Search | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

64 items

Classroom Resources

Abraham Lincoln Highlights

The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, founded in 1994 promotes the knowledge and understanding of American history through educational programs and resources. Drawing on the 80,000 documents in the Gilder Lehrman...

Classroom Resources

Breaking from Great Britain, 1776

World History

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

Sid Lapidus Collection: Liberty and the American Revolution By 1776, Thomas Paine had become the most influential writer defending the break from Great Britain. Born in England, Paine arrived in the colonies in 1774, at age 34. His...

Classroom Resources

Cultural Encounters: Teaching Exploration and Encounter to Students

Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, World History

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Some 40,000 years from now, give or take a few millennia, someone, somewhere in the universe may find and listen to the Golden Record, NASA’s attempt to describe Earth and its peoples to anyone out there who might be interested. There...

Classroom Resources

Guided Readings: American Foreign Policy in the 1970s

Government and Civics, World History

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 Why are we in South Vietnam? We are there because we have a promise to keep. Since 1954 every American President has offered support to the people of South Vietnam. . . . We have made a national pledge to help South Vietnam...

Classroom Resources

Historical Context: "Birth of a Nation"

Art, Geography, Government and Civics, Literature

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In 1915, fifty years after the end of the Civil War, D. W. Griffith released his epic film Birth of a Nation . The greatest blockbuster of the silent era, Birth of a Nation was seen by an estimated 200 million Americans by 1946. Based...

Classroom Resources

Historical Context: American Slavery and Abolition through Hollywood

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Throughout the twentieth century, many influential Hollywood films, such as Birth of a Nation , Gone with the Wind , Glory , and Amistad , have helped shape the way Americans have thought about slavery and its legacy. Birth of a...

Classroom Resources

Historical Context: American Slavery in Comparative Perspective

Economics, World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Of the ten to sixteen million Africans who survived the voyage to the New World, more than one-third landed in Brazil and between 60 and 70 percent ended up in Brazil or the sugar colonies of the Caribbean. Only 6 percent arrived in...

Classroom Resources

Historical Context: Black Soldiers in the Civil War

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

By early 1863, voluntary enlistments in the Union army had fallen so sharply that the federal government instituted an unpopular military draft and decided to enroll Black as well as White troops. Indeed, it seems likely that it was...

Classroom Resources

Historical Context: Facts about the Slave Trade and Slavery

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

TRANS-ATLANTIC SLAVE VOYAGES Over the period of the Atlantic Slave Trade, from approximately 1526 to 1867, some 12.5 million captured men, women, and children were put on ships in Africa, and 10.7 million arrived in the Americas. The...

Classroom Resources

Historical Context: Go West ... and Grow Up with the Country

Geography

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In 1854 Horace Greeley, a New York newspaper editor, gave Josiah B. Grinnell a famous piece of advice. "Go West, young man, and grow up with the country," said Greeley. Grinnell took Greeley's advice, moved west, and later founded...

Classroom Resources

Historical Context: Immigration Policy in World War II

World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt suspended naturalization proceedings for Italian, German, and Japanese immigrants, required them to register, restricted their mobility, and prohibited them from owning...

Classroom Resources

Historical Context: Life on the Trail

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Each spring, pioneers gathered at Independence and St. Joseph, Missouri, and Council Bluffs, Iowa, to begin a 2,000 mile journey westward. For many families, the great spur for emigration was economic: the financial depression of the...

Classroom Resources

Historical Context: Mexican Americans and the Great Depression

Economics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In February 1930 in San Antonio, Texas, 5000 Mexicans and Mexican Americans gathered at the city’s railroad station to depart the United States for settlement in Mexico. In August, a special train carried another 2000 to central...

Classroom Resources

Historical Context: Movies and Migration

Art

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

Many of our most memorable images of the past come from movies