Site Search

We live in an age when there seems to be a medical breakthrough in the headlines every few days, when new discoveries are immediately—and sometimes prematurely—put into practice. It is easy for us, therefore, to assume that this same...

History Now Essay

Medical Advances in Nineteenth-Century America

Bert Hansen

Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Appears in:

Julian H. Robertson, Jr., an investor, environmentalist, and philanthropist, was the chairman and chief executive officer of Tiger Management, LLC. Robertson built Tiger into one of the world’s largest hedge funds with capital of more...

About page

Julian H. Robertson, Jr.

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: The Farmers' Revolt

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 For our business interests, we desire to bring producers and consumers, farmers and manufacturers into the most direct and friendly relations possible. Hence we must dispense with a surplus of middlemen, not that we are...

Lesson Plan

The Transcontinental Railroad: Interpreting Images

Art

10, 11, 12

Objectives Students will be able to apply the distinction between inferring (inference) and implying (implication). analyze primary source illustrations, including paintings, political cartoons, and promotional posters. Essential...

History Now Essay

From the Editor

Carol Berkin

Hamilton! This is his moment. After years of being overlooked when Americans named the members of that pantheon known as "the Founding Fathers," Alexander Hamilton has finally become a star. Literally. It took a talented young rapper...

Appears in:

44 | Alexander Hamilton in the American Imagination Winter 2016

About page

Luis A. Miranda, Jr.

Luis A. Miranda, Jr., has almost four decades of experience as a leader in the public and private sectors. A native of Puerto Rico, Miranda was director of field services and research at the National Action Council for Minorities in...

About page

John L. Nau, III

John L. Nau, III, is chairman and chief executive officer of Silver Eagle Distributors, LP, the nation’s largest distributor of Anheuser-Busch products. Silver Eagle employs more than 1,400 people who serve sixteen counties in Texas...

History Now Essay

Why They Marched: Rank and File Perspectives on the Women’s Suffrage Movement

Susan Ware

In 1914, a Massachusetts woman named Claiborne Catlin decided to ride across the state on horseback to rally support for women’s suffrage. All of her personal belongings, including a khaki jacket and divided skirt donated by Filene’s...

Appears in:

56 | The Nineteenth Amendment and Beyond Spring 2020

Spotlight on: Primary Source

John Philip Sousa critiques modern music, 1930

4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

John Philip Sousa (1854–1932), an American composer of classical music, served as the director of the United States Marine Band from 1880 to 1892. During Sousa’s time as leader of "The President’s Own," as the band was called, he...

About page

William Poorvu

William J. Poorvu has had a distinguished career as an investor, professor, and civic leader. Bill was the managing partner in a number of private real estate companies. From 1963 to 1982 he was the cofounder, vice-chair, and...

History Now Essay

From the Editor

Carol Berkin

Everything that American children of my generation knew—or thought they knew—about Indians, or Native Americans, came from Saturday afternoon cowboy and Indian movies. We knew that they talked funny; they all lived in teepees; they...

Appears in:

28 | American Indians Summer 2011

History Now Essay

The Columbian Exchange

Alfred W. Crosby

Economics, Geography, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, World History

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Millions of years ago, continental drift carried the Old World and New Worlds apart, splitting North and South America from Eurasia and Africa. That separation lasted so long that it fostered divergent evolution; for instance, the...

Appears in:

12 | The Age Of Exploration Summer 2007

History Now Essay

The First Generation: America’s Women Voters, 1776–1807

Marcela Micucci

Most histories of women gaining the right to vote in the United States begin in July of 1848, when hundreds of activists gathered in Seneca Falls to hold the first women’s rights convention and sign the Declaration of Sentiments. The...

Appears in:

56 | The Nineteenth Amendment and Beyond Spring 2020

History Now Essay

From the Editor

Carol Berkin

Sharks raining down on Los Angeles, zombies menacing their neighbors, strange aliens invading earth’s cities, prehistoric creatures chasing shipwrecked travelers . . . Americans thrill to stories of disaster. Whether man-made or...

Appears in:

40 | Disasters in Modern American History Fall 2014

History Now Essay

From The Editor

Carol Berkin

The desire to reform and even to perfect society is as American as apple pie. From the Puritans’ determination to create "a city upon a hill," to the utopian communities of the early nineteenth century, to the communes created by...

