Search | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

90,986 items

History Now Essay

America and the China Trade

William R. Sargent

Art, World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

On a quarter-mile strip of land in the bustling city of Canton (Guangzhou), China, trade was conducted between merchants from China and the eastern seaboard of America, beginning in 1784 and lasting until the mid-nineteenth century....

Appears in:

42 | The Role of China in US History Spring 2015

History Now Essay

Chinese American Politics in the Cold War Years

Charlotte Brooks

Economics, Government and Civics

In October 1950, the newly established People’s Republic of China entered the Korean War on the North Korean side against the United States and other United Nations troops. Many Chinese American citizens expressed deep concern at this...

Appears in:

42 | The Role of China in US History Spring 2015

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

History Now Essay

"The Chinese Question"—Unresolved and Ongoing for Americans

John Kuo Wei Tchen

Government and Civics

In 1882, the United States Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act—the nation’s first race-based immigration law that was not effectively repealed until 1965–1968. The act exempted Chinese merchants, diplomats, scholars, and...

Appears in:

42 | The Role of China in US History Spring 2015

Essay

"In the end you are sure to succeed": Lincoln on Perseverance

Harold Holzer

If there was one quality Abraham Lincoln believed essential both to individual success and to social advancement, it was industriousness. A child of the impoverished frontier who went on to take proud advantage of what historian Gabor...

History Now Essay

"Dear Girl, how much I love you": The Revolutionary War Letters of Henry and Lucy Knox

Phillip Hamilton

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Letters between soldiers and spouses are often powerful and moving documents. Given the intensity, danger, and uncertainty of armed conflict as well as the significant changes wrought by most wars, such correspondence reveals what...

Appears in:

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

History Now Essay

The Diary of Ella Jane Osborn, World War I US Army Nurse

Susan F. Saidenberg

World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The unpublished diary of Ella Jane Osborn (1881–1966) in the Gilder Lehrman Collection opens an extraordinary window into the daily experiences of one American woman stationed in a US Army hospital in a dangerous and contested battle...

Appears in:

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

History Now Essay

"Dear Miss Cole": World War I Letters of American Servicemen

Phillip Papas

World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

"Received your package," Pvt. George Van Pelt of Company I, 165th Infantry wrote in May 1918 from the frontlines in France to Annie E. Cole, a grammar school teacher and principal on Staten Island, New York, and to her students. "I...

Appears in:

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

History Now Essay

Race and the Good War: An Oral History Interview with Calvin D. Cosby, World War II Veteran

Cecelia Hartsell

World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Calvin D. Cosby was born in 1918, in Knoxville, Tennessee, which was my hometown as well. I first knew Calvin Cosby as the husband of my beloved second-grade teacher, Mrs. Ima Bradford Cosby. Mr. and Mrs. Cosby and their daughter...

Appears in:

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

57 | Black Voices in American Historiography Summer 2020

History Now Essay

The First Saddest Day of My Life: A Vietnam War Story

Sharon D. Raynor

World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

What I know about the Vietnam War, I learned as a child from my father, Louis Raynor. At thirteen years old, I discovered an old, tattered, leather-bound diary in my parents’ chest of drawers. When I opened it, I immediately...

Appears in:

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

57 | Black Voices in American Historiography Summer 2020

Site Search

90,986 items

America and the China Trade

Chinese American Politics in the Cold War Years

Postwar Taiwan and the USA

"The Chinese Question"—Unresolved and Ongoing for Americans

"In the end you are sure to succeed": Lincoln on Perseverance

"Dear Girl, how much I love you": The Revolutionary War Letters of Henry and Lucy Knox

The Diary of Ella Jane Osborn, World War I US Army Nurse

"Dear Miss Cole": World War I Letters of American Servicemen

Race and the Good War: An Oral History Interview with Calvin D. Cosby, World War II Veteran

The First Saddest Day of My Life: A Vietnam War Story

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