Search | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

1,623 items

History Now Essay

The Pueblo Revolt

Edward Countryman

Government and Civics, Religion and Philosophy

In 1680 the people known collectively as "Pueblos" rebelled against their Spanish overlords in the American Southwest. Spaniards had dominated them, their lives, their land, and their souls for eight decades. The Spanish had...

Appears in:

28 | American Indians Summer 2011

History Now Essay

When Myth and Meaning Overshadow History: Remembering the Alamo

Linda K. Salvucci

Rare are the students who enter US classrooms without some preconceived notions regarding the Alamo. Thanks to more than a dozen films produced at regular intervals over the last century, to Walt Disney’s television series for baby...

Appears in:

31 | Perspectives on America’s Wars Spring 2012

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

From Citizen to Enemy: The Tragedy of Japanese Internment

Julie Des Jardins

Government and Civics, World History

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

Although World War II is covered in most school curricula, the story of American citizens who were stripped of their civil liberties here, on American soil, during that war is often omitted. Yet what happened to first-generation...

Appears in:

14 | World War II Winter 2007

History Now Essay

The Columbian Exchange

Alfred W. Crosby

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

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

Millions of years ago, continental drift carried the Old World and New Worlds apart, splitting North and South America from Eurasia and Africa. That separation lasted so long that it fostered divergent evolution; for instance, the...

Appears in:

12 | The Age Of Exploration Summer 2007

Essay

The Open Door Policy and the Boxer War: The US and China

Warren I. Cohen

By 1899, the United States had become a world power. It was not only the world’s greatest industrial nation, but in the war with Spain it had demonstrated a willingness to use its power militarily. It had acquired possessions near and...

Essay

"Half slave, half free": Lincoln and the "House Divided"

Gabor S. Boritt

Government and Civics

The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all proclaim, "a house divided against itself can not stand." [1] Living in a Bible-reading country, most nineteenth-century Americans knew that metaphor by heart—words that also made good common...

About page

Announcing the 2022 Frederick Douglass Book Prize Finalists

New Haven, CT, July 26, 2022 — Yale University’s Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition today has announced the finalists for the twenty-fourth annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize, one of the most...

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...

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

The Challenges and Opportunities for Black Women Entrepreneurs in the Global Arena

Andrea E. Smith-Hunter

Economics

The statistics on Black women-owned businesses in the United States are very impressive. A report from JP Morgan indicated that “the number of businesses owned by Black women grew 50% from 2014 to 2019, representing the highest growth...

Appears in:

72 | Black Entrepreneurship in America Fall 2024

History Now Essay

The Slave Narratives: A Genre and a Source

David W. Blight

Economics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The autobiographies of ex-slaves in America are the foundation of an African American literary tradition, as well as unique glimpses into the souls of slaves themselves. The roughly sixty-five to seventy slave narratives published in...

Appears in:

2 | Primary Sources on Slavery Winter 2004

History Now Essay

Bridging the Caribbean: Puerto Rican Roots in Nineteenth-Century America

Virginia Sánchez Korrol

World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In recent years, the media has tended to portray US Latinos of Hispanic Caribbean ancestry as new immigrants, but this characterization ignores the long connections between these immigrants and the United States. And because Puerto...

Appears in:

3 | Immigration Spring 2005

History Now Essay

The US and Spanish American Revolutions

Jay Sexton

Economics, Geography, Government and Civics, World History

If one says "American Revolution" in the United States today, it is assumed that what is being referred to is the North American liberation struggles against the British Empire in the late eighteenth century. But the British North...

Appears in:

34 | The Revolutionary Age Winter 2012

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

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Our Partners

Established in 1892, the American Jewish History Society provides access to more than thirty million documents and 50,000 books, photographs, art, and artifacts that reflect the history of the Jewish presence in the United States from...

History Now Essay

The Will to Be Free: On the Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam

Thuy Vo Dang

Government and Civics, World History

In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote that “freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” [1] His letter addressed his fellow clergymen amidst the...