Appears in:

30 | American Reform Movements Winter 2012

News

Lincoln Prize Ceremony Celebrates 2020 and 2021 Winners on April 19

Please join us on April 19 for the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize ceremony. One of the most prestigious awards for the study of Abraham Lincoln, the American Civil War soldier, or the American Civil War era, this $50,000 prize is...

History Now Essay

Suggested Resources on Desert Storm from the Archivist

Mary-Jo Kline

There’s an odd pattern to published works about this conflict, whether you call it Desert Shield/Desert Storm or the First Persian Gulf War. A flurry of books appeared within two years of the end of hostilities—indeed, a couple...

Appears in:

On March 22, 1765, the British Parliament passed the “Stamp Act” to help pay for British troops stationed in the colonies during the Seven Years’ War. The act required the colonists to pay a tax, represented by a stamp, on various...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

The Stamp Act, 1765

Economics, Government and Civics

History Now Essay

Magellan: Missing in Action

Laurence Bergreen

Geography, Literature, World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Ferdinand Magellan, celebrated as the first circumnavigator, has long been the orphan of history. Although he did not survive his famous voyage, Magellan became both an icon of exploration and an outcast—disowned by his native...

Appears in:

12 | The Age Of Exploration Summer 2007

History Now Essay

Transcontinental Railroads: Compressing Time and Space

Richard White

Economics, Geography, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Many of our modern clichés about the impact of technology, particularly about the consequences of the Internet and telecommunications, first appeared as clichés about nineteenth-century railroads, particularly the transcontinental...

Appears in:

After 1800, the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy, like most Native American tribes, faced a long struggle against destruction of their land bases, cultures, and livelihoods. These struggles also spawned revival movements, one of...

History Now Essay

Ely S. Parker (Donehogawa): Civil War Hero, Ethnologist, Political Leader

Bruce E. Johansen

Appears in:

59 | American Indians in Leadership Winter 2021

History Now Essay

Everyone’s Backyard: The Love Canal Chemical Disaster

Amy M. Hay

Government and Civics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

It all started quietly. There were no alerts, no sirens, no evacuation plans, no reports from Jim Cantore on the Weather Channel. Most people living in the LaSalle neighborhood of Niagara Falls, New York, first heard about problems in...

Appears in:

40 | Disasters in Modern American History Fall 2014

News

The Pierce Butler Papers from the US Constitutional Convention

This archive of twenty-six documents was compiled by Pierce Butler when he served as one of South Carolina’s delegates to the US Constitutional Convention in 1787. It includes the printed first and second drafts of the Constitution;...

History Now Essay

A New Look at the Great Plains

Elliott West

Geography

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

To most Americans the Great Plains are the Great Flyover, or maybe the Great Drivethrough. Viewed from a window seat the plains seem nearly devoid of interest, something to get across enroute to someplace far worthier to explore or...

Appears in:

9 | The American West Fall 2006

Lesson Plan

The Boston Massacre

Art

9, 10, 11, 12

Introduction In this lesson, students will be asked to learn the disputed and agreed-upon facts of the Boston Massacre in small groups and then discuss them and propose a website definition of the Massacre as a class. This lesson...

History Now Essay

The Colonial Virginia Frontier and International Native American Diplomacy

William White

Government and Civics

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

Telling the story of Native Americans and colonial Virginians is a complex challenge clouded by centuries of mythology. The history of early settlement is dominated by the story of a preteen Pocahontas saving the life of a courageous...

Appears in:

28 | American Indians Summer 2011

History Now Essay

From the Editor

Carol Berkin

Most of us rely on written sources in our teaching, but we know there are many mediums and genres through which the story of our nation can be told. In this issue, History Now focuses on one of these: reading our past through the...

Appears in:

45 | American History in Visual Art Summer 2016

History Now Essay

Truman and His Doctrine: Revolutionary, Unprecedented, and Bipartisan

Elizabeth Edwards Spalding

World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In February 1947, the British government privately told the United States that it would no longer be able to guarantee the security and independence of Greece and Turkey. President Harry S. Truman had known this time would come and...

