Site Search

90,978 items

Essay

Imperial Rivalries

Peter C. Mancall

World History

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

When Christopher Columbus made his plans to sail westward across the Atlantic, he first set off across Europe to find sponsors. His brother Bartholomew went to the court of the English King Henry VII (who turned him down, much to the...

History Now Essay

Inventing American Diplomacy

R. B. Bernstein

Government and Civics, World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In 1783, the expatriate artist Benjamin West began what became his most memorable painting, "The Peacemakers." West intended to produce a group portrait of the diplomats whose negotiations resulted in the Treaty of Paris of 1783, but...

Appears in:

21 | The American Revolution Fall 2009

History Now Essay

The Spectacles of 1912

Patricia O’Toole

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The presidential election year of 1912 began with one unprecedented spectacle, ended with another, and sandwiched a few more in between. In February, former president Theodore Roosevelt stunned the country by challenging President...

Appears in:

17 | Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Era Fall 2008

History Now Essay

The Puritans and Dissent: The Cases of Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson

Francis J. Bremer

Religion and Philosophy

Every society constructs what one scholar has called a "perimeter fence," which sets the boundary between actions and beliefs that are acceptable and those that are not. [1] This is as true of the United States in the twentieth...

Appears in:

29 | Religion in the Colonial World Fall 2011

History Now Essay

African American Religious Leadership and the Civil Rights Movement

Clarence Taylor

Religion and Philosophy

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Clarence Taylor is Professor Emeritus of Modern African American History, Religion, and Civil Rights at Baruch College, The City University of New York. His books include The Black Churches of Brooklyn (1994), Knocking at Our Own Door...

Appears in:

8 | The Civil Rights Movement Summer 2006

57 | Black Voices in American Historiography Summer 2020

History Now Essay

Native American Discoveries of Europe

Daniel K. Richter

Economics, Geography, World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Native Americans discovered Europe at the same time Europeans discovered America. As far as we know, no birch bark canoes caught the gulf stream to Glasgow, and no Native American conquistadores planted flags at Florence, but just as...

Appears in:

12 | The Age Of Exploration Summer 2007

History Now Essay

Teaching American History to Muslim Exchange Students

Ted Widmer

Government and Civics

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

Everyone knows that the election of 2004 marked a pivotal turning point for the American people. That point was brought home forcefully by the experience of teaching American history that summer to a group of twenty-one young Muslim...

Appears in:

1 | Elections Fall 2004

History Now Essay

Coming to America: Ellis Island and New York City

Vincent J. Cannato

Economics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

New York City is a kind of archipelago, a Philippines on the Hudson River. Only one borough—the Bronx—is actually attached to the American mainland. There are some forty islands in the city beyond Manhattan, Staten Island, and Long...

Appears in:

11 | American Cities Spring 2007

History Now Essay

Why We the People? Citizens as Agents of Constitutional Change

Linda R. Monk

Government and Civics

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

"We the People?" asked Patrick Henry at the Virginia convention to ratify the new Constitution in 1788. "Who authorized them to speak the language of ‘We the People,’ instead of ‘We the States’?" [1] Looking back, we can be grateful...

Appears in:

13 | The Constitution Fall 2007

Essay

The Roaring Twenties

Joshua Zeitz

The 1920s heralded a dramatic break between America’s past and future. Before World War I the country remained culturally and psychologically rooted in the nineteenth century, but in the 1920s America seemed to break its wistful...

History Now Essay

The Impact of Title IX

Barbara Winslow

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

One of the great achievements of the women’s movement was the enactment of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The law states: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be...

Appears in:

23 | Turning Points in American Sports Spring 2010

Essay

Populism and Agrarian Discontent

Michael Kazin

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Today, the Gilded Age evokes thoughts of “robber baron” industrialists, immigrants toiling long hours in factories for little pay, massive strikes that were often put down by force, and political corruption in both big cities and the...

Essay

Exploration

Felipe Fernández-Armesto and Benjamin Sacks

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

We often speak of America as "unknown," except to its own inhabitants, in the Middle Ages. But so, in a sense, was Europe, which hardly figured on the maps and in the calculations of the immensely richer, more populous, and...

History Now Essay

Immigrant Fiction: Exploring an American Identity

Phillip Lopate

Literature

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Strictly speaking, all American novels (with the exception of those written by Native Americans) are in one way or another immigrant fiction. But we usually think of immigrant fiction more narrowly as the encounter of the foreign-born...

