374 items
Understanding Slavery via Narratives
James Oliver Horton speaks about slave narratives as an important resource for understanding American history.
Stonewall Jackson: The Man, the Soldier, the Legend
James I. Robertson, Alumni Distinguished Professor in history at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, re-examines, in Stonewall Jackson: The Man, the Soldier, the Legend, the life and the aura of Thomas "Stonewall"...
Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam
James M. McPherson, George Henry Davis ’86 Professor of History at Princeton University and Pulitzer Prize winner, examines the Battle of Antietam, the single bloodiest day in our nation’s history. He interweaves accounts by...
The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity
Jill Lepore, Professor of Early American History at Harvard University, draws on scholarship from her book, The Name of War: King Philip's War and the Origins of American Identity, to trace how the meanings attached to this brutally...
His Excellency George Washington
Joseph J. Ellis, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation and the National Book Award for American Sphinx , examines George Washington’s career as a general and the challenges he faced as the...
Washington, Grant, Marshall: Three Soldiers and American Ways of War, Part 1: Washington
Josiah Bunting III is president of the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation and the author of Ulysses S. Grant (2004). In a series of three lectures, Josiah Bunting III examines the lives of George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant, and...
The Real American Dream: A Meditation on Hope
Julian Clarence Levi Professor in the Humanities and Director of the American Studies Program at Columbia University, Andrew Delbanco examines the evolution of the American Dream--the idea that anyone may rise above his or her...
In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692
Mary Beth Norton, Mary Donlon Alger Professor of American History at Cornell University, examines the Salem witchcraft crisis from a seventeenth-century perspective, drawing not only on court records, but also on correspondence and...
Washington’s Crossing
Most Americans know George Washington's December 1776 crossing of the Delaware from the famous painting by Emmanuel Gottlieb Leutze. David Hackett Fischer, Warren Professor of History at Brandeis University and author of Washington's...
Writing Op-Ed
Jonathan Zimmerman, NYU historian, discusses the art of writing an op-ed and believes that it remains a critical democratic exercise.
Gold, Gospel, and Glory: Motivations for European Exploration and Colonization of the Americas
Professor John Fea of Messiah College discusses the European motivations--gold, gospel, and glory--for exploration in the Americas, taking Europeans from the Crusades to the Spanish conquest and the exploitation of resources in the...
The Origins of the Cold War
The Cold War was more than the product of post-World War II tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union argues John Lewis Gaddis, Robert A. Lovett Professor of History at Yale University. Rather, it was the product of...
Living and Dying in the Civil War
West Virginia University historian Aaron Sheehan-Dean offers thoughts on the Library of America series The Civil War Told by Those Who Lived It at a Gilder Lehrman webinar on the Civil War 150 traveling exhibition. The exhibition is...
Emancipation and the Question of Agency: The Power of the Enslaved, the Power of Policy
Historian James Oakes (The Graduate Center, City University of New York) addresses the timeless question of agency in emancipation—who freed the slaves?—by suggesting that the query demands greater nuance. The agency of slaves and...
American Antislavery Writings: Colonial Beginnings to Emancipation
James G. Basker (Barnard College, Columbia University) discusses his latest book, American Antislavery Writings: Colonial Beginnings to Emancipation (The Library of America, 2012). Basker, who is also the president of the Gilder...
The Haitian Revolution: A New Vision of Freedom in the Atlantic World
Duke University historian Laurent Dubois discusses slavery, culture, and ideology in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, which upon the triumph of its revolution in 1804 became the nation of Haiti—the first and only nation...
War Letters: Extraordinary Correspondence from American Wars
Andrew Carroll, founder of the Legacy Project, recounts his search for letters from America’s wars and reads excerpts from several.
The Story of America: Essays on Origins
Historian Jill Lepore (David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History at Harvard and a staff writer at the New Yorker ) discusses her 2012 book, The Story of America: Essays on Origins (Princeton University Press).
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Exchanges of Culture and Conflict in the Southwest
Professor DeLay looks at changes in thought, technology, and outlook that prompted early exploration, and Spain’s late entry into colonial pursuits.
Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin
Historian Jill Lepore of Harvard University discusses her book, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin, a finalist for the 2013 National Book Award, with James G. Basker, president of the Gilder Lehrman Institute.
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A Teacher’s Tour of Ford’s Theatre
Historian Matthew Pinsker (Dickinson College) leads a tour of Ford’s Theatre campus, including the main building, the Petersen House, and the Center for Education and Leadership, to explore how history teachers can use the site’s...
A Teacher’s Tour of the Battle of Gettysburg
Historian Matthew Pinsker leads a virtual teacher’s tour of the Battle of Gettysburg, highlighting key moments and individuals to illustrate the broad story of the battle, its implications for the Civil War, and its legacy in...
America’s Emergence as a Global Power
Jeremi Suri, a historian at the University of Texas at Austin, argues that Americans have never been isolated from international politics and military conflicts, but rather have projected power on the world stage since before the...
Roundtable discussion on American Antislavery Writings
On December 2, 2014, four scholars joined Gilder Lehrman president and Barnard College professor James G. Basker for a roundtable discussion on American antislavery writings. The panel included Elizabeth Alexander (Yale), Christopher...
Inside the Vault: British Troops Landing in Boston Harbor
Explore just one of the fascinating items from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History collection!
World War I
War swept across Europe in the summer of 1914, igniting a global struggle that would eventually take nine million lives. World War I pitted the Allies (initially composed of Britain, France, Belgium, Serbia, and Russia, and eventually...
The Great Depression, the New Deal, and World War II in the American West
The Great Depression and World War II, far and away the worst economic calamity and the costliest foreign war in American history, profoundly affected every part of the United States. Changes in the West were especially obvious. From...
Civil War and Reconstruction, 1861-1877
In 1877, soon after retiring as president of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant, embarked with his wife on a two-year tour of the world. At almost every location, he was greeted as a hero. In England, the son of the Duke of...
The War for Independence
On July 4, 1774, exactly two years before the United States declared independence, a patriotic club in Worcester, Massachusetts, decided that each member should have in the ready two pounds of gunpowder and twelve flints. With the...
Reconstruction
In the twelve years after the Civil War—the era of Reconstruction—there were massive changes in American culture, economy, and politics. These were the years of the "Old West," of cowboys, Indians, and buffalo hunts, of cattle drives,...
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