Announcing the 2018 Lincoln Prize Finalists
Gettysburg College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History have announced the finalists for the 2018 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize . Edward L. Ayers, The Thin Light of Freedom: The Civil War and Emancipation in the Heart...
Douglass the Autobiographer
Frederick Douglass published three autobiographies during his lifetime— Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (1845), My Bondage and My Freedom (1855), and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881, 1892)—as...
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GLI Now - Winter 2018 Newsletter
Sara Ziemnik: 2017 National History Teacher of the Year On November 8, Sara Ziemnik was honored as the Gilder Lehrman Institute’s 2017 National History Teacher of the Year at a ceremony in New York City. Pulitzer Prize–winning...
The Lion of All Occasions: The Great Black Abolitionist Frederick Douglass
On February 24, 1844, the Liberator printed an admiring report on Frederick Douglass’s “masterly and impressive” speech in Concord, New Hampshire. The fugitive slave was the master of his audience. Douglass, the writer fantasized, was...
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Douglass, Lincoln, and the Civil War
“Here comes my friend Douglass,” exclaimed President Abraham Lincoln in the East Room of the White House after delivering his Second Inaugural Address on March 4, 1865. As he grasped the hand of the distinguished abolitionist and...
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Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington at the Tuskegee Institute, 1892: A Little-known Encounter
Featuring a passage from Adele Alexander’s book in progress, A Black Suffragist in the Jim Crow South: Adella Hunt Logan’s Epic Journey Author’s Introduction Most historians consider Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington the...
Frederick Douglass, Orator
Frederick Douglass was a great speaker before he was a great writer. Many African Americans were renowned as orators in the mid nineteenth-century, particularly preachers and anti-slavery lecturers. The most famous names include...
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From the Editor
2018 is the 200th anniversary of the birth of an extraordinary American: Frederick Douglass. Orator and activist, champion of abolition and tireless worker for racial equality, Douglass stands, with Abraham Lincoln, as the conscience...
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2018 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize Recipient Announced
The 2018 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize will be awarded to Edward Ayers for The Thin Light of Freedom: The Civil War and Emancipation in the Heart of America (W.W. Norton and Company). Ayers is President Emeritus of the University of...
Japanese announcement of the attack at Pearl Harbor, 1941
In January 1941, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto began developing a plan to attack the American base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. For eleven months, the Japanese continued to refine their plans while at the same time working diplomatically to...
Women’s History Month Resources
March is Women’s History Month, a time to commemorate the significant role women played in shaping American history. The Gilder Lehrman Institute has numerous essays, primary sources, lesson plans, videos, and more on American women’s...
Activist for Equality: Frederick Douglass at 200
Born to Harriet Bailey, an enslaved woman in Maryland in February 1818, Douglass lived twenty years as a slave and nearly nine years as a fugitive. From the 1840s to his death in 1895, he attained international fame as an...
Allen C. Guelzo
Dr. Allen C. Guelzo is the Senior Research Scholar in the Council of the Humanities and Director of the Initiative on Politics and Statesmanship in the James Madison Program at Princeton University. He is the author of Abraham Lincoln...
A brawl between Federalists and anti-Federalists, 1788
In 1787 and 1788, debates over the ratification of the Constitution took place in towns and villages across the country. To gain support, both Federalists and anti-Federalists held meetings and marches that sometimes became violent....
Lewis E. Lehrman's Lincoln and Churchill: Statesmen at War
We are pleased to announce the latest publication by Lewis E. Lehrman, the co-founder of the Gilder Lehrman Institute, a renowned historian, and a National Humanities Medal winner. Lincoln & Churchill: Statesmen at War , provides...
Civil War Essay Contest Winners 2018
High School Division Click on the title to read a winning essay. First Prize Lena Cohen , Chapel Hill High School, Chapel Hill, North Carolina “One Hundred Years Later: The Failure of the Civil War Centennial” Second Prize Joseph Wang...
Annette Gordon-Reed
Annette Gordon-Reed is the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University and a professor of history in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. She was formerly the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for...
Patrick Duff
Patrick Duff is currently a partner at the private investment firm of Dunham Partners, LLC, where he has worked for the past twenty-three years. Prior to joining Dunham Partners, he served as senior managing director at Tiger...
S. Andrew Banks
Andrew Banks is the co-founder of Boston-based ABRY Partners, a leading private equity firm focused on the media and communications industry, where he served as chairman from 1989 to 2012. Prior to founding ABRY, Banks was a partner...
John D. Britton II
John D. Britton II was a principal and portfolio manager at Select Equity Group LP. Before joining the firm, he was a portfolio manager and analyst at US Trust Company in New York. Britton also worked for two years as a reporter at...
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