Appears in:

3 | Immigration Spring 2005

History Now Essay

The Seneca Falls Convention: Setting the National Stage for Women’s Suffrage

Judith Wellman

Government and Civics, Religion and Philosophy

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

On July 19–20, 1848, about 300 people met for two hot days and candlelit evenings in the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York, in the first formal women’s rights convention ever held in the United States. Sixty-eight women ...

Appears in:

7 | Women's Suffrage Spring 2006

Essay

Facing the New Millennium

Michael Flamm

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

In 1941, on the eve of Pearl Harbor, Time magazine publisher Henry Luce predicted that the twentieth century would become known as the "American Century." By many measures he was correct. During the next sixty years, the United States...

History Now Essay

Thomas Jefferson and Deism

Peter S. Onuf

Of all the American founders, Thomas Jefferson is most closely associated with deism, the Enlightenment faith in a rational, law-governed world created by a "supreme architect" or cosmic "clockmaker." For many modern Americans, deist...

Appears in:

29 | Religion in the Colonial World Fall 2011

History Now Essay

Abolition and Religion

Robert Abzug

Religion and Philosophy

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

One verse of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," the unofficial anthem of the Northern cause, summarized the Civil War’s idealized meaning: In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that...

Appears in:

5 | Abolition Fall 2005

History Now Essay

San Francisco and the Great Earthquake of 1906

Robert W. Cherny

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

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

At the beginning of the twentieth century, San Francisco still reigned as the major seaport on the Pacific coast. The city traced its origins to 1776, when a Spanish expedition planted a mission and a military post at the end of the...

Appears in:

11 | American Cities Spring 2007

History Now Essay

Sisters of Suffrage: British and American Women Fight for the Vote

Barbara Winslow

Economics, Government and Civics, World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The dominant narrative of the entire women’s suffrage movement begins and ends with the United States and Britain. Hundreds of thousands of women petitioned, canvassed, lobbied, demonstrated, engaged in mass civil disobedience, went...

Appears in:

7 | Women's Suffrage Spring 2006

History Now Essay

Medical Advances in Nineteenth-Century America

Bert Hansen

Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

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...

Appears in:

10 | Nineteenth Century Technology Winter 2006

History Now Essay

Why Immigration Matters

Thomas Kessner

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

It is difficult today to recapture the iconoclasm signaled by Oscar Handlin’s opening words to his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Uprooted more than fifty years ago: "Once I thought to write a history of the immigrants in America. Then I...

Appears in:

3 | Immigration Spring 2005

Essay

Postwar Politics and the Cold War

Jeremi Suri

The late summer of 1945 marked the height of American power. The country that had suffered from dust bowls, economic depression, and a devastating attack on its Pacific naval fleet in the last decade-and-a-half emerged as the dominant...

History Now Essay

The History of Women’s Baseball

Kerry Candaele

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

From 1943 to 1954, "America’s pastime" was a game played in skirts. At its peak in 1948, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) fielded ten teams in midwestern towns like Rockford, Illinois (Peaches); South Bend,...

Appears in:

23 | Turning Points in American Sports Spring 2010

History Now Essay

Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy

Jeremi Suri

World History

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

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,...

Appears in:

27 | The Cold War Spring 2011

History Now Essay

Getting Ready to Lead a World Economy: Enterprise in Nineteenth-Century America

Joyce Appleby

Economics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

When Jefferson won the presidency in 1801, his victory had an economic impact as great as the political one. The establishment of the new government under the Constitution twelve years earlier had laid the foundation for an integrated...

Appears in:

24 | Shaping the American Economy Summer 2010

Essay

Immigration and Migration

Hasia Diner

Economics, Government and Civics

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

The United States emerged in the last third of the nineteenth century as an industrial powerhouse, producing goods that then circulated around the world. People in distant countries used American-made clothes, shoes, textiles,...

Essay

The Progressive Era to the New Era, 1900-1929

Daniel T. Rodgers

Government and Civics

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

We should not accept social life as it has "trickled down to us," the young journalist Walter Lippmann wrote soon after the twentieth century began. "We have to deal with it deliberately, devise its social organization, . . . educate...

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

History Now Essay

The Righteous Revolution of Mercy Otis Warren

Ray Raphael

Government and Civics, Literature, Religion and Philosophy

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Seven months after British Regulars marched on Lexington and Concord, three months after King George III declared the colonies in a state of rebellion, and a month after British artillery leveled the town of Falmouth (now Portland,...

