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58,154 items

Spotlight on: Primary Source

The Monroe Doctrine, 1823

Economics, Geography, Government and Civics, World History

President James Monroe’s 1823 annual message to Congress included a warning to European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere. This portion of the address is known as the Monroe Doctrine. The United States...

Video: Read Along

"i see the rhythm"

Beginning with the roots of Black music in Africa and continuing on to contemporary hip hop, i see the rhythm takes us on a musical journey through time. We are invited to feel the rhythm of work songs on a southern plantation, to...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

William T. Sherman on the western railroads, 1878

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

After Ulysses S. Grant’s election as president, William Tecumseh Sherman, known for leading the "March to the Sea" in the closing months of the Civil War, was appointed commanding general of the United States Army. Headquartered in St...

News

Fredericksburg, Then and Now

by Elena Colón-Marrero, Christopher Newport University Class of 2014 One would think that growing up in a town rich in colonial and Civil War history would inspire an appreciation for that history. My experience living in...

News

Gilder Lehrman Institute Honors Ron Chernow, Drew Gilpin Faust, and Bob Niehaus at 25th Anniversary Gala

The Gilder Lehrman Institute held its 25th Anniversary Gala on Tuesday, May 14, 2019, at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in New York City. In attendance were 300 friends of the Institute; students and teachers; and the evening’s three...

Lesson Plan

Native American Housing

Geography

4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Historical Background American Indians (First Nations in Canada) constructed homes to conform to their needs and environment. Housing for some tribal groups was permanent, while other residences reflected the need to relocate, often...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

Creating the Air Force, 1924

In this July 1924 letter to aviation pioneer and publisher Lester D. Gardner, Brigadier General William "Billy" Mitchell prophesied the coming tide of Japanese militarism. Concerned about Japan’s growing military power in the skies,...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

Panama Canal proposal, 1881

Geography, Government and Civics

In his first address to Congress as President in 1869, Ulysses S. Grant called for the construction of a canal connecting the Pacific and Caribbean through the isthmus of Panama. Believing that such a canal would be a great boon to...

Lesson Plan

Children on the Home Front

World History

2, 3, 4, 5

Overview While American soldiers were fighting abroad, those left at home, including children, contributed to the war effort in many ways. Background Although World War II wasn’t fought on US soil, its effects were deeply felt by all...

History Now Essay

From the Editor

Carol Berkin

During the war for independence, the first major fundraising drive in American history was mounted in Philadelphia. As the two Pennsylvanians who conceived of the drive knew, this effort to raise funds for Washington’s army would...

Appears in:

47 | American Women in Leadership Winter 2017

Lesson Plan

Montgomery to the Supreme Court

9, 10, 11, 12

Overview Students will examine primary source documents and photographs to explain how local events lead to cases being presented before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court upholds laws that protect the rights of all people and...

Lesson Plan

The Great Depression and The New Deal

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Essential Questions What should be the role of government in solving a national crisis? How effective were the responses of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration to the problems of the Great Depression? Objectives Write a Document...

About page

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. Emmy and Peabody Award–winning filmmaker, literary scholar,...

News

Happy Birthday, Henry Knox: On This Day, July 25

Today we say Happy Birthday to Henry Knox, one of the stars of the Gilder Lehrman Collection. Henry grew up in Boston, Massachusetts. When Henry was nine, the family was in serious financial straits. Henry left school to help support...

Essay

September 11, 2001

the National September 11 Memorial & Museum

Government and Civics, World History

K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

"9/11" has emerged as shorthand for the four coordinated terrorist attacks on the United States that took place on September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists from the Islamist extremist group al Qaeda hijacked four...

About page

The John Winthrop Fellowship with a Focus on Colonial History

John Winthrop, a descendent of the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s first governor, John Winthrop, whose 1634 letter describing life in Boston is in the Gilder Lehrman Collection, will fund a $100,000 fellowship called The John Winthrop...

About page

Richard Edelman

Richard Edelman is the president and CEO of Edelman, the world’s largest public relations firm, with 67 offices and 4,800 employees worldwide. Richard was named president and CEO in September 1996. Richard has extensive experience in...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

George Washington and the Newburgh Conspiracy, 1783

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In March of 1783, George Washington faced a serious threat to his authority and to the civil government of the new nation. The Continental Army, based in Newburgh, New York, was awaiting word of peace negotiations between Great...

