Search | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

3,891 items

About page

2020 Spring Newsletter

Dear Teachers, Supporters, and Friends, I hope this finds you and your loved ones doing well, staying safe and healthy. This newsletter had been prepared and was ready to go out when the COVID-19 crisis struck and we had to close our...

Collection Item

Autograph letter

2 July 1791

Knox, Henry, 1750-1806

to Joseph Peirce

Written by Secretary of War Knox to Peirce, his agent in Boston. References Peirce's letter of 23 June that enclosed the draft of the deeds. Reports that he had the one from Peirce copied and executed, and the one for Oliver Smith drawn upon...

GLC02437.05047

Collection Item

Autograph letter signed

15 September 1864

Clapp, George, fl. 1839-1892

to Parents

The supply train is here; will be able to send a letter tonight. Is "as well as usual." The weather has been very strange; it has alternated very quickly between sun and rain. Heard a rumor last night that Petersburg was taken but does not know if it...

GLC09355.091

Collection Item

Autograph letter signed

24 October 1864

Hammond, Horace J., fl. 1862-1865

to Eleanor Hammond

Glad to hear she is well; he is also well. Leg has improved so much that he can "[wear] my boot some and run some on it." The rest of his company arrived today to pitch tents for the winter. Sent ten dollars from Washington and twenty by express from...

GLC09273.08

Lesson Plan

The Promise of Democracy

Government and Civics

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

Source JFK’s Radio and Television Report to the American People on Civil Rights, June 11, 1963 , John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum (full text and audio available) Background Information This document will be used to...

History Now Essay

Frederick Douglass on the Disfranchisement of Blacks in the South

Lucas Morel

In a short but poignant letter written in 1888, Frederick Douglass shares his concern about the suppression of black voting with Robert Adams (1816–1900), a white abolitionist whom he had known for over forty years. Adams and his wife...

Appears in:

57 | Black Voices in American Historiography Summer 2020

History Now Essay

Editor’s Log

Carol Berkin

If the Civil War preserved the Union, then Reconstruction grappled with what that Union was to look like in the future. The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, passed in the years immediately after...

Appears in:

55 | Examining Reconstruction Fall 2019

Lesson Plan

JFK’s Inaugural Address

Government and Civics

4, 5, 6

Unit Objective This lesson on President John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core–based units. These units were written to enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original...

Essay

Frederick Douglass: From Slavery to Freedom

Steven Mintz

Government and Civics

Frederick Douglass was one of the first fugitive slaves to speak out publicly against slavery. On the morning of August 12, 1841, he stood up at an anti-slavery meeting on Nantucket Island. With great power and eloquence, he described...

News

Get to Know the 2017 History Teachers of the Year: Kevin Martell and Diane Walker

In 2017, the Gilder Lehrman Institute recognized 52 State History Teachers of the Year for their tireless and innovative efforts to make history come alive for their students. But who are they, really? We asked these talented teachers...