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Born to Harriet Bailey, an enslaved woman in Maryland in February 1818, Douglass lived twenty years as a slave and nearly nine years as a fugitive. From the 1840s to his death in 1895, he attained international fame as an abolitionist, reformer, orator of almost unparalleled stature, and author of three classic autobiographies.

African American Voting Rights from The Gilder Lehrman Institute on Vimeo.

Return to Alexander Hamilton: Witness to the Founding Era.

Return to Alexander Hamilton: Witness to the Founding Era.

Return to Alexander Hamilton: Witness to the Founding Era.

Return to Alexander Hamilton: Witness to the Founding Era.

Return to Alexander Hamilton: Witness to the Founding Era.

Return to Alexander Hamilton: Witness to the Founding Era.

Join the Gilder Lehrman Institute and Professor Cindy Lobel on a virtual walking tour of Alexander Hamilton’s Lower Manhattan.

Welcome to Why Documents Matter: An Interactive Digital Edition—a selection of primary sources from the Gilder Lehrman Collection curated and annotated for K–12 classrooms (print edition available here). Scroll through the entire edition in document view, download a complete pdf (bottom of the navigation menu on the right), or use the pages view to go directly to a specific page or document. Annotations include additional commentary on the document or time period and links to additional resources.We welcome your comments on how you use Why Documents Matter: An Interactive Digital Edition and…