Appears in:

61 | The Declaration of Independence and the Origins of Self-Determination in the Modern World Fall 2021

Essay

The Americas to 1620

Christopher L. Miller

Geography, World History

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

At the end of the first millennium, most people in the Eastern Hemisphere had a firm sense of how the world was arranged, who occupied it, and how they had come to be where they were. Various sacred texts as well as long-standing folk...

History Now Essay

Perils of the Ocean in the Early Modern Era

Robert C. Ritchie

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

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

A traveler considering an ocean voyage around 1600 had much to contemplate. Voyage by voyage, explorers and colonists alike needed knowledge about the seas and lands in the Atlantic world. Unfortunately, information was never shared...

Appears in:

25 | Three Worlds Meet Fall 2010

History Now Essay

Indian Removal

Theda Perdue

Geography, Government and Civics

In 1828 pressure was building among white Americans for the relocation of American Indians from the eastern United States to lands west of the Mississippi River. A student at a mission school in the Cherokee Nation, which lay within...

Appears in:

28 | American Indians Summer 2011

History Now Essay

"The Politics of the Future Are Social Politics": Progressivism in International Perspective

Thomas Bender

Economics, Government and Civics, World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The American Progressive movement was not simply a response to the domestic conditions produced by industrialization and urbanization. Instead, it was part of a global response to these developments during an era of unregulated...

Appears in:

17 | Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Era Fall 2008

History Now Essay

Women and the Early Industrial Revolution in the United States

Thomas Dublin

Economics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The industrial revolution that transformed western Europe and the United States during the course of the nineteenth century had its origins in the introduction of power-driven machinery in the English and Scottish textile industries...

Appears in:

10 | Nineteenth Century Technology Winter 2006

History Now Essay

The First Generation: America’s Women Voters, 1776–1807

Marcela Micucci

Most histories of women gaining the right to vote in the United States begin in July of 1848, when hundreds of activists gathered in Seneca Falls to hold the first women’s rights convention and sign the Declaration of Sentiments. The...

Appears in:

56 | The Nineteenth Amendment and Beyond Spring 2020

History Now Essay

Citizenship in the Reconstruction South

Susanna Lee

Economics, Government and Civics

Slaveholders created a system of race, gender, and class inequality in the pre-Civil War South. They justified slavery by arguing that enslaved people could not take care of themselves and needed masters to look after them. White...

Appears in:

55 | Examining Reconstruction Fall 2019

History Now Essay

The Repeal of Asian Exclusion

Jane Hong

Government and Civics, World History

The United States excluded Chinese people beginning in the late nineteenth century and expanded its ban to all Asians in the 1917 and 1924 Immigration Acts. In addition to creating a national origins quota system best known for...

Appears in:

65 | Asian American Immigration and US Policy Winter 2022

Site Search

1,623 items

The Pueblo Revolt

When Myth and Meaning Overshadow History: Remembering the Alamo

The Colonial Virginia Frontier and International Native American Diplomacy

From Citizen to Enemy: The Tragedy of Japanese Internment

The Columbian Exchange

The Open Door Policy and the Boxer War: The US and China

"Half slave, half free": Lincoln and the "House Divided"

Announcing the 2022 Frederick Douglass Book Prize Finalists

The Roaring Twenties

The Age of Reagan

The Challenges and Opportunities for Black Women Entrepreneurs in the Global Arena

The Slave Narratives: A Genre and a Source

Bridging the Caribbean: Puerto Rican Roots in Nineteenth-Century America

The US and Spanish American Revolutions

Cold War, Warm Hearth

Our Partners

The Will to Be Free: On the Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam

The Americas to 1620

Perils of the Ocean in the Early Modern Era

Indian Removal

"The Politics of the Future Are Social Politics": Progressivism in International Perspective

Women and the Early Industrial Revolution in the United States

The First Generation: America’s Women Voters, 1776–1807

Citizenship in the Reconstruction South

The Repeal of Asian Exclusion

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