2022 Calendar
The Gilder Lehrman Institute’s 2022 calendar was devoted to the topic of Black Lives in the Founding Era. This 16-month calendar, which spans from September 2021 to December 2022, features selected dates recognizing the lives and achievements of African American founders and illustrations of important figures and events. This calendar was offered for free to K–12 educators as part of our June Affiliate School offer.
Poster 84: James Armistead Lafayette
In spring 2021, the Institute unveiled a new poster featuring James Armistead Lafayette, an enslaved African American who volunteered to serve the Continental Army by spying on the British. He was freed in 1787 for his contributions to the Revolutionary War. The poster was part of a bundle of Founding Era posters that also included Phillis Wheatley and an engraving of the Boston Massacre. These posters were offered for free to teachers in our Affiliate School Program as part of our April offer.
History Now, Issue No. 60, “Black Lives in the Founding Era” (Summer 2021)
The sixtieth issue of the Gilder Lehrman Institute’s online journal, History Now, is available to subscribers. This landmark issue features sixteen essays by leading historians including Margaret Washington, Lois Horton, Thomas J. Davis, Julie Winch, and James G. Basker. The essays focus on the lives and achievements of African American founders such as Phillis Wheatley, Absalom Jones, Richard Allen, and James Forten, among others. Click here to subscribe to History Now.
Slavery and Abolition in the Founding Era: Black and White Voices
One of the challenges faced by teachers seeking to use literary and historical texts in their classes is the apparent dearth of literature about slavery before the mid-1800s. Slavery and Abolition in the Founding Era: Black and White Voices, a new publication from the Gilder Lehrman Institute, brings together long-forgotten writings from this period, including twenty-five texts in different genres by more than nineteen different writers, spanning the forty-five-year period from the 1770s to the end of the War of 1812. The writings show that opposition to slavery was surprisingly widespread. Thirteen of the writers in the volume are Black, and some of their writings are anthologized here for the first time. Six of the writers are White, including prominent members of the founding generation. Every single one of the writers in this collection, Black and White, was vehemently and publicly anti-slavery.
This booklet was offered for free to K–12 educators as part of our February 2020 Affiliate School offer, and is available for sale here.