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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...

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