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News

A More Perfect Union (AMPU) a Four-Year Success in Rural and Urban California

In September 2017, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History was the sole recipient of a grant from the US Department of Education to implement A More Perfect Union (AMPU), a professional development program for teachers...

Lesson Plan

The Cold War: Discussing the Speech of President Kennedy in 1963

Government and Civics, Literature, World History

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

Introduction The Cold War is the term for the rivalry between the two blocs of contending states that emerged following the Second World War. It was a series of confrontations played out on the world stage between the non-Communist...

News

Scholar’s Blog - Aaron Sheehan-Dean

February 23, 1863: Vallandigham Denounces the Draft What is the proper way for Americans to express political opposition to an ongoing war? How can the party out of power maintain its own identity without appearing disloyal? Can party...

History Now Essay

The Marshall and Taney Courts: Continuities and Changes

R. B. Bernstein

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Though the first holders of the job thought it more a burden than a position of honor or power, the office of chief justice of the United States has a pivotal role in the American constitutional system, thanks mainly to John Marshall ...

Appears in:

15 | The Supreme Court Spring 2008

History Now Essay

The Form and Function of the Supreme Court

Charles Anthony Smith

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The Supreme Court often stands at the center of the storm of politics. High profile cases over individual liberties, federal or state power, or even presidential elections can dominate the news and attention of the public. The close...

Appears in:

15 | The Supreme Court Spring 2008

History Now Essay

The Making of the President: Abraham Lincoln and the Election of 1860

Harold Holzer

Government and Civics

Perhaps the most surprising thing to modern Americans about the 1860 presidential campaign—the historic election that sent Abraham Lincoln to the White House—is how little actual campaigning the presidential candidates that year did....

Appears in:

33 | Electing a President Fall 2012

History Now Essay

Betty Ford: A New Kind of First Lady

Gil Troy

Americans never elected Gerald R. Ford president or even vice president—Richard Nixon appointed him after Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned in October 1973. Today, Ford’s brief presidency is often forgotten. Yet during Ford’s two...

Appears in:

35 | America’s First Ladies Spring 2013

History Now Essay

Sharing a Civil War Photo with a Million People

Garry E. Adelman

Art

A tree falls on a shed and all but destroys it. A passing student notices that from a certain angle the portion of the shed still standing looks just like a man on horseback. It is uncanny; a talented artist could hardly do better....

Appears in:

37 | Gettysburg: Insights and Perspectives Fall 2013

History Now Essay

The Importance of Studying Disasters: Ideas and Advice for the Classroom

Liz Skilton

I was sitting in Algebra when I heard the news that an incident had occurred in New York City. My history teacher, Mr. Turner, appeared suddenly at the door—interrupting the Pythagorean theorem lesson—to say that something was...

Appears in:

58 | Resilience, Recovery, and Resurgence in the Wake of Disasters Fall 2020

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

News

Ohio History Teacher of the Year Interviewed about WWII Fallen Soldiers Project

Joseph Boyle, the 2019 Ohio Teacher of the Year, has, since 2014 led a powerful teaching unit with his students at Morrison R. Waite High School in Toledo. Using only primary source documents, Boyle’s students reconstruct the lives of...

History Now Essay

"If Ever Two Were One": Anne Bradstreet's "To My Dear and Loving Husband"

Charlotte Gordon

Literature

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Anne Bradstreet is famous for being the first American poet. But she did not think of herself as either "first" or "American." She did not even think of herself as a poet. We would call her a Puritan, a term adopted by their enemies...

Appears in:

39 | American Poets, American History Spring 2014

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

News

The Emancipation Proclamation: Raising money for sick and wounded soldiers

The Emancipation Proclamation stands as the single most important accomplishment of Lincoln’s presidency. The preliminary proclamation, announced on September 22, 1862, served as a warning for Southern states that if they did not...

News

Nine Ways to Assign Extra Credit with the Gilder Lehrman Institute

We know that teachers are facing extraordinary challenges this school year and the Gilder Lehrman Institute would like to help carry the load by being an aid to teachers who are trying to keep their most committed students engaged....

News

The Gilder Lehrman Institute Presents Alysha Butler with the 2019 National History Teacher of the Year Award

On October 2, 2019, in the Grand Ballroom at the Yale Club in New York City, Alysha Butler of McKinley Technology High School in Washington DC was presented with the 2019 National History Teacher of the Year Award. At the event,...

History Now Essay

The Jewish Health Professionals of Cincinnati

Frederic Krome

Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

In studies of the significance of the Cincinnati Jewish community within the wider context of American Jewish history, the development of the Reform movement, and Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise’s oversight in establishing the iconic Plum...

Appears in:

71 | The Jewish Legacy in American History Summer 2024

Lesson Plan

Framing Soo Hoo Lem Kong

6, 7, 8

Overview Students will examine immigration documents and interviews in order to describe the experience of Chinese immigrants entering California in the 1900s. Students will use depth and complexity icons as tools to develop higher...

History Now Essay

From the Editor

Carol Berkin

Once again, presidential politics is in the air—and on the television. And on the radio. And on the web, on billboards, and bumper stickers. In a presidential election year, it seems as if our nation’s full attention is focused on the...

Appears in:

33 | Electing a President Fall 2012

Lesson Plan

Our Constitution: The Bill of Rights (Grades 10–12)

Government and Civics

10, 11, 12

View the Constitution in the Gilder Lehrman Collection by clicking here and here . For a resource on the variations between a draft and the final version of the United States Constitution click here . For additional resources click...

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

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Progressive Reform and the Trusts

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 The dull, purblind folly of the very rich men; their greed and arrogance . . . and the corruption in business and politics, have tended to produce a very unhealthy condition of excitement and irritation in the popular mind,...

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...

Lesson Plan

Transatlantic Trade, A Symbiotic Relationship

World History

1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Background Crates full of rice slip and slide across the floorboards as the ship rocks back and forth. The ship looks insignificant in the vastness of the ocean. Air scented with tobacco wafts through the cracks in the ceiling of the...

Essay

"That glorious consummation": Lincoln on the Abolition of Slavery

Allen C. Guelzo

Government and Civics

"That man who thinks Lincoln calmly sat down and gathered his robes about him, waiting for the people to call him, has a very erroneous knowledge of Lincoln," wrote Abraham Lincoln’s long-time law partner, William Henry Herndon. "He...

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