About page

The Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation Grant Funds Long Island, Brooklyn, Queens, and Greater New York State Gilder Lehrman Affiliate Schools

NEW YORK CITY, January 2021 — The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History (GLI) received a grant for a $1 million endowment gift, to be given over four years, from The Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation. The grant will support...

History Now Essay

The Korean War

Allan R. Millett

World History

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

The Korean War was three different conflicts from the perspective of the disparate groups who fought in it. For North and South Korea, the conflict was a civil war, a struggle with no possible compromise between two competing visions...

Appears in:

31 | Perspectives on America’s Wars Spring 2012

History Now Essay

African American Women in World War II

Maureen Honey

African American women made meaningful gains in the labor force and US armed forces as a result of the wartime labor shortage during the Second World War, but these advances were sharply circumscribed by racial segregation, which was...

Appears in:

46 | African American Soldiers Fall 2016

Spotlight on: Primary Source

Anti-corporate cartoons, ca. 1900

Art, Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

These cartoons illustrate the growing hostility toward the practices of the big businesses that fueled the industrial development of the United States. In "The Protectors of Our Industries" (1883), railroad magnates Jay Gould and...

News

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month: Japanese American Committee for Democracy

May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, recognizing the achievements and contributions of Asians and Pacific Islanders to the history and culture of the United States. Senators Daniel K. Inouye and Spark Matsunaga of Hawaii,...

Lesson Plan

Norwegian Immigration in the Nineteenth Century

Geography, Literature

5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Background For most Norwegians in the nineteenth century, America remained a remote and exotic place until the first immigrants began to write home. These "American letters," which traveled from the immigrants back to former neighbors...

About page

For the Press

Press Releases 2024 Yale and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History Announce 2024 Frederick Douglass Book Prize Winners Craig Symonds Wins the 11th Annual Gilder Lehrman Military History Prize David Waldstreicher Wins 2024...

History Now Essay

His Excellency General Washington

Phillis Wheatley

SIR, I Have taken the freedom to address your Excellency in the enclosed poem, and entreat your acceptance, though I am not insensible of its inaccuracies. Your being appointed by the Grand Continental Congress to be Generalissimo of...

Appears in:

39 | American Poets, American History Spring 2014

History Now Essay

On My Way to War in Iraq

Maurice Decaul

The 1998 US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania were followed by the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole , then of course September 11, 2001. Within two years I was on my way to Iraq. I had met my recruiter six years earlier by...

Appears in:

46 | African American Soldiers Fall 2016

57 | Black Voices in American Historiography Summer 2020

Spotlight on: Primary Source

The Fort Pillow Massacre, 1864

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

"Among the stories of the stormy days of the Republic, few will longer be remembered than the heroic defense and almost utter annihilation of the garrison of Fort Pillow." —Mack J. Leaming, April 1893 On April 12, 1864, fifteen...

About page

Shaiza Rizavi

Shaiza Rizavi is a money manager and managing member at Gilder, Gagnon, Howe & Co., a dual-registered broker-dealer and investment adviser committed to giving individuals who possess long-term patience and fortitude an opportunity...

Program/Event

Civil War Essay Contest Winners 2017

High School Division Click on the title to view a pdf of a winning essay. First Prize Kaylee Kimbrough , Pennsylvania Homeschoolers AP Online, Kitanning, Pennsylvania (based in Greenville, Texas) "‘I Shall Deal at the Other Shop’:...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Manifest Destiny

Economics, Geography, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1: Our manifest destiny [is] to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions. John L. O'Sullivan, 1845 Reading 2: Texas has been absorbed into the Union as the...

News

Eight Inaugural Addresses to Commemorate President’s Day

A president’s inaugural address often reflects the contemporary political, social, and economic climate of the nation. For President’s Day, explore eight presidential inaugural speeches, from George Washington to Barack Obama. How do...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

John Brown’s final speech, 1859

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

On Sunday evening, October 16, 1859, radical abolitionist John Brown led a party of twenty-one men into the town of Harpers Ferry, Virginia, with the intention of seizing the federal arsenal there. Encountering no resistance, Brown’s...