Appears in:

Thomas Edison’s death in October 1931 seemed to mark the passing of an era. Writing in the New York Times Magazine, Waldemar Kaempffert, the editor of a two-volume Popular History of Invention , expressed the common view that Edison...

History Now Essay

Edison’s Laboratory

Paul Israel

Economics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Appears in:

Some 40,000 years from now, give or take a few millennia, someone, somewhere in the universe may find and listen to the Golden Record, NASA’s attempt to describe Earth and its peoples to anyone out there who might be interested. There...

Classroom Resources

Cultural Encounters: Teaching Exploration and Encounter to Students

Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, World History

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

History Now Essay

Bridging the Caribbean: Puerto Rican Roots in Nineteenth-Century America

Virginia Sánchez Korrol

World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In recent years, the media has tended to portray US Latinos of Hispanic Caribbean ancestry as new immigrants, but this characterization ignores the long connections between these immigrants and the United States. And because Puerto...

Appears in:

3 | Immigration Spring 2005

History Now Essay

From The Editor

Carol Berkin

As the editor of History Now, let me welcome you back to another year in the classroom. What better way to start the year than with an issue on The American West? Of course, for many students, mention of "The West" conjures up popular...

Appears in:

9 | The American West Fall 2006

History Now Essay

From The Editor

Carol Berkin

Urbanization is a major theme in modern American history and it is intimately connected to such events as the revolutions in transportation and manufacturing and the expansion of our borders to the Pacific Ocean and the Rio Grande. In...

Appears in:

11 | American Cities Spring 2007

Essay

Jim Crow and the Great Migration

Jonathan Holloway

In September 1895, Booker T. Washington, the head of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, stepped to the podium at the Atlanta Cotton States Exposition and implored white employers to "cast down your bucket where you are" and hire...

History Now Essay

The Dillingham Commission and the “Immigration Question,” 1907−1921

Robert Zeidel

Government and Civics

The Dillingham Commission played a pivotal role in the formation of American immigration policy, notably the establishment of general exclusion as an overarching principle. Created by Congress in 1907 as a compromise between...

Appears in:

52 | The History of US Immigration Laws Fall 2018

History Now Essay

From The Editor

Carol Berkin

Computers, iPods, cell phones, Blackberries . . . Radio, movies, television, videos . . . cars, planes, space shuttles . . . washing machines, dish washers, robotic vacuum cleaners . . . laser surgery, heart transplants, artificial...

Appears in:

In 1865 the Radicals of the Republican Party regarded the Northern victory in the Civil War as a “golden moment” to remake the Republic. The Republicans controlled Congress, the Supreme Court, and, so they thought until Andrew Johnson...

History Now Essay

Reconstructing the West and North

Richard White

Economics, Government and Civics

Appears in:

55 | Examining Reconstruction Fall 2019

History Now Essay

The Puerto Rican Experience in World War I

Harry Franqui-Rivera

Government and Civics

Between 18,000 and 20,000 Puerto Ricans served in the United States Armed Forces during World War I. [1] Puerto Ricans have been serving in the US military since 1899, when Congress authorized the creation of the Battalion of Porto...

Appears in:

53 | The Hispanic Legacy in American History Winter 2019

Spotlight on: Primary Source

William Cullen Bryant opposes the protective tariff, 1876

Economics, Government and Civics

During the Civil War, the United States needed to raise funds urgently. It did so by raising the tariff, which taxed goods imported from other countries. In the days before the national income tax, the United States depended on the...

History Now Essay

America and the China Trade

William R. Sargent

Art, World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

On a quarter-mile strip of land in the bustling city of Canton (Guangzhou), China, trade was conducted between merchants from China and the eastern seaboard of America, beginning in 1784 and lasting until the mid-nineteenth century....

Appears in:

42 | The Role of China in US History Spring 2015

History Now Essay

From The Editor

Carol Berkin

Many of us who grew up in the decades of the Cold War have memories of participating in air raid drills in school, watching Joseph McCarthy and his anti-communist hearings on the grainy black and white of our televisions, waiting...

Appears in:

Overview The United States was transformed in the last decades of the nineteenth century by the industrial revolution. The rapid growth of cities, increase in immigration, expansion of a struggling working class, and concentration of...

