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News

Half a Century after The Feminine Mystique

Today is the anniversary of the publication of the groundbreaking book The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan in 1963. Debunking the idea of the feminine mystique which glorified the role of women as homemakers as a myth, which has "...

News

Fall 2020 Registration Now Open for the Pace–Gilder Lehrman MA in American History Program

The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and Pace University are pleased to announce that registration for the Fall 2020 courses is now open for the online Master of Arts in American History for K–12 teachers affiliated with...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

Indenture agreement, 1742

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

Colonial Americans engaged in many forms of unfree labor, with great numbers of youths moving away from their families to become servants or apprentices. The terms of their service were spelled out in contracts called indentures,...

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2020 Winter Newsletter

Dear Teachers, Supporters, and Friends of the Gilder Lehrman Institute, I greet you at the end of a very successful 2019, looking forward to more in 2020. We have reached more than 24,000 Affiliate Schools in all fifty states and in...

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

News

Elbridge Gerry and the Original Gerrymander

Elbridge Gerry —signer of the Declaration of Independence, member of the Constitutional Convention ( follow the links to documents by and about Gerry in the Gilder Lehrman Collection ), congressman , diplomat , governor, and vice...

History Now Essay

Making a Film about Alexander Hamilton

Muffie Meyer

A few years ago, my colleagues and I made a documentary, Alexander Hamilton , for the Public Television series American Experience . When it was completed, we did a lot of screenings, interviews, and Q&As for all kinds of...

Appears in:

44 | Alexander Hamilton in the American Imagination Winter 2016

Classroom Resources

Historical Context: The Post-World War I Red Scare

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The end of World War I was accompanied by a panic over political radicalism. Fear of bombs, Communism, and labor unrest produced a “Red Scare.” In Hammond, Indiana, a jury took two minutes to acquit the killer of an immigrant who had...

About page

S. Andrew Banks

Andrew Banks is the co-founder of Boston-based ABRY Partners, a leading private equity firm focused on the media and communications industry, where he served as chairman from 1989 to 2012. Prior to founding ABRY, Banks was a partner...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

The Sedition Act, 1798

Government and Civics

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

On August 14, 1798, the Columbian Centinel , a Boston newspaper aligned with the Federalist Party, printed this copy of the Sedition Act. It was the last in a series of legislation known as the Alien and Sedition Acts passed by the...

History Now Essay

From the Editor

Our Summer 2017 issue looks at the two great musical traditions that come out of the African American culture of the South: jazz and the blues. These uniquely American genres are known throughout the world and, although they began...

Appears in:

48 | Jazz, the Blues, and American Identity Summer 2017

About page

Edward L. Ayers

Edward Ayers is university professor of the humanities and president emeritus at the University of Richmond as well as former Dean of Arts and Sciences at the University of Virginia. He has received the Bancroft and Lincoln Prizes for...

History Now Essay

Women and the Great Depression

Susan Ware

Economics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In 1933 Eleanor Roosevelt’s It’s Up to the Women exhorted American women to help pull the country through its current economic crisis, the gravest it had ever faced: "The women know that life must go on and that the needs of life must...

Appears in:

19 | The Great Depression Spring 2009

History Now Essay

Modern Women Persuading Modern Men: The Nineteenth Amendment and the Movement for Woman Suffrage, 1916–1920

Jonathan Soffer

Government and Civics

Today we take women’s suffrage for granted, but many activists of the nineteenth century, including Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, struggled their whole lives for the vote, and did not live to see it. As a presidential...

Appears in:

30 | American Reform Movements Winter 2012

Spotlight on: Primary Source

Lucy Knox on the home front during the Revolutionary War, 1777

Like many others before and after her, Lucy Knox performed a continuous juggling act as a busy wife and mother. Born into an aristocratic family, she had the advantage of a good education. At the age of seventeen she was disowned by...

News

Ulysses S. Grant at West Point, 1839

The Gilder Lehrman Collection includes a letter and a painting by Ulysses S. Grant when he was a cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. These unique items reveal Grant as the equivalent of a modern-day...

Essay

The United States and the Caribbean, 1877–1920

Jason Colby

Between 1877 and 1920, the United States’ relationship with the Caribbean region underwent a profound change, which was closely tied to the transformation of the United States to an industrial and imperial power. Although the Civil...

News

Author Colin Calloway Wins 2019 George Washington Prize

Author and historian Colin Calloway has won the coveted George Washington Prize, including an award of $50,000, for his new book, The Indian World of George Washington: The First President, the First Americans, and the Birth of the...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

The Civil War and early submarine warfare, 1863

Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

Civil War combat foreshadowed modern warfare with the introduction of the machine gun, repeater rifles, and trench warfare, and the use of trains to quickly move troops. However, one of the most celebrated tactical innovations of the...

Lesson Plan

The Battle over the Bank: Hamilton v. Jefferson

Government and Civics

6, 7, 8

Background After months of battling and compromises, the US Constitution was finally sent to Congress by the Constitutional Convention on September 17, 1787. Through the ratification process and the first decade under the new...

History Now Essay

Creating Opportunity: My Fight for Social Justice and Advice for Young Women Today

Harriet Karr-McDonald

Government and Civics

I never expected to be a leader. It’s hard to imagine now, but I grew up during a time when there were few opportunities for women in the workplace, other than being a man’s secretary. Unlike most of my peers, I was extremely...

Appears in:

47 | American Women in Leadership Winter 2017

History Now Essay

The Zimmermann Telegram and American Entry into World War I

Michael S. Neiberg

World History

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

The fact that the telegram before him bore Arthur Zimmermann’s name made its contents that much harder for Walter Hines Page to believe. Page was the American ambassador to Great Britain and on a cold London morning in late February...

Appears in:

31 | Perspectives on America’s Wars Spring 2012

Lesson Plan

Founding Fathers: Franklin, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Madison

Government and Civics

4, 5, 6

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

News

The General Slocum Fire: On This Day, June 15

Today marks 112 years since the sinking of the General Slocum , the worst maritime disaster in New York City history. The General Slocum , named after a Civil War general, Henry Warner Slocum, was built in 1891. On June 15, 1904, St....

Classroom Resources

Historical Context: The First National Census

Economics, Geography, Government and Civics

6, 7, 8

Early in August 1790, David Howe, an assistant federal marshal, began the difficult task of counting all the people who lived in Hancock County, Maine. One of 650 federal census takers, charged with making "a...perfect enumeration.....

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