Election Day

Self-Paced Courses

Self-Paced Courses offer graduate-level online instruction in American history by eminent historians. Courses are available to watch or listen to on your own time and at your own pace. Teachers can also get certificates for CEU credits.

• The American Presidency led by Meg Jacobs and Julian E. Zelizer, Princeton University
• Democracy in the Early Republic, led by Andrew Robertson, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York
• Voting and Elections in American History led by Allan J. Lichtman, American University

History Now

History Now, the online journal of the Gilder Lehrman Institute, features essays by the nation’s leading historians.

Essays

• “The First Generation: America’s Women Voters, 1776−1807” by Marcela Micucci (History Now 56, “The Nineteenth Amendment and Beyond,” Spring 2020)
• “The Presidential Election of 1800: A Story of Crisis, Controversy, and Change” by Joanne B. Freeman (History Now 1, “Elections,” Fall 2004)
• “Adams v. Jackson: The Election of 1824” by Edward G. Lengel (History Now 33, “Electing a President,” Fall 2012)
• “The Making of the President: Abraham Lincoln and the Election of 1860” by Harold Holzer (History Now 33, “Electing a President,” Fall 2012)
• “The Contentious Election of 1876” by Michael Holt (History Now 33, “Electing a President,” Fall 2012)
• “A Right Deferred: African American Voter Suppression after Reconstruction” by Marsha J. Tyson Darling (History Now 51, “The Evolution of Voting Rights,” Summer 2018), repr. (History Now 57, “Black Voices in American Historiography,” Summer 2020)
• “Women’s Long Journey for the Vote” by Eleanor Clift (History Now 51, “The Evolution of Voting Rights,” Summer 2018)
• “African American Women and the Nineteenth Amendment” by Sharon Harley (History Now 56, “The Nineteenth Amendment and Beyond,” Spring 2020), repr. (History Now 57, “Black Voices in American Historiography,” Summer 2020)
• “Franklin Delano Roosevelt—Four-Term President—and the Election of 1944” by Matthew Dallek (History Now 33, “Electing a President,” Fall 2012)
• “‘A Vote-less People Is a Hopeless People’: Lessons from Selma” by Robert A. Pratt (History Now 51, “The Evolution of Voting Rights,” Summer 2018), repr. (History Now 57, “Black Voices in American Historiography,” Summer 2020)

Exhibitions

The Gilder Lehrman Institute has over eighty online exhibitions covering American history from the colonial era to the present day.

• The Right to Vote: Part 1
• The Right to Vote: Part 2
• The Right to Vote: Part 3
• The Right to Vote: Part 4
• A History of Women’s Suffrage
• It’s Election Day, Again

Spotlights on Primary Sources

Each Spotlight on a document from the Gilder Lehrman Collection provides explanatory text, a transcript, and an image of the featured document.

• Washington on a proposed third term and political parties, 1799
• “Jefferson is in every view less dangerous than Burr”: Hamilton on the election of 1800
• The Fifteenth Amendment, 1870
• Nominating an African American for vice president, 1880
• Frederick Douglass on the disfranchisement of Black voters, 1888
• People’s Party campaign poster, 1892
• Campaigning for the African American vote in Georgia, 1894
• Susan B. Anthony on suffrage and equal rights, 1901
• Disfranchisement of African American voters in Virginia, 1901
• Women's suffrage poster, 1915
• The Map Proves It, ca. 1919
• “Reelect Roosevelt - Friend of Labor,” 1936
• Campaigning against Franklin Roosevelt’s third term, 1940

Middle School and High School Students

• Election Day

Elementary School Students

• Understanding Citizenship: Rights and Responsibilities

Elementary and Middle School Students

• How We Elect a President: The Electoral College

Middle School Students

• Voting Rights

Middle and High School Students

• How We Elect a President: The Electoral College
• Fighting Jim Crow

High School Students

• How We Elect a President: The Electoral College
• Taking A Stand for Voting Rights
• Voting Rights