Lesson Plan

The Jungle

Literature

8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

History Now Essay

FDR’s First Inaugural Address

Davis W. Houck

Economics, Government and Civics

Several years ago when I was researching a very different subject at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library in Hyde Park, New York, I happened across several archival documents related to FDR’s first inaugural address. As a...

Appears in:

36 | Great Inaugural Addresses Summer 2013

Lesson Plan

The National Bank Debate

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Objective This lesson is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based teaching resources. These resources were developed to enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original texts of historical...

Lesson Plan

Martin Luther King Jr.: His Legacy as Seen Through the Mississippi Summer Freedom Project

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Background Martin Luther King Jr. Day, January 21, is celebrated by Americans each year to remember and recognize the life and work of the man. Martin Luther King Jr., however, represents far more than the contributions of a single...

News

Congratulations to the Summer 2017 History Scholars!

Fifteen college juniors and seniors were chosen for the Gilder Lehrman History Scholar Award based on their exemplary leadership skills, commitment to public service, academic excellence, and demonstrated passion for American history....

History Now Essay

Women’s Leadership in the American Revolution

Rosemarie Zagarri

What did it mean for women to exercise "leadership" in the American Revolution? Before that conflict, the question itself would probably have baffled most American women and men. Living within a staunchly patriarchal society, they...

Appears in:

47 | American Women in Leadership Winter 2017

Spotlight on: Primary Source

The Haymarket Affair, 1886

Economics, Government and Civics

The Haymarket Affair is considered a watershed moment for American labor history, at a time when fears about the loyalties and activities of immigrants, anarchists, and laborers became linked in the minds of many Americans. On May 3,...

About page

Grady Durham

Grady Durham founded Monticello Associates in 1992. He leads the firm’s efforts in the areas of asset allocation, investment policy development, investment manager evaluation, and performance measurement. A frequent speaker around the...

History Now Essay

Suggested Resources for George Washington and the French and Indian War from the Archivist

Mary-Jo Kline

For additional information on the broader Seven Years’ War, of which the French and Indian campaigns were only a part, use this recent one-volume study: Baugh, Daniel A. The Global Seven Years War, 1754–1763: Britain and France in a...

Appears in:

Reading 1 It seems to be unfortunately true that the epidemic of world lawlessness is spreading. When an epidemic of physical disease starts to spread, the community approves and joins in a quarantine of the patients in order to...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: World War II

Economics, Government and Civics, World History

Program/Event

Civil War Essay Contest Winners 2000-2010

2010 Winners High School Division First Prize Jacob Fletcher , Eleanor Roosevelt High School, Greenbelt, MD "The Postman: Joseph William Briggs and the Free City Delivery System" Second Prize Geoffrey Andrews , West Morris Central...

About page

Announcing the 2021 Lincoln Prize Finalists

Gettysburg College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History have announced the finalists for the 2021 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize. They are • Alice Baumgartner , South to Freedom: Runaway Slaves to Mexico and the Road to...

News

Summer 2021 Registration Now Open for the Pace–Gilder Lehrman MA in American History

The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and Pace University are pleased to announce that registration for Summer 2021 courses is now open for the Pace–Gilder Lehrman MA in American History . The online program for K–12...

History Now Essay

D-Day or Operation Overlord, June 6, 1944

Antony Beevor

World History

7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

As dawn broke on June 6, 1944, the Allied invasion fleet became visible crossing the choppy waters of the English Channel to France. None of those who took part in D-Day, whether soldier, sailor, or airman, would ever forget the sight...

Appears in:

Maurice Jackson is Associate Professor of History and African American Studies at Georgetown University. He is the author of Let This Voice Be Heard: Anthony Benezet, Father of Atlantic Abolitionism (2009), and the co-editor of...

History Now Essay

Fighting for Democracy in World War I—Overseas and Over Here

Maurice Jackson

Appears in:

57 | Black Voices in American Historiography Summer 2020

46 | African American Soldiers Fall 2016

History Now Essay

The Sixties and Protest Music

Kerry Candaele

Art, Government and Civics

8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Music has always kept company with American wars. During the Revolutionary War, "Yankee Doodle" and many other songs set to reels and dances were sung to keep spirits alive during dark hours. "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," Lincoln...

Appears in:

32 | The Music and History of Our Times Summer 2012

News

Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military History Event Features Two Military Historians in Dialogue

On Monday, November 26, the Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military History was awarded to Cathal Nolan for his book The Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost (Oxford University Press, 2017) at the New-York...