History Now Essay

From the Editor

Carol Berkin

When the newly elected female members of Congress posed for their pictures in 2018, most chose to stand in front of the portrait of Shirley Chisholm. Chisholm, who served from 1969 to 1983, was not only the first African American...

Appears in:

54 | African American Women in Leadership Summer 2019

Lesson Plan

Theodore Roosevelt and Conservation

9, 10, 11, 12

Overview In the early twentieth century, President Theodore Roosevelt was a dynamic force in a relatively new movement known as conservationism. During his presidency, Roosevelt made conservation a major part of his administration. As...

Lesson Plan

The Haymarket Riot

7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

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

Essay

World War I

Jennifer D. Keene

Economics, Government and Civics, World History

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

War swept across Europe in the summer of 1914, igniting a global struggle that would eventually take nine million lives. World War I pitted the Allies (initially composed of Britain, France, Belgium, Serbia, and Russia, and eventually...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

"Food Will Win the War," 1917

Economics, World History

When most people think of wartime food rationing, they often think of World War II. However, civilians were encouraged to do their part for the war effort during World War I as well. This colorful poster by artist Charles E. Chambers...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

A Mirror for the Intemperate, ca. 1830

Government and Civics

The temperance crusade against liquor consumption was a central element of reform movements of the antebellum period. It drew support from middle-class Protestants, skilled artisans, clerks, shopkeepers, free blacks, and Mormons, as...

News

New from the Gilder Lehrman Collection: Fight the Red Menace

As part of our initiative to expand our twentieth-century holdings, the Gilder Lehrman Institute recently acquired a set of anti-communist trading cards from the 1950s. These cards are a dramatic example of the type of propaganda used...

News

In Their Own Words: Brooklyn East Collegiate Students Explore the Civil Rights Era at the Collection

On January 18, 2019, eight students from Brooklyn East Collegiate, a Gilder Lehrman Affiliate School, visited the Gilder Lehrman Collection with their teacher to augment their civil rights knowledge and prepare for their spring break...

History Now Essay

Women's Long Journey for the Vote

Eleanor Clift

Government and Civics

The earliest and most famous expression of the discontent American women felt over their station in life was voiced by Abigail Adams in March 1776 when she urged her husband, the future president John Adams, to “Remember the Ladies, ...

Appears in:

51 | The Evolution of Voting Rights Summer 2018

Spotlight on: Primary Source

Stephen Austin's contract to bring settlers to Texas, 1825

Geography

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In order to settle Texas in the 1820s, the Mexican government allowed speculators, called empresarios, to acquire large tracts of land if they promised to bring in settlers to populate the region and make it profitable. Moses and...

Program/Event

Richard Gilder History Prize

The Gilder Lehrman Institute is pleased to sponsor the Richard Gilder History Prize. This prize serves as an opportunity for Affiliate School teachers to honor a promising and passionate history student in their school. The Richard...

News

Scholar’s Blog - Brooks D. Simpson

MAY 22, 1863: GRANT LAYS SIEGE TO VICKSBURG It had been a long and difficult winter for Ulysses S. Grant. For months his army had struggled in the bayous and swamps around Vicksburg, Mississippi, looking for some way to attack the...

News

Summer 2019 Teacher Seminars, Weeks and 4 and 5

Held at colleges and historic sites across the US and abroad, Gilder Lehrman Teacher Seminars offer teachers daily programs with leading historians, visits to local historic sites, and hands-on work with primary sources. Teachers...

News

New World War II acquisition: Pearl Harbor patriotic poster from 1942

Following the Japanese bombardment of the US Naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, the United States declared war on Japan and Germany and immediately mobilized the country for war. "Remember Dec. 7th!" is a...

About page

Joseph DiMenna

Joseph DiMenna is managing director of Zweig-DiMenna Associates, which is a global investment management firm. He has been the portfolio manager there since he co-founded Zweig-DiMenna Partners with Martin Zweig in 1984. Zweig-DiMenna...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Urban Political Machines

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 An army led by a council seldom conquers: It must have a commander-in-chief who settles disputes, decides in emergencies, inspires fear or attachment. The head of the Ring is such a commander. He dispenses places, rewards...

