Search | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

1,977 items

Collection Item

Autograph letter signed

10 February 1784

Hull, William, 1753-1825

to Henry Knox

Hull, commandant of West Point, describes his conflict with Major Sebastian Bauman, in charge of the artillery at West Point. Bauman refused to carry out Hull's orders requiring artillery to carry out regular garrison duties with infantry. In...

GLC02437.02948

Collection Item

Autograph letter signed

February 23, 1833

Glen, Tyre, fl. 1833

Slave dealer letter

" I have purchased...a very large and tolerable likely fellow of Hollingsworth at $450, Ralph of Elder Patterson at $425, he keeps him untill his crop is finished unless he becomes unruly. Thar is at this time at least double the number of negroes...

GLC09129

News

Celebrate Black History Month with Inside the Vault

This February Inside the Vault , the online program that highlights unique primary sources from the Gilder Lehrman Collection, celebrates Black History Month with explorations of major Black writers and orators of the eighteenth and...

News

K-8 Educators Offered Unique NEH Summer Institute Program on The Making of America

The Making of America: Colonial Era to Reconstruction is a virtual, weeklong 2021 NEH Summer Institute that offers K–8 educators the opportunity to explore the people, ideas, and events that made America into a cultural, social, and...

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...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

"Jefferson is in every view less dangerous than Burr": Hamilton on the election of 1800

Government and Civics

The presidential election of 1800 had resulted in a tie between the two Democratic Republicans, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. The founders had not foreseen the rise of political parties and the effects that development would have...

News

Introducing April Deener, the 2018 Kentucky History Teacher of the Year

April Deener Kentucky History Teacher of the Year Since 2004, 749 exemplary American history teachers from elementary, middle, and high schools in all fifty states, Department of Defense schools, Washington DC, and US territories have...

News

Announcing the 2021-2022 How Did We Get Here? Series—Professional Development on Topical Issues

The Gilder Lehrman Institute is pleased to launch the 2021-2022 How Did We Get Here? professional development series, which provides teachers with ready-made, classroom-friendly resources on topics in American history that are front...

News

Get to Know the 2017 History Teachers of the Year: Richard Ochoa, Utah

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...

History Now Essay

From the Editor

Carol Berkin

It is unlikely that Thomas Jefferson imagined the principles and ideals he laid down in the preamble to the Declaration of Independence would reverberate throughout the world for centuries to come. Yet, from Liberia to India, from New...

Appears in:

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