Appears in:

21 | The American Revolution Fall 2009

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

Lockean Liberalism and the American Revolution

Isaac Kramnick

Government and Civics, Religion and Philosophy

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The town of Boston took an important step toward rebellion on November 20, 1772, by adopting a declaration of "the Rights of the Colonists" drafted by Sam Adams, the firebrand of the Revolution. Adams summarized these "Natural rights"...

Appears in:

21 | The American Revolution Fall 2009

History Now Essay

Rethinking Huck

Steven Mintz

Literature

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

A classic, Mark Twain quipped, is "a book which people praise and don't read." The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the rare classic that is highly praised and widely read. Following World War II, it became required reading in most...

Appears in:

16 | Books That Changed History Summer 2008

History Now Essay

Born Modern: An Overview of the West

Richard White

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

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The present American West is a creation of history rather than geography. There has never been a single West; American Wests come and go. At various times places now considered as thoroughly eastern as western Pennsylvania, western...

Appears in:

9 | The American West Fall 2006

History Now Essay

The Great Debate: Kennedy, Nixon, and Television in the 1960 Race for the Presidency

Liette Gidlow

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

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Imagine the setting. Since soon after the close of World War II, the United States had been engaged in a heated Cold War with the Communist Soviet Union. Within the previous four years, Soviet tanks and troops had crushed a democratic...

Appears in:

1 | Elections Fall 2004

History Now Essay

Unruly Americans in the Revolution

Woody Holton

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Nearly all of the blockbuster biographies of the Founding Fathers—whether the subject is George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, or John Adams—portray the vast majority of ordinary Americans as mere bystanders. Although the authors of...

Appears in:

21 | The American Revolution Fall 2009

Essay

The Sixties

Harvard Sitkoff

Forty years after it ended, the 1960s remains the most consequential and controversial decade of the twentieth century. It would dawn bright with hope and idealism, see the liberal state attain its mightiest reforms and reach, and end...

History Now Essay

Reconstruction and the Battle for Woman Suffrage

Ellen DuBois

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The origins of the American women’s suffrage movement are commonly dated from the public protest meeting held in Seneca Falls, New York, in July 1848. At that historic meeting, the right of women to join with men in the privileges and...

Appears in:

7 | Women's Suffrage Spring 2006

Essay

The Great Depression and World War II, 1929-1945

David M. Kennedy

Economics, Government and Civics

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

Across the long arc of American history, three moments in particular have disproportionately determined the course of the Republic’s development. Each respectively distilled the experience and defined the historical legacy of a...

History Now Essay

The United States and China during the Cold War

Warren I. Cohen

World History

The Cold War Comes to Asia In the closing years of World War II, American military and diplomatic representatives in China recognized that civil war was likely to erupt between the Nationalist-controlled government headed by Chiang...

Appears in:

27 | The Cold War Spring 2011

History Now Essay

From These Honored Dead: Memorial Day and Veterans Day in American History

Kenneth T. Jackson

Government and Civics

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

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the prop osition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether...

Appears in:

4 | American National Holidays Summer 2005

History Now Essay

The Reconstruction Amendments: Official Documents as Social History

Eric Foner

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

On June 13, 1866, Thaddeus Stevens, the Republican floor leader in the House of Representatives and the nation’s most prominent Radical Republican, rose to address his Congressional colleagues on the Fourteenth Amendment to the...

Appears in:

2 | Primary Sources on Slavery Winter 2004

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...

History Now Essay

A New Era of American Indian Autonomy

Ned Blackhawk

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The American West is home to the majority of America’s Indian Nations, and, within the past generation, many of these groups have achieved unprecedented political and economic gains. Numerous reservation communities now manage...

Appears in:

9 | The American West Fall 2006

Essay

The Great Depression, the New Deal, and World War II in the American West

Elliott West

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

The Great Depression and World War II, far and away the worst economic calamity and the costliest foreign war in American history, profoundly affected every part of the United States. Changes in the West were especially obvious. From...

History Now Essay

Avast! How the US Built a Navy, Sent In the Marines, and Faced Down the Barbary Pirates

Christopher L. Miller

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

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In October 1784, an American merchant vessel, the Betsey , was on a trade run from her home port of Boston to Tenerife in the Canary Islands when she was approached by an un-flagged vessel. Suddenly, "sabers grasped between their...

Appears in:

20 | High Crimes and Misdemeanors Summer 2009

History Now Essay

Lincoln’s Interpretation of the Civil War

Eric Foner

Government and Civics, Literature, Religion and Philosophy

10, 11, 12, 13+

On March 4, 1865, Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office for the second time. The setting itself reflected how much had changed in the past four years. When Lincoln delivered his First Inaugural Address, the new Capitol dome, which...