News

Re-envision Women's History with Professors Carol Berkin and Catherine Clinton

Professors Carol Berkin and Catherine Clinton have revolutionized the field of American women’s history in their academic careers. Berkin struggled against a generation that believed incorrectly that there were no primary sources to...

News

The Health Care Debate in 1951

The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History recently acquired a letter from President Harry Truman to Dr. Channing Frothingham of Boston. In this letter, written in 1951, the President thanked Channing for his support of Truman’s...

Program/Event

Civil War Essay Contest Winners 2015

High School Division Click on the title to view a pdf of a winning essay. First Prize Anjelica Matcho, Bridgewater Raritan High School, Bridgewater, New Jersey "Dethroning King Cotton: The Failed Diplomacy of the Confederacy" Second...

Lesson Plan

The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine

Government and Civics, Literature, World History

7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Spotlight on: Primary Source

Why Black men fought in World War I, 1919

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

During World War I, approximately 370,000 black men in the US military served in segregated regiments and were often relegated to support duties such as digging trenches, transporting supplies, cleaning latrines, and burying the dead....

History Now Essay

Indigenous Americans in World War II: The Navajo Code Talkers

Laura Tohe

In the summer of 1983, my son and I visited my father, Benson Tohe. He and other Navajo Code Talkers had recently been honored in Washington, DC, with a parade and given a medal for their service in World War II. That was the first...

Appears in:

59 | American Indians in Leadership Winter 2021

History Now Essay

Understanding the Burr-Hamilton Duel

Joanne B. Freeman

Without a doubt, the duel between former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton and Vice President Aaron Burr is the most famous duel in American history. On July 11, 1804, the two political rivals met on a dueling ground in...

Appears in:

44 | Alexander Hamilton in the American Imagination Winter 2016

News

Henry Ford Introduces the Minimum Wage: On This Day, January 5

On January 5, 1914, automaker Henry Ford made history by instituting a $5-a-day wage. The move made national news. Five dollars a day constituted double the industry norm—and double the pay of most of Ford’s own employees. At the same...

News

Black Lives in the Founding Era News, Week 12: A Black Patriot's Pay Warrant

The Gilder Lehrman Institute initiative “ Black Lives in the Founding Era ” restores to view the lives and works of a wide array of African Americans in the period 1760 to 1800, drawing on our archive of historical documents and our...

About page

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...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

A patriot’s letter to his loyalist father, 1778

In February 1778, Timothy Pickering Jr. received word from Massachusetts that his father was dying. An adjutant general in George Washington’s Continental Army, Pickering wrote his father this moving letter of farewell on February 23,...

Lesson Plan

Introduction to Imperialism

Overview Students will be introduced to the concept of imperialism, and specifically the three justifications US foreign policy leaders used to justify US Imperialism at the turn of the twentieth century. Warm Up Define Imperialism....

Spotlight on: Primary Source

J. Edgar Hoover on campus unrest, 1970

Government and Civics

In September 1970, J. Edgar Hoover composed an open letter to American students detailing his view on civil unrest at the nation’s colleges and universities and warning against the elements he believed responsible. Hoover opened with...

News

World War II Letters about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

The Warsaw ghetto uprising began on April 19, 1943 w hen the Nazis tried to transport the remaining ghetto population to forced-labor centers and concentration camps. By May 16, 1943, the Germans had killed more than 7,000 Jews and...

News

Kevin Cline on GLI History School's "US Constitution: Looking Backward from 2021 to 1787"

Kevin Cline, who taught the Summer 2020 History School course “The United States, 1492–1865,” returns to History School this spring with “ The US Constitution: Looking Backward from 2021 to 1787 .” This course focuses on key aspects...

Lesson Plan

Religion and Literacy in Colonial New England

Religion and Philosophy

5, 6, 7, 8

Historical Background Puritans believed that reading the Bible was important to achieving salvation and, therefore, teaching children to read was a priority in their colonial centers. The New England Primer , first published in Boston...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

Arguments for educating women, 1735

On May 19, 1735, John Peter Zenger republished this essay in the New-York Weekly Journal. Originally printed in the Guardian , a British periodical, the two-page essay supports the education of women “of Quality or Fortune.” The...

News

Scholar’s Blog - Aaron Sheehan-Dean

April 30, 1863: Hooker Reaches Chancellorsville The bloody Union defeat at Fredericksburg, Virginia, in December 1862 and the aborted "Mud March" along the Rappahannock River the following month demoralized the Army of the Potomac and...

News

A Black Soldier’s Civil War Diary

Written by Stephanie Townrow and Mary Kate Kwasnik. William Woodlin enlisted in the United States Colored Infantry 8th Regiment in October 1863 and kept a journal during his service. Woodlin’s entries describe camp life, his service...

Lesson Plan

The Monroe Doctrine

Government and Civics, World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Lesson Plan

Singing for Freedom

Literature

1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Background In the early 1960s, Mississippi was the poorest state in the nation, with most non-white families living well below the poverty line. Although African Americans made up nearly half of the state's population, few were...

Lesson Plan

Dwight D. Eisenhower's Domestic Leadership

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

Essential Questions What constitutes great presidential leadership? How did Eisenhower demonstrate great leadership through his support of the Federal-Aid Highway Act (1956) and his warning about the growth of the Military-Industrial...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

The Supreme Court upholds national prohibition, 1920

Economics, Government and Civics

After more than a century of activism, the temperance movement achieved its signal victory with the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment to the US Constitution in 1919. The amendment abolished "the manufacture, sale, or...

Lesson Plan

Nonviolent Direct Action at Southern Lunch Counters

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

Background On February 1, 1960, four black students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro, North Carolina, walked into a Woolworth’s store and quietly sat down at the lunch counter. This seemingly...

News

Scholar’s Blog - Brooks D. Simpson

MARCH 9, 1864—ULYSSES S. GRANT IS COMMISSIONED AS LIEUTENANT-GENERAL On March 8, 1864, Ulysses S. Grant and his eldest son, Fred, arrived at Washington, DC. It was the general’s first visit to Washington since 1852, when he had been a...

News

Scholar’s Blog - Brooks D. Simpson

Spotlight on: Primary Source

"America the Beautiful," 1893

In a brief essay that appeared ca. 1925, poet Katharine Lee Bates described her inspiration for writing "America the Beautiful," the poem that would evolve into one of the nation’s best-loved patriotic songs, during a trip to Pike’s...

News

The Gilder Lehrman Institute Hosts Henry Louis Gates, Jr., at Pace University

On Friday, May 31, 2019, the Gilder Lehrman Institute and Pace University hosted a book talk and screening with Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and director of the Hutchins Center for...

News

NPS to Establish Manhattan Project Park

What was once the biggest secret in America is being commemorated in public—building the bomb. The National Park Service and the Department of Energy announced last week the establishment of three national historic parks at Manhattan...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

Sir Francis Drake’s attack on St. Augustine, 1586

Economics, World History

Five years after leading the first English circumnavigation of the globe in 1577–1580, Sir Francis Drake led a raid against Spanish settlements in the Caribbean including Santiago, Santo Domingo, and Cartagena, as well as St....

Spotlight on: Primary Source

Temperance movement cartoon: The Drunkard’s Progress, 1826

Art

Numerous reform movements to improve society sprang up in the United States in the first half of the nineteenth century. The temperance movement attracted reformers who identified excessive drinking as the principal cause of domestic...

About page

David McCullough

David McCullough (1933–2022) was widely acclaimed as a “master of the art of narrative history” and “a matchless writer.” He was twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize and twice winner of the National Book Award, and received the...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

Dinner with the nuclear family, 1950

Art

The threat of invasion and subversion in the Cold War era led Americans to seek consensus and conformity, in politics and in culture. The rise of consumer culture in the same period, driven by an economic boom, a population surge, and...

News

Rosa Parks Refuses to Move: On This Day, December 1

On December 1, 1955, after a long day of work as a seamstress, Rosa Parks boarded the Cleveland Avenue bus in Montgomery, Alabama, and took a seat. Parks, a black woman, took a seat in the first row of seats in the rear "colored...