News

Meet the Gilder Lehrman Pop-Up History School Teachers

In these challenging times, we know that everyone is trying their best to keep students engaged in learning. As the leading nonprofit organization dedicated to K–12 history education, the Gilder Lehrman Institute feels a...

History Now Essay

Postwar Taiwan and the USA

Denny Roy

World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Taiwan has been a showcase of liberalization under American encouragement, but also the primary irritant in US-China relations. A large island with a population of twenty-three million located about 100 to 150 miles off the coast of...

Appears in:

42 | The Role of China in US History Spring 2015

Spotlight on: Primary Source

George Washington from Valley Forge on the urgent need for men and supplies, 1777

George Washington’s words in this letter represent a stirring plea for help at the darkest moment of the American Revolution. As few other documents do, this letter illustrates Valley Forge as an icon of American perseverance and...

History Now Essay

From the Editor

Carol Berkin

The Constitution does not spell out the duties or define the powers of a president’s spouse, yet America’s "first ladies" have, from the beginning of our nation, played key roles as public figures. They have set precedents,...

Appears in:

35 | America’s First Ladies Spring 2013

History Now Essay

The World War II Home Front

Allan M. Winkler

Economics, Government and Civics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

World War II had a profound impact on the United States. Although no battles occurred on the American mainland, the war affected all phases of American life. It required unprecedented efforts to coordinate strategy and tactics with...

Appears in:

14 | World War II Winter 2007

History Now Essay

African American Women and the Nineteenth Amendment

Sharon Harley

Government and Civics

Sharon Harley is Associate Professor and former Chair of the African American Studies Department at the University of Maryland, College Park. She and historian Rosalyn Terborg-Penn co-edited the pioneer anthology The Afro-American...

Appears in:

57 | Black Voices in American Historiography Summer 2020

56 | The Nineteenth Amendment and Beyond Spring 2020

Lesson Plan

Alice Paul: Suffragist and Agitator

9, 10, 11, 12

Background The American women’s suffrage movement has always been identified with its two founders, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, whose strong, enthusiastic leadership defined the movement. When they retired from active...

History Now Essay

From the Editor

Carol Berkin

If the Civil War is the most significant event of our national history, the Battle of Gettysburg is surely its most memorable moment. For this issue of History Now, we asked our contributors to provide novel perspectives and new...

Appears in:

37 | Gettysburg: Insights and Perspectives Fall 2013

History Now Essay

FDR’s Court-Packing Plan: A Study in Irony

Richard G. Menaker

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The Great Depression of the 1930s was the nation’s grimmest economic crisis since the founding of the American republic. After the 1932 elections, Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced a series of innovative remedies—his New Deal—but the...

Appears in:

15 | The Supreme Court Spring 2008

History Now Essay

"I, Too": Langston Hughes’s Afro-Whitmanian Affirmation

Steven Tracy

Literature

6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

To read the text and hear the poem click here. Whatever we say, whatever we write, whatever we do, we never act alone. Just as John Donne meditated upon the notion that "no man is an island," so, too, in the twentieth century did T.S....

Appears in:

39 | American Poets, American History Spring 2014

Lesson Plan

Lincoln’s First and Second Inaugural Addresses

Government and Civics

6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Objective This lesson on President Lincoln’s two inaugural addresses is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based units. These units enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original texts of...

History Now Essay

The Vietnam War and the My Lai Massacre

George Herring

The murder of more than 400 Vietnamese civilians in My Lai and My Khe by US soldiers on March 16, 1968, stands as one of the darkest days in the nation’s military history. It left an indelible stain on America’s record in Vietnam, the...

Appears in:

Henry Kissinger is one of the most controversial figures to emerge from the Cold War. He participated as a soldier, scholar, and statesman in many of the most significant policy debates of the period. He acted as an intellectual,...

History Now Essay

Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy

Jeremi Suri

World History

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Appears in:

To celebrate the launch of Gilder Lehrman’s new website, we at History Now thought it appropriate to provide readers with a special, expanded issue. We chose for our topic one of the central themes in our national history: the causes...

History Now Essay

From the Editor

Carol Berkin

Appears in: