Search | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

257 items

History Now Essay

Voices of Democracy: Jovita Idár, the Idár Family, and the Struggle against Juan Crow

Gabriela González

Government and Civics

In August 2023, the US Mint will release the Jovita Idár quarter, “the ninth coin in the American Women Quarters Program” authorized by Public Law 116–330. On its website, the Mint states that Idár’s “ideas and practices were ahead of...

Appears in:

66 | Hispanic Heroes in American History Spring 2023

Essay

Slavery and Anti-Slavery

David Brion Davis

Abolitionism emerged in America as part of a massive fusion of reform movements related to religious revivals and dedicated to the goal of creating a righteous society capable of fulfilling America’s high ideals. [1] In part, the...

History Now Essay

Globalizing Protest in the 1980s: Musicians Collaborate to Change the World

Douglas R. Egerton and Leigh Fought

Art, Government and Civics, World History

13+

"There something’s happening here," Stephen Stills sang in "For What It’s Worth," a 1966 song about a confrontation between students and police in Los Angeles. And for a time, there was. Radio stations filled the air with protest...

Appears in:

32 | The Music and History of Our Times Summer 2012

History Now Essay

Race and the American Constitution: A Struggle toward National Ideals

James Oliver Horton

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

James O. Horton was the Benjamin Banneker Professor Emeritus of American Studies and History at George Washington University and historian emeritus of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. He edited,...

Appears in:

13 | The Constitution Fall 2007

57 | Black Voices in American Historiography Summer 2020

History Now Essay

A Nation of Immigrants from the Outset: The Signers Born Abroad

James G. Basker and Sofia Melnychuck

We are often focused today on the fact that the signers of the Declaration of Independence did not include women, African Americans, or Indigenous people, and how far this deviated from the spirit of “all men are created equal.” And...

Appears in:

64 | New Light on the Declaration and Its Signers Fall 2022

Collection Item

Manuscript document signed

1 April 1865

Stanton, Edwin M. (Edwin McMasters), 1814-1869

["Deposition of Edwin M. Stanton"].

Stamped as pages 86-92. Signed by Stanton ("Edwin M Stanton") on the seventh page (p. 92). Also signed vertically on the left margin of each of the seven pages by Commissioner A.B. Olin, whose autograph endorsement signed appears below Stanton's...

GLC00720.01

Essay

Facing the New Millennium

Michael Flamm

6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In 1941, on the eve of Pearl Harbor, Time magazine publisher Henry Luce predicted that the twentieth century would become known as the "American Century." By many measures he was correct. During the next sixty years, the United States...