96 items
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A political cartoon of Grant and Lee, 1864
During the first three years of the Civil War, a series of Union generals led the Army of the Potomac against Confederate General Robert E. Lee with little success. In March 1864, Abraham Lincoln appointed General Ulysses S. Grant...
The "House Divided" Speech, ca. 1857–1858
By 1850, the extension of slavery into the new territories won through the Mexican-American War of 1846–1848 provided a testing ground for competing visions of America. The passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850 and the Kansas...
Buying Frederick Douglass’s freedom, 1846
After he had escaped from slavery in 1838, Frederick Douglass became a well-known orator and abolitionist. He wrote an autobiography in 1845, but because he was a runaway slave, its publication increased the chances that he would be...
President Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address, 1861
On March 4, 1861, the day Abraham Lincoln was first sworn into office as President of the United States, the Chicago Tribune printed this special pamphlet of his First Inaugural Address. In the address, the new president appealed to...
The Gettysburg Address: Identifying Text, Context, and Subtext
Objective This lesson is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based teaching resources. These resources were developed to enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original texts of historical...
The Right to Vote, Part 2: Reconstruction and the Jim Crow Era
The Right to Vote: Part 2 Reconstruction and the Jim Crow Era
How did access to the vote evolve during the Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras? Scroll through to view the exhibition (above). Recorded readings of select...
The Right to Vote, Part 1: The Early Republic through the Civil War
The Right to Vote: Part 1 The Early Republic through the Civil War
Who could vote in the founding and Jacksonian eras? Scroll through to view the exhibition (above). Recorded readings of select components in the exhibition...
Lincoln and Presidential Power
Introduction When Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States in 1860, his experience in politics and government included serving in the Illinois legislature and the US House of Representatives. He had also studied law...
Edward Day Cohota
Edward Day Cohota Civil War Edward Day Cohota served in the Union Army for thirty years and was one of approximately 300 Asians and Pacific Islanders who fought in the Civil War. Image Source: Photograph of Edward Day Cohota, ca. 1880-1890, Cape Ann...
Pauline Cushman
Pauline Cushman Civil War Pauline Cushman served as a spy for the Union Army and is buried at San Francisco National Cemetery. She was an actress who used her skills to gather intelligence for the Union Army. Image Source: Mathew Brady Studio,...
Federico Fernández Cavada
Federico Fernández Cavada Civil War Cuban-born Federico Fernández Cavada served in the Union Army during the Civil War as an engineer and topographer with the Balloon Corps, sketching Confederate forces from the air. Image Source: Mathew B. Brady,...
The price of war: A letter from Mary Kelly to Sarah Gordon, 1862
James Kelly served with the 14th Indiana Volunteers beginning in 1861. In March 1862, his wife, Mary, traveled to the field hospital in Virginia where he lay wounded after the Battle of Winchester. She described the terrible...
African American Voting Rights
African American Voting Rights from The Gilder Lehrman Institute on Vimeo .
"Men of Color: To Arms! To Arms!"
Overview Approximately 200,000 African American men served as soldiers during the Civil War. This lesson seeks to teach fifth grade students not only the skill of analyzing a primary source but also the methods that were used to...
My Country, ’Tis of Thee
Samuel Francis Smith was a twenty-four-year-old Baptist seminary student in Massachusetts when he wrote the lyrics of "America (My Country, ’Tis of Thee)," the patriotic song that would serve as an unofficial national anthem for...
Who Was John Brown?
"Did John Brown fail? John Brown began the war that ended American slavery and made this a free Republic." —Frederick Douglass Background The late 1840s and the 1850s were a turbulent and complex time in American history as the...
The Fifteenth Amendment, 1870
The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments gave constitutional status to emancipation’s promise. The Fifteenth Amendment provided suffrage for black men, declaring that “the right of citizens of the United States to vote...
Travels Through Time: The Impact of Supreme Court Decisions on the Struggle for African American Equality
Overview After the Civil War, African Americans were under attack as they struggled for equal rights in America. Laws were put in place during Reconstruction to assure Freedmen basic civil rights. The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and...
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