News

EduHam at Home Announced in a Washington Post Feature Article

The Washington Post announced the EduHam at Home program on April 21, 2020, with a feature article by theater critic Peter Marks. Along with exploring the development of EduHam itself, the article highlights Gilder Lehrman Institute...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

John Kennedy compares US and Soviet military power, 1953

On October 16, 1953, Democratic Senator John F. Kennedy spoke at an executive meeting of the American Legion at the organization’s national headquarters in Indianapolis, Indiana. Addressing members of the United States’ largest...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

A report on the reaction to the Stamp Act, 1765

Government and Civics, World History

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. It required the colonists to pay a tax, represented by a stamp, on various papers,...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1863

Government and Civics

In 1621, settlers in Massachusetts celebrated what has come to be regarded as the first thanksgiving in the New World. On October 3, 1789, George Washington issued a proclamation creating the first Thanksgiving Day designated by the...

News

Washington Dodge: Titanic Survivor, April 1912

One hundred years ago this weekend, the RMS Titanic sank, claiming the lives over 1,500 passengers and crew. In this account, Dr. Washington Dodge recounts his tale of survival. Written on board the RMS Carpathia during the three-day...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

Amelia Earhart to her former flight instructor, Neta Snook, 1929

Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

The first decades of the twentieth century brought a golden age of aviation. During this exciting period, many pioneering women defied traditional female roles to become pilots. Amelia Earhart is the most famous of this group of...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

A Jamestown settler describes life in Virginia, 1622

Economics, Geography

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

The first English settlers in Jamestown, Virginia, who arrived in 1607, were eager to find gold and silver. Instead they found sickness and disease. Eventually, these colonists learned how to survive in their new environment, and by...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

Selling World War I: "Buy Liberty Bonds!" 1917-1919

Government and Civics

When the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917, it needed funds to support the war effort. The Civil War had demonstrated that simply printing more currency would lead to inflation and economic trouble. During World War...

News

The 54th Massachusetts Regiment in the Gilder Lehrman Collection

The 54th Regiment from Massachusetts, composed of volunteers, was the first African American regiment organized by the Union Army during the American Civil War. It is perhaps best known for leading the charge on Fort Wagner in...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

A frightening mission over Iwo Jima, 1945

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

Lieutenant Bob Stone served as a bombardier in the 431st Bomb Squadron (Heavy), 7th United States Army Air Force in the Pacific. This Spotlight is part of a series of documents detailing the experience of airmen in World War II. Click...

News

Washington and Lee University Professor Lucas Morel’s “Race and Rights in America” Available as a Self-Paced Course

The Gilder Lehrman Institute is now offering three new Self-Paced Courses with distinguished professors Carol Berkin, Lucas Morel, and Michael Neiberg, perfect for summer professional development and general interest. Each course,...

News

Explore Alexander Hamilton’s World with New GLI Resources

Since the introduction of the Hamilton Education Program more than a year ago, there have been a staggering 22 student matinees in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. Before attending a Hamilton matinee and enjoying a day of student...

News

Homer Plessy’s Groundbreaking Ride: On This Day, June 7

On June 7, 1892, New Orleans native Homer Plessy purposely violated the Louisiana separate car law in order to bring the issue of segregation to the Supreme Court. Plessy was chosen for this action by the Comité des Citoyens—a ...

News

Summer PD: Self-Paced Courses

Summer is a great time for teachers to take a Self-Paced Course and earn professional development credit while picking up content knowledge and pedagogical skills. Each Self-Paced Course is equivalent to 15 PD credit hours and can be...

News

New, Free Family Website Subscription Provides Resources and Guidance for Remote Learning

In these months of remote learning, parents and family members, who are taking on the role of teacher while classroom teachers strive to construct meaningful remote lessons, need resources, advice, and guidance for their kids. We at...

About page

Robert H. Niehaus

Robert H. Niehaus is the chairman and founder of Greenhill Capital Partners LLC. Prior to joining Greenhill, Niehaus spent seventeen years at Morgan Stanley & Co., where he was a managing director. Niehaus is also chairman of...

Video

Nature, Culture, and Native Americans

Geography, Government and Civics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Daniel Wildcat is a Yuchi member of the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma and Director of the American Indian Studies Program at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas. He discusses the importance of distinguishing between...

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