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Spotlight on: Primary Source

Verses on Norwegian emigration to America, 1853

Foreign Languages, Literature, World History

Between 1836 and 1865, approximately 55,000 Norwegians sailed to the United States. [1] Like most immigrants, they sought opportunities that didn’t exist at home—religious freedom, economic security, land ownership, and educational...

News

National Poetry Month, Part 3: Poem on a Civil War Death

In the Battle of Ball’s Bluff, Virginia, on October 21, 1861, the 1st Minnesota Volunteers had just one casualty: a man named Lewis Mitchell. Mitchell was “only a private,” one of the approximately 750,000 casualties in the Civil War....

Video: Read Along

"Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family's Fight for Desegregation"

Almost ten years before Brown v. Board of Education , Sylvia Mendez and her parents helped end school segregation in California. An American citizen of Mexican and Puerto Rican heritage who spoke and wrote perfect English, Mendez was...

Program/Event

Affiliate School FAQs

General What is the Affiliate School Program? How much does it cost? The Affiliate School Program is a special gateway to education resources, events, and tools designed to bring American history to life in the classroom. Initially...

Program/Event

Revisiting the Founding Era

July 13

Beginning in Spring 2018, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History presents Revisiting the Founding Era, a public programming initiative to promote community conversations in public libraries. Funded by the National Endowment...

Video

Guns, Horses, and the Grass Revolution

Geography, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

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

In this lecture Elliott West, a professor of history at the University of Arkansas, describes how the introduction of Old World phenomena such as guns, horses, and new diseases affected the Native peoples of the New World. Those who...

News

Patriotic Verse in a Schoolboy’s Math Book during the Revolutionary War

Between the pages of his math exercise book John Barstow jotted down a patriotic tune called "The Amaricans Challing" on January 2, 1777. Carefully written in a youth’s unsteady hand, the text appears to be a transcript of a popular...

Classroom Resources

Infographic: Differences between Federalists and Antifederalists

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

The differences between the Federalists and the Antifederalists are vast and at times complex. Federalists’ beliefs could be better described as nationalist. The Federalists were instrumental in 1787 in shaping the new US Constitution...

News

Mondale Chooses Ferraro: On This Day, July 12

Thirty-two years ago today Walter Mondale made the unprecedented move of selecting a woman as his running mate on the Democratic ticket for the presidency. He chose Geraldine Ferraro, a member of Congress from Queens, New York, and a...

News

Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation: On This Day, October 3, 1863

On October 3, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling on all Americans "in every part of the United States . . . to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Prayer to...