Appears in:

26 | New Interpretations of the Civil War Winter 2010

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:

10 | Nineteenth Century Technology Winter 2006

Essay

The Age of Reagan

Gil Troy

The Reagan Revolution of the 1980s sought to change Americans’ attitudes toward their country, their government, and the world, as the United States emerged from the 1970s. Ronald Reagan entered the White House in January 1981...

History Now Essay

Race and the American Constitution: A Struggle toward National Ideals

James Oliver Horton

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

James O. Horton was the Benjamin Banneker Professor Emeritus of American Studies and History at George Washington University and historian emeritus of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. He edited,...

Appears in:

13 | The Constitution Fall 2007

57 | Black Voices in American Historiography Summer 2020

History Now Essay

The Filibuster King: The Strange Career of William Walker, the Most Dangerous International Criminal of the Nineteenth Century

T. J. Stiles

Economics, Geography, Government and Civics, World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

On November 8, 1855, on the central plaza of the Nicaraguan city of Granada, a line of riflemen shot General Ponciano Corral, the senior general of the Conservative government. Curiously, the members of the firing squad hailed from...

Appears in:

20 | High Crimes and Misdemeanors Summer 2009

History Now Essay

Cold War, Warm Hearth

Elaine Tyler May

In the summer of 1959, a young couple married and spent their honeymoon in a fallout shelter. Life magazine featured the "sheltered honeymoon" with a photograph of the duo smiling on their lawn, surrounded by dozens of canned goods...

Appears in:

27 | The Cold War Spring 2011

Essay

The Origins of Slavery

Ira Berlin

Geography, World History

5, 6, 7, 8

African American life in the United States has been framed by migrations, forced and free. A forced migration from Africa—the transatlantic slave trade—carried black people to the Americas. A second forced migration—the internal slave...

Essay

Civil War and Reconstruction, 1861-1877

Eric Foner

Government and Civics, World History

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

In 1877, soon after retiring as president of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant, embarked with his wife on a two-year tour of the world. At almost every location, he was greeted as a hero. In England, the son of the Duke of...

History Now Essay

Female Trouble: Andrew Jackson versus the Ladies of Washington

Catherine Allgor

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Andrew Jackson was mad. It was February 1829, a wintry day in Washington, DC, and President-elect Jackson was in a fury about the public’s reaction to his Cabinet announcements. To be fair, Jackson was already angry when he arrived in...

Appears in:

22 | Andrew Jackson and His World Winter 2009

History Now Essay

The New Deal, Then and Now

Alan Brinkley

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

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Well before Barack Obama’s election in 2008, the New Deal was emerging as an instructive model for those trying to understand, and address, what is now known as the "worst financial crisis since the 1930s." But is the New Deal in fact...

Appears in:

19 | The Great Depression Spring 2009

Essay

America the Newcomer: Claiming the Louisiana Purchase

Elliott West

Geography

The Lewis and Clark expedition is rightly considered one of the great American stories. In May of 1804 Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set off by keelboat up the Missouri River with thirty-one men, the "Corps of Discovery," on an...

History Now Essay

A History of the Thanksgiving Holiday

Catherine Clinton

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Thanksgiving stands as one of the most American of holidays, an autumnal ritual fixed in the imagination as honoring the piety and perseverance of the nation’s earliest arrivals during colonial days. But what were the origins of this...

Appears in:

4 | American National Holidays Summer 2005

History Now Essay

Lincoln at Cooper Union

Harold Holzer

Art, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In March 1860, just a few weeks after returning home from his triumphant visit to New York to deliver his Cooper Union address, Lincoln went on the road yet again. He traveled up from Springfield, Illinois, to Chicago to complete...

Appears in:

6 | Lincoln Winter 2005

History Now Essay

The Years of Magical Thinking: Explaining the Salem Witchcraft Crisis

Mary Beth Norton

Geography, Government and Civics, Literature, Religion and Philosophy

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Most Americans’ knowledge of the seventeenth century comes from semi-mythical events such as the First Thanksgiving at Plymouth, Pocahontas purportedly saving Captain John Smith from execution in early Virginia, and Salem witchcraft....

Appears in:

20 | High Crimes and Misdemeanors Summer 2009

Essay

The Age of Jefferson and Madison

Peter S. Onuf

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison both played important roles in the era of the American Revolution. Jefferson was the lead author of the Declaration of Independence that launched the American experiment in republican government;...

