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History Now Essay

Postwar Taiwan and the USA

Denny Roy

World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Taiwan has been a showcase of liberalization under American encouragement, but also the primary irritant in US-China relations. A large island with a population of twenty-three million located about 100 to 150 miles off the coast of...

Appears in:

42 | The Role of China in US History Spring 2015

Spotlight on: Primary Source

George Washington from Valley Forge on the urgent need for men and supplies, 1777

George Washington’s words in this letter represent a stirring plea for help at the darkest moment of the American Revolution. As few other documents do, this letter illustrates Valley Forge as an icon of American perseverance and...

History Now Essay

From the Editor

Carol Berkin

The Constitution does not spell out the duties or define the powers of a president’s spouse, yet America’s "first ladies" have, from the beginning of our nation, played key roles as public figures. They have set precedents,...

Appears in:

35 | America’s First Ladies Spring 2013

History Now Essay

The World War II Home Front

Allan M. Winkler

Economics, Government and Civics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

World War II had a profound impact on the United States. Although no battles occurred on the American mainland, the war affected all phases of American life. It required unprecedented efforts to coordinate strategy and tactics with...

Appears in:

14 | World War II Winter 2007

History Now Essay

African American Women and the Nineteenth Amendment

Sharon Harley

Government and Civics

Sharon Harley is Associate Professor and former Chair of the African American Studies Department at the University of Maryland, College Park. She and historian Rosalyn Terborg-Penn co-edited the pioneer anthology The Afro-American...

Appears in:

57 | Black Voices in American Historiography Summer 2020

56 | The Nineteenth Amendment and Beyond Spring 2020

Lesson Plan

Alice Paul: Suffragist and Agitator

9, 10, 11, 12

Background The American women’s suffrage movement has always been identified with its two founders, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, whose strong, enthusiastic leadership defined the movement. When they retired from active...

History Now Essay

From the Editor

Carol Berkin

If the Civil War is the most significant event of our national history, the Battle of Gettysburg is surely its most memorable moment. For this issue of History Now, we asked our contributors to provide novel perspectives and new...

Appears in:

37 | Gettysburg: Insights and Perspectives Fall 2013

History Now Essay

FDR’s Court-Packing Plan: A Study in Irony

Richard G. Menaker

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The Great Depression of the 1930s was the nation’s grimmest economic crisis since the founding of the American republic. After the 1932 elections, Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced a series of innovative remedies—his New Deal—but the...

Appears in:

15 | The Supreme Court Spring 2008

History Now Essay

"I, Too": Langston Hughes’s Afro-Whitmanian Affirmation

Steven Tracy

Literature

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

To read the text and hear the poem click here. Whatever we say, whatever we write, whatever we do, we never act alone. Just as John Donne meditated upon the notion that "no man is an island," so, too, in the twentieth century did T.S....

Appears in:

39 | American Poets, American History Spring 2014

Lesson Plan

Lincoln’s First and Second Inaugural Addresses

Government and Civics

6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Objective This lesson on President Lincoln’s two inaugural addresses is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based units. These units enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original texts of...

History Now Essay

The Vietnam War and the My Lai Massacre

George Herring

The murder of more than 400 Vietnamese civilians in My Lai and My Khe by US soldiers on March 16, 1968, stands as one of the darkest days in the nation’s military history. It left an indelible stain on America’s record in Vietnam, the...

Appears in:

31 | Perspectives on America’s Wars Spring 2012

History Now Essay

Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy

Jeremi Suri

World History

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

Henry Kissinger is one of the most controversial figures to emerge from the Cold War. He participated as a soldier, scholar, and statesman in many of the most significant policy debates of the period. He acted as an intellectual,...

Appears in:

27 | The Cold War Spring 2011

History Now Essay

From the Editor

Carol Berkin

To celebrate the launch of Gilder Lehrman’s new website, we at History Now thought it appropriate to provide readers with a special, expanded issue. We chose for our topic one of the central themes in our national history: the causes...

Appears in:

31 | Perspectives on America’s Wars Spring 2012

History Now Essay

From the Editor

Carol Berkin

It is a rare war movie or novel that does not include a mail call scene. News from home, packages filled with cookies or favorite foods, drawings by sons or daughters folded in with letters from husbands, wives, or family members...

Appears in:

43 | Wartime Memoirs and Letters from the American Revolution to Vietnam Fall 2015

Spotlight on: Primary Source

A plan for a new government, 1775

Government and Civics

More than a decade before the Constitutional Convention in 1787—and months before the United States declared independence—John Adams wrote a plan for a new form of government for the American colonies. In it Adams described the basic...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

Slave auction catalog from Louisiana, 1855

On March 13 and 14, 1855, the firm of J. A. Beard & May placed on the auction block 178 enslaved men, women, and children at the Banks Arcade in New Orleans, Louisiana. They were part of the estate of William M. Lambeth, who had...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

The Whiskey Rebellion, 1794

Economics, Government and Civics

In 1791, the federal government imposed a tax on distilled spirits to pay off the nation’s debts from the American Revolution. The tax, which was payable only in cash, was particularly hard on small frontier farmers, who bartered and...

History Now Essay

Immigrant Fiction: Exploring an American Identity

Phillip Lopate

Literature

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Strictly speaking, all American novels (with the exception of those written by Native Americans) are in one way or another immigrant fiction. But we usually think of immigrant fiction more narrowly as the encounter of the foreign-born...

Appears in:

3 | Immigration Spring 2005

History Now Essay

From The Editor

Carol Berkin

Modern headlines often carry news of scandals, crimes, corruption, and violence. When historians study this darker side of life, they hope to use the events as windows on a particular era, shedding light on its cultural and religious...

Appears in:

20 | High Crimes and Misdemeanors Summer 2009

Lesson Plan

Rural America: The Westward Movement

Geography

7, 8

Unit Objective This unit is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based teaching resources. These units were developed to enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original texts of historical...

News

Scholar’s Blog - Aaron Sheehan-Dean

December 17, 1862: Lincoln’s Cabinet Crisis Less than a week after the disastrous Union defeat at Fredericksburg, Virginia, on December 13, 1862, Abraham Lincoln confronted one of the most serious political crises he faced during the...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Toward Revolution

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 For fire and water are not more heterogeneous than the different colonies in North America. Nothing can exceed the jealousy and emulation which they possess in regard to each other. . . . In short . . . were they left to...

Spotlight on: Primary Source

Reporting on the Spanish Influenza, 1918

6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

These newspaper articles illustrate the impact on American society of Spanish Influenza (H1N1), which first appeared in the United States in March 1918. [1] There were periodic, minor outbreaks for six months, but in September a...

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...

History Now Essay

Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Maya Lin

Art

Reprinted by permission of Maya Lin from her book Boundaries (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000). It’s taken me years to be able to discuss the making of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial , partly because I needed to move past it and...

Appears in:

45 | American History in Visual Art Summer 2016

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