47 items
Caroline Winterer is William Robertson Coe Professor of History and American Studies at Stanford University. Order American Enlightenments at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through...
Louis Menand - "The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War"
Order The Free World at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop. We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for supporting our programs!
Mary Sarah Bilder - "Female Genius: Eliza Harriot and George Washington at the Dawn of the Constitution"
Mary Sarah Bilder is Founders Professor of Law at Boston College Law School. Order Female Genius at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for...
Eric Foner, Kathleen DuVal, and Lisa McGirr - "Give Me Liberty! An American History"
Eric Foner is DeWitt Clinton Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University. Kathleen DuVal is a professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Lisa McGirr is a Charles Warren Professor of American...
Spain authorizes Coronado's conquest in the Southwest, 1540
This letter, written on behalf of the king of Spain by Francisco Garcia de Loaysa, the president of the Council of the Indies, acknowledges Francisco Coronado’s report of the famous Niza expedition of the previous year and authorizes...
A report from Spanish California, 1776
Fernando de Rivera y Moncada, military commander of Alta California, wrote this letter from Mission San Gabriel. Rivera y Moncada was instrumental in the development of missions in California and was in a sometimes-contentious...
The Monroe Doctrine, 1823
President James Monroe’s 1823 annual message to Congress included a warning to European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere. This portion of the address is known as the Monroe Doctrine. The United States...
Inside the Vault: Thomas Paine's "Common Sense"
On July 7, 2022, our curators discussed Thomas Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense . They were joined by Eric Slauter, Associate Professor of English at the University of Chicago, who provided an overview of the pamphlet’s publication...
Inside the Vault: A Summary View of the Rights of British America
On April 7, 2022, our curators were joined by Professor Andrew Robertson to discuss A Summary View of the Rights of British America . Written in 1774 by Thomas Jefferson, this document laid out the principal point that he would argue...
Ada Ferrer - "Cuba: An American History"
Order Cuba: An American History at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for supporting our programs!
Alice Baumgartner - "South to Freedom: Runaway Slaves to Mexico and the Road to the Civil War"
Alice Baumgartner is an assistant professor of history at the University of Southern California. Order South to Freedom at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided....
George Washington’s First Inaugural Address, 1789
After officially enacting the newly ratified US Constitution in September 1788, the Confederation Congress scheduled the first inauguration for March 1789. However, bad weather delayed many congressmen from arriving in the national...
Poem on a Civil War death: "Only a Private Killed," 1861
Approximately 3.5 million men served in the Union and Confederate military during the Civil War. Recent scholarship indicates that at least 750,000 men died. Lewis Mitchell of the 1st Minnesota Volunteers was one of those men. On...
Verses on Norwegian emigration to America, 1853
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...
Frederick Douglass’s tribute to Abraham Lincoln, 1880
Despite initial differences, Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln forged a relationship over the course of the Civil War based on a shared vision. Fifteen years after Lincoln’s death, Douglass described him as "one of the noblest...
David Waldstreicher - "The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet's Journeys through American Slavery and Independence"
David Waldstreicher is a Distinguished Professor of History, American Studies, and Africana Studies at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center. Order The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We...
Ken Burns - "Our America: A Photographic History"
Ken Burns, the producer and director of numerous film series, including The Roosevelts: An Intimate History and Country Music , founded his own documentary film company, Florentine Films, in 1976. His landmark film, The Civil War ,...
The Bondwoman’s Narrative
Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of the Humanities, chair of Afro-American Studies, director of the Du Bois Institute at Harvard University, and author of seminal works on African American literary criticism and...
Honor’s Voice: The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln
An eminent Lincoln scholar, Douglas Wilson is the director emeritus of the International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello. In Honor’s Voice, Professor Wilson draws on testimonies and recollections by Abraham Lincoln’s...
Understanding Slavery via Narratives
James Oliver Horton speaks about slave narratives as an important resource for understanding American history.
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