History Now Essay

Anti-Slavery before the Revolutionary War

Sylvia R. Frey

Religion and Philosophy

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Anti-slavery is almost as old as slavery itself. Indeed it could easily be argued that the first enslaved person who jumped overboard or led an on-ship rebellion on the Middle Passage launched the anti-slavery movement. The modern...

Appears in:

5 | Abolition Fall 2005

History Now Essay

The Culture of Congress in the Age of Jackson

Joanne B. Freeman

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

During an 1841 debate in the House of Representatives, Edward Stanly of North Carolina said something derogatory about Virginian Henry Wise. A few minutes later, Wise walked over to Stanly’s seat. After some "earnest, and excited...

Appears in:

22 | Andrew Jackson and His World Winter 2009

News

Inside the Vault: Romeo Smith: Slave, Soldier, Freeman

Read a transcript of the certificate and examine an African American’s pay warrant from the Revolutionary War .

News

Inside the Vault: An African American Protests the Fugitive Slave Law, 1850

Read the transcript of Henry Weeden’s note and read an essay about abolition and antebellum reform .

News

Happy Birthday George Washington: On This Day, 1732

George Washington was born on February 22, 1732, in Virginia. To celebrate, enjoy a performance of "One Last Time" from the Broadway musical Hamilton , performed by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Christopher Jackson, Sydney James Harcourt, and...

News

An "Autograph and Something More" from Frederick Douglass

Between 1855 and 1886, Franklin E. McNear collected autographs in his leather-bound, red autograph book . Among the eighty-four signatures are notable historic figures like P.T. Barnum, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Frederick Douglass ....

News

"Bookending" the Twentieth Century

The twentieth century was packed with socio-economic changes in American society. It is often difficult to understand just how different our country was at the beginning of the century. Use the infographic below as you are teaching...

News

Counting Down to Hamilton

There are only six short weeks until the first student matinee of Hamilton on April 13! To celebrate the launch of the program, we are excited to give you a series of posts that offer insight into the life of Alexander Hamilton. Every...

News

Interactive Infographic: Women’s Suffrage through 1920

Looking to celebrate Women’s History Month by teaching women’s suffrage? Take a peek at our new infographic map and explore which states did (and did not) pass women’s suffrage before the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1920....

News

The Boston Massacre: On This Day, March 5

On March 5, 1770, tensions in the American colonies culminated with an armed skirmish between British troops and American colonists in Boston. Although the American Revolution did not begin in earnest until five years later, the...

News

Inside the Vault: The "Long S"

Take a closer look at the first draft of the US Constitution to see an example of the "long S" in print.

News

Remembering "Princess Alice" Roosevelt

Many American presidents are remembered for the landmark laws, amendments, or executive acts they passed while in office. We remember President Lyndon B. Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, or President Franklin D. Roosevelt...

News

Counting Down to Hamilton: Week 5

There are now five weeks until the first student matinee of Hamilton ! This week, we’re continuing our blog series on Alexander Hamilton with Amtrak’s Arrive magazine—the March/April 2016 issue features a story on the student ticket...

News

Ulto & Inst, 18th-Century Abbreviations: Document in a Minute

Take a closer look at George Washington’s letter using 18th-century abbreviations.

News

Counting Down to Hamilton: Week 4

There’s less than one month left until the Hamilton student matinee on April 13! This week, discover Alexander Hamilton in the American Imagination , the newest issue of History Now , Gilder Lehrman’s online journal . In five essays,...

News

Hamilton at the White House

Yesterday, the cast of Hamilton were welcomed to the White House by President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama for a day of events that honored the musical’s groundbreaking qualities and showcased its ability to inspire...

News

Counting Down to Hamilton: Week 3

There are only three short weeks until the first student matinee of Hamilton on April 13! This week, discover a letter written by Alexander Hamilton. When the hotly contested election of 1800 ended in a tie between the two Democratic...

News

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire: On This Day, March 25

On the afternoon of Saturday, March 25, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City caught fire, killing 146 of the 500 employees—mostly young immigrant women and girls . The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory produced women’s...

News

Counting Down to Hamilton: Week 2

We’re almost there—only two more weeks until the first student matinee of Hamilton ! This week, watch Ron Chernow, author of Alexander Hamilton — the biography that inspired the musical — discuss the Founding Father ’ s achievements...

News

Frederick Douglass Book Prize Highlights

Watch highlights from the Frederick Douglass Book Prize ceremony , on February 4. The highlights include remarks by James G. Basker, president of the Gilder Lehrman Institute; David Blight, director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for...

