58,176 items
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...
Celebrating Labor Day
Essential Question To what extent have the conditions of American workers improved over the past 100 years? Background After the Civil War, the United States witnessed an accelerating movement of people westward, a rapidly increasing...
Teacher Advisory Council
CherylAnne Amendola, Montclair Kimberley Academy , NJ 2017 New Jersey History Teacher of the Year Nataliya Braginsky, Academic Skills Center, Dartmouth College , NH 2021 Connecticut History Teacher of the Year and 2021 National...
How the Town Shaped the Battle: Gettysburg 1863
We think we know who the important players at the Battle of Gettysburg were: Robert E. Lee, or George G. Meade, or the Union Army of the Potomac, or the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. But there is one major player from whom,...
George Washington’s First Inaugural Address, 1789
After officially enacting the newly ratified US Constitution in September 1788, the Confederation Congress scheduled the first inauguration for March 1789. However, bad weather delayed many congressmen from arriving in the national...
CUNY Professor Carol Berkin’s “Women in the American Revolution” Available as a Self-Paced Course
The Gilder Lehrman Institute is now offering three new Self-Paced Courses with distinguished professors Carol Berkin, Lucas Morel, and Michael Neiberg, perfect for summer professional development and general interest. Each course,...
The Great West Illustrated, 1869
The exploration and settlement of the American West coincided with the development of the medium of photography. Photographic images, reproduced in books and newspapers and available for purchase on their own, helped shape Americans’...
Every Citizen a Soldier: World War II Posters on the American Home Front
World War II posters helped to mobilize a nation. Inexpensive, accessible, and ever-present, the poster was an ideal agent for making victory the personal mission of every citizen. Government agencies, businesses, and private...
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From the Editor
Hank Williams sang about the lonely sound of a train whistle in the night. Iconic photographs capture the laying of the last rail. Countless movies and books set their adventures aboard railroad cars. Despite the advent of airplanes...
Photography in Nineteenth-Century America
During the mid-nineteenth century, American commentators pronounced that new technological innovations in transportation and communications represented nothing less than the "annihilation of space and time." On steamships and...
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The Open Door Policy and the Boxer War: The US and China
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...
Suggested Resources on World War I and the Zimmermann Telegram from the Archivist
Professor Neiberg has written extensively on World War I. Of his many books, Fighting the Great War: A Global History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 2006) will be most helpful in teaching the topics discussed in this essay. Although this...
Guided Readings: Indian Policy
Reading 1 One [infantry] battalion...left Fort Lyon [Colorado] on the night of the 28th of November, 1864; about daybreak on the morning of the 29th of November we came in sight of the camp of friendly [Cheyenne and Arapaho] Indians.....
9/11 and Springsteen
The transformation of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, into a seemingly foreordained historical narrative began almost as soon as the first plane hit the north tower of the World Trade Center. I was teaching an 8 a.m....
The Textile Industry and the Triangle Factory Fire
Overview Dramatic change characterized the rapid industrialization of nineteenth-century America. The economy, politics, society and specifically women were all affected. In the early stages of this economic revolution, manufacturing...
The Virginia Colony
Objective In presenting to students documents dating from the earliest European contact with the Americas, teachers are faced with problems of accessibility. The language is often daunting, and the relevance for students of American...
Anti-Communism in the 1950s
In 1950, fewer than 50,000 Americans out of a total US population of 150 million were members of the Communist Party. Yet in the late 1940s and early 1950s, American fears of internal communist subversion reached a nearly hysterical...
Spring 2020 Online Courses: Meet the Professors for Historiography
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and Pace University are pleased to announce that registration for the Spring 2020 courses is now open for the online Master of Arts in American History for K–12 teachers affiliated with...
Conscientious objectors: Madison pardons Quakers, 1816
In 1816, seven Quakers in Baltimore, Maryland, petitioned President James Madison for pardons after refusing to serve in the militia or pay the exemption fee. Secretary of State James Monroe requested additional information on the men...
Charles Mingus and the Third Stream
Among the many jazz movements in which Charles Mingus (1922–1979) participated, the most likely and the most unlikely was Third Stream Music. [1] Gunther Schuller (1925–2015) coined the term, describing Third Stream as "the fusion and...
Archaeology as History in the North Cascades Mountains
The North Cascades Mountains have a reputation as being steeper and more snow covered than most other mountains of the far western United States. Native people (also “American Indians” or “Native Americans”) thrived in these mountains...
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Religion and the American Revolution
Historical Background While the dominant narrative of the American Revolution focuses on its political causes, the factor of religion cannot be ignored. Many settlers came to the North American colonies seeking the freedom to practice...
"Fun, Fun Rock ’n’ Roll High School"
With his tongue halfway in his cheek, Ambrose Bierce defined history as "an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools." Well, we’ve come a long...
