Search | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

1,977 items

5 December 1792

Brett, Piercy, fl. 1788-1792

to Henry Knox

Provides an extensive description of "French affairs" in relation to the French Revolution which he states is occupying all of Europe. "That their Republic seems so firmly established, they bid defiance to all the neighbouring powers to shake it...

GLC02437.05724

About page

2022 George Washington Prize Awarded to Bruce A. Ragsdale for “Washington at the Plow”

May 26, 2022, MOUNT VERNON, VA — Bruce A. Ragsdale has been awarded the 2022 George Washington Prize for his work Washington at the Plow: The Founding Farmer and the Question of Slavery . The annual award recognizes the past year’s...

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2023 George Washington Prize Awarded to Maurizio Valsania

New York, NY, September 29, 2023 — Maurizio Valsania has been awarded the 2023 George Washington Prize for his book First Among Men: George Washington and the Myth of American Masculinity (Johns Hopkins University Press). One of the...

History Now Essay

Nineteenth-Century Feminist Writings

Anne Firor Scott

Literature

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Contemporaries sometimes called the nineteenth century "The Woman’s Century." Certainly it is true that there were dramatic changes in the status and rights of women between the 1790s and 1900, foreshadowing even greater changes in...

Appears in:

7 | Women's Suffrage Spring 2006

History Now Essay

Alexander Hamilton, The Man Who Made America Prosperous

Richard Brookhiser

Economics

When George Washington, newly elected president, picked the members of his administration in 1789 he tapped thirty-two-year-old Alexander Hamilton to be the first treasury secretary. Hamilton had been a colonel on Washington’s staff...

Appears in:

44 | Alexander Hamilton in the American Imagination Winter 2016

History Now Essay

The Heart and Soul of Fannie Lou Hamer, An Extraordinary African American Leader

Earnest N. Bracey

Government and Civics

Fannie Lou Hamer was born October 6, 1917, in Montgomery County, Mississippi, to Ella and James Lee Townsend (her sharecropping parents), who taught her to never quit in her endeavors-a creed she tried to live by her entire life. Of...

Appears in:

54 | African American Women in Leadership Summer 2019

57 | Black Voices in American Historiography Summer 2020

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Responses to Industrialism

Economics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 It is idle to talk of a peaceful strike. None such has ever occurred. All combinations to interfere with perfect freedom in the proper management and control of one's lawful business, to dictate the terms upon which such...

Essay

Admiration and Ambivalence: Frederick Douglass and John Brown

David W. Blight

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

John Brown did not make it easy for people to love him—until he died on the gallows. Frederick Douglass, from his first meeting with Brown in 1847, through a testy but important relationship in the late 1850s, had long viewed the...

History Now Essay

Suggested Resources on the American Revolution and Lord Cornwallis from the Archivist

Mary-Jo Kline

Prof. Martin has written extensively on the American Revolution. Of his many books, the one most relevant to the essay you’ve just read is his collaboration with Mark E. Lender, A Respectable Army: The Military Origins of the Republic...

Appears in:

31 | Perspectives on America’s Wars Spring 2012

History Now Essay

A More Perfect Union? Barack Obama and the Politics of Unity

Thomas J. Sugrue

Government and Civics

A New York Times headline in January 2009 captured the essence of Barack Obama’s inauguration for many Americans: "A Civil Rights Victory Party on the Mall." An estimated 1.8 million people gathered to celebrate. Many heroes of the...

Appears in:

36 | Great Inaugural Addresses Summer 2013

Site Search

1,977 items

2022 George Washington Prize Awarded to Bruce A. Ragsdale for “Washington at the Plow”

2023 George Washington Prize Awarded to Maurizio Valsania

Nineteenth-Century Feminist Writings

Alexander Hamilton, The Man Who Made America Prosperous

The Heart and Soul of Fannie Lou Hamer, An Extraordinary African American Leader

Guided Readings: Responses to Industrialism

Admiration and Ambivalence: Frederick Douglass and John Brown

Suggested Resources on the American Revolution and Lord Cornwallis from the Archivist

A More Perfect Union? Barack Obama and the Politics of Unity

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