News

Counting Down to Hamilton: Week 1

In exactly one week, the Hamilton Student Education Program launches with its first matinee performance. This 1804 letter was written by Angelica Schuyler Church, Alexander Hamilton’s sister-in-law and close friend, after Hamilton’s...

News

One of the Last Links to the Battle of Little Bighorn Dies

On April 3, 2016, Joseph Medicine Crow, the last living link to the Battle of Little Bighorn , died at the age of 102. Medicine Crow heard firsthand accounts of the 1876 battle from his great uncle White Man Runs Him, who was one of...

News

The Sinking of the Titanic: On This Day, April 15

On the night of April 14–15, 1912, the world’s largest passenger steamship, the RMS Titanic , sank in the Atlantic Ocean after hitting an iceberg during its maiden voyage, with approximately 1,500 people still on board. This letter,...

News

Historians Now: Mourning Lincoln

Martha Hodes’s 2016 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize–winning book Mourning Lincoln is an in-depth look at the national trauma that followed Abraham Lincoln’s death on April 15, 1865. In this video Hodes talks about her extensive research...

News

FDR Dies: On This Day, April 12

He had led the country for more than a dozen years, guiding Americans through the Great Depression and a global war. On April 12, 1945, Franklin Roosevelt, the leader that many Americans had grown up with, died at Warm Springs,...

News

The First Hamilton Student Matinee Is Here!

Today is the Hamilton Education Program ’s first student matinee! 1,300 New York City high school students are participating in the launch of the program, which includes presenting original student performances, having a special Q-and...

News

The AP US History Exam Approaches! Test-Taking Tips!

We’ve got tips on how to tackle all the sections of the AP Exam: Check out the videos from our AP US History Study Guide below!

News

Earth Day: On This Day, April 22

Historian Adam Rome tells the story of a teach-in that sparked an international movement. Find out more about Earth Day events in your area.

News

An Account of the San Francisco Earthquake, 1906

Earthquakes are very much in the news, with devastating events in Ecuador and Japan within the past week. On April 18, 1906, a devastating earthquake, still by far the deadliest in US history, hit San Francisco. Almost immediately,...

News

Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom

Historian Catherine Clinton traces the life and times of the woman whose face will grace the new twenty dollar bill.

News

"The Progressive Era" Traveling Exhibition at New Dorp High School

Thinking of hosting a Gilder Lehrman traveling exhibition at your school? Get some tips for incorporating one of our exhibitions into your curriculum from New Dorp High School in Staten Island, New York! New Dorp High School has...

News

The Second Hamilton Student Matinee Is Today!

The second Hamilton Education Program student matinee is underway! Over 1,200 high school students are having a day of student performances inspired by the musical, a cast Q-and-A session, and a performance of Hamilton. Stay tuned for...

News

Brown v. Board of Education: On This Day, May 17

On May 17, 1954, the US Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas , unanimously ruling that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional. The decision overturned the 1896...

News

Online Treasure: Photogrammar

Many Americans are familiar with at least a few of the haunting images taken at the behest of the federal government during the Great Depression and World War II. Dorothea Lange’s haunting " Migrant Mother " is among the most...

News

Amelia Earhart’s Transatlantic Flight: On This Day, May 20

On this day in 1932 Amelia Earhart took off from Harbor Grace, Newfoundland. Although Earhart aimed for Paris, icy weather forced her to land in a farmer’s pasture in Ireland fifteen hours after takeoff. She became the second person...

News

Indian Removal Act Passed by Congress: On This Day, May 26

The Indian Removal Act was passed by Congress on this day in 1830 and signed by President Andrew Jackson two days later. The act called for the removal of American Indians residing within state borders in the East to a newly created...

News

Contribute to the Veterans History Project

According to the US Veterans Administration, every three minutes a veteran of World War II dies. That means that some 430 memories of that conflict go missing each and every day. You can help preserve important memories of WWII and...

News

Helen Keller Dies: On This Day, June 1

When Helen Keller died on June 1, 1968, the world mourned. The American Federation for the Blind summarized her life: "Her story is, in brief, that of a half-wild creature become a highly intelligent and sensitive citizen with a...

News

D-Day: On This Day, June 6

Seventy-two years ago today Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy, opening a second front. The secrecy surrounding "Operation Overlord" is legendary. In a letter from the Gilder Lehrman Collection written on June 6, 1944,...

Site Search

Stay up to date, and subscribe to our quarterly newsletter.