An appeal for suffrage support, 1871
The National Woman Suffrage and Educational Committee was formed in the spring of 1871. The Washington DC-based committee pledged to act as the “centre of all action upon Congress and the country.” The group was also dedicated to the...
Current Fellows
Charlene J. Fletcher PhD Candidate, Department of History, Indiana University "Confined Femininity: Race, Gender, and Incarceration in Kentucky, 1865–1920" Kurt Graham Director, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library "Counting the...
Facing the New Millennium
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...
From The Editor
When delegates from twelve states gathered in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787, many of them feared that the quarrels between the states, the sudden rash of internal rebellions, the continuing presence of enemies on our national...
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Scholar’s Blog - Aaron Sheehan-Dean
OCTOBER 10 AND NOVEMBER 5, 1863: DAVIS TRIES TO RALLY CONFEDERATE MORALE The summer of 1863 had been a poor one for the Confederacy. Robert E. Lee’s army was not just repulsed from its invasion of Pennsylvania but bloodily beaten at...
Scholar’s Blog - Aaron Sheehan-Dean
OCTOBER 10 AND NOVEMBER 5, 1863: DAVIS TRIES TO RALLY CONFEDERATE MORALE The summer of 1863 had been a poor one for the Confederacy. Robert E. Lee’s army was not just repulsed from its invasion of Pennsylvania but bloodily beaten at...
Home Adrift: Women and Domesticated Rail Travel
In the summer of 1869 Godey’s Lady’s Book published an editorial marking the completion of the transcontinental railroad. The author praised the new "wonder of the world" and then clarified that "this great work was begun, carried on...
The Other Theater: The War for American Independence beyond the Colonies
After the British signed the peace treaty that ended the American War for Independence in 1783, the City of London decided to commission a work of art to commemorate the conflict. The city’s representatives approached John Singleton...
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Labor Day: From Protest to Picnics
In the 1880s a surge in growth of the American labor movement led to the creation of two workers’ holidays, Labor Day and May Day. May Day soon spread abroad, as European unions and socialist groups adopted it as an occasion to...
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Julian H. Robertson, Jr.
Julian H. Robertson, Jr., an investor, environmentalist, and philanthropist, was the chairman and chief executive officer of Tiger Management, LLC. Robertson built Tiger into one of the world’s largest hedge funds with capital of more...
Amateurism and Jim Thorpe at the Fifth Olympiad
Thorpe’s deception and subsequent confession deals amateur sport in America the hardest blow it has ever had to take and disarranges the scheme of amateur athletics the world over. New York Times , January 28, 1913 The early years of...
Cold War, Warm Hearth
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...
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Medical Advances in Nineteenth-Century America
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...
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Guided Readings: The Farmers' Revolt
Reading 1 For our business interests, we desire to bring producers and consumers, farmers and manufacturers into the most direct and friendly relations possible. Hence we must dispense with a surplus of middlemen, not that we are...
The Transcontinental Railroad: Interpreting Images
Objectives Students will be able to apply the distinction between inferring (inference) and implying (implication). analyze primary source illustrations, including paintings, political cartoons, and promotional posters. Essential...
John L. Nau, III
John L. Nau, III, is chairman and chief executive officer of Silver Eagle Distributors, LP, the nation’s largest distributor of Anheuser-Busch products. Silver Eagle employs more than 1,400 people who serve sixteen counties in Texas...
Luis A. Miranda, Jr.
Luis A. Miranda, Jr., has almost four decades of experience as a leader in the public and private sectors. A native of Puerto Rico, Miranda was director of field services and research at the National Action Council for Minorities in...
From the Editor
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...
John Philip Sousa critiques modern music, 1930
John Philip Sousa (1854–1932), an American composer of classical music, served as the director of the United States Marine Band from 1880 to 1892. During Sousa’s time as leader of "The President’s Own," as the band was called, he...
William Poorvu
William J. Poorvu has had a distinguished career as an investor, professor, and civic leader. Bill was the managing partner in a number of private real estate companies. From 1963 to 1982 he was the cofounder, vice-chair, and...
Why They Marched: Rank and File Perspectives on the Women’s Suffrage Movement
In 1914, a Massachusetts woman named Claiborne Catlin decided to ride across the state on horseback to rally support for women’s suffrage. All of her personal belongings, including a khaki jacket and divided skirt donated by Filene’s...
From the Editor
Everything that American children of my generation knew—or thought they knew—about Indians, or Native Americans, came from Saturday afternoon cowboy and Indian movies. We knew that they talked funny; they all lived in teepees; they...
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From the Editor
Sharks raining down on Los Angeles, zombies menacing their neighbors, strange aliens invading earth’s cities, prehistoric creatures chasing shipwrecked travelers . . . Americans thrill to stories of disaster. Whether man-made or...
The Columbian Exchange
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...
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From The Editor
The desire to reform and even to perfect society is as American as apple pie. From the Puritans’ determination to create "a city upon a hill," to the utopian communities of the early nineteenth century, to the communes created by...
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