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57,956 items

Video

Reason and Emotion in Revolutionary America

Government and Civics, World History

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

New York University historian Nicole Eustace discusses the "tempest of emotion" that swept through the Age of Reason, epitomized by the earliest call for a full break between the American colonies and Great Britain, Thomas Paine’s...

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Programs & Events

The Institute promotes and celebrates accomplishments in American history education and scholarship at every level. Deepen your understanding and appreciation of American history by participating in a program or joining the Institute...

Video

Arguing Cases in the Supreme Court

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Jeffrey L. Fisher is Associate Professor of Law at Stanford University Law School and Co-Director of the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic. He analyzes the current Supreme Court including the personalities and philosophies involved,...

Video

The Calhoun School Cyanotype Album: Document in a Minute

Gilder Lehrman curator Beth Huffer discusses a cyanotpe album from the Calhoun Industrial School around the turn of the century. The Calhoun School was a social experiment of the Hampton Institute in Virginia, in which local...

News

The Lewis and Clark Expedition

View a full-screen version of The Lewis and Clark Exhibition . Learn more about the Louisiana Purchase in Elliott West’s essay " America the Newcomer: Claiming the Louisiana Purchase " and a printed copy of the map Meriwether Lewis...

History Now Issue

Disasters in Modern American History

#40 Fall 2014

History Now Issue

Wartime Memoirs and Letters from the American Revolution to Vietnam

#43 Fall 2015

History Now Issue

Alexander Hamilton in the American Imagination

#44 Winter 2016

Collection Landing Page

Spotlight on Primary Sources

Spotlights on Primary Sources Each of the Spotlights from our Collection provides explanatory text, a transcript, and an image of the featured document. Questions for classroom discussion are available to K–12 teachers. Below are some...

History Now Issue

American History in Visual Art

#45 Summer 2016

History Now Issue

American Women in Leadership

#47 Winter 2017

History Now Issue

Jazz, the Blues, and American Identity

#48 Summer 2017

News

SAT US History Exam

The SAT US History Exam is only two weeks away, on January 21! Forty percent of the exam will focus on the momentous events and changes of the twentieth century. Prepare by reviewing the prewar , postwar , and present-day eras, or...

Interactive

Activist for Equality: Frederick Douglass at 200

Born to Harriet Bailey, an enslaved woman in Maryland in February 1818, Douglass lived twenty years as a slave and nearly nine years as a fugitive. From the 1840s to his death in 1895, he attained international fame as an...

Video: Inside The Vault

Inside the Vault: Ulysses S. Grant

Government and Civics

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

Originally broadcast on May 15, 2020, this Inside the Vault: Highlights from the Gilder Lehrman Collection explores the earliest known letter by Ulysses S. Grant, written when he was a 17-year-old cadet at West Point, and a political...

News

Meeting Miss Wright: Orville and Wilbur’s Talented Sister

On December 17, 1903, the Orville and Wilbur Wright achieved the first successful airplane flight. Historian David McCullough says one of the most enjoyable things about working on his book The Wright Brothers was becoming acquainted...

News

Progressive Era Reform Movements at a Glance

Are you teaching the Progressive Era this spring? Use the infographic below to provide your students an overview of the reform movements that make the Progressive Era stand out as a time of massive social, political, and economic...

Video

His Excellency George Washington

Government and Civics

Joseph J. Ellis, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation and the National Book Award for American Sphinx , examines George Washington’s career as a general and the challenges he faced as the...

Video

Living and Dying in the Civil War

Government and Civics

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

West Virginia University historian Aaron Sheehan-Dean offers thoughts on the Library of America series The Civil War Told by Those Who Lived It at a Gilder Lehrman webinar on the Civil War 150 traveling exhibition. The exhibition is...

Video

Inside the Vault: Columbus Reports on His First Voyage, 1493

Gilder Lehrman curator Beth Huffer explores a report from Columbus to his sponsors. When Columbus arrived back in Spain on March 15, 1493, he immediately wrote a letter announcing his discoveries to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella,...

History Now Issue

African American Soldiers

#46 Fall 2016

Program/Event

Dear George Washington Contest Winners 2018

Fifth-Grade Division First Place Sarah Lowe, Destin Middle School, Destin, FL Second Place Padmalakshmi Ramesh, Spring Creek Elementary School, Laramie, WY Third Place Allison Fleck, Richard B. Wilson K-8 School, Tuscon, AZ Fourth...

News

"Thanksgiving: Another Serving" from Jill Lepore

Harvard professor and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore describes how, within a single generation, relations between the settlers and the Wampanoags declined from the fabled First Thanksgiving to a devastating war. Lepore notes: ...

News

"Bookending" the Twentieth Century

The twentieth century was packed with socio-economic changes in American society. It is often difficult to understand just how different our country was at the beginning of the century. Use the infographic below as you are teaching...

News

WWI Project Deadline Fast Approaching

The deadline for the WWI and America Project is January 13, 2017, in just three weeks! Public, academic, and community college libraries have the opportunity to join institutions across the country in commemorating the 100th...

Site Search

Disasters in Modern American History

Wartime Memoirs and Letters from the American Revolution to Vietnam

Alexander Hamilton in the American Imagination

American History in Visual Art

American Women in Leadership

Jazz, the Blues, and American Identity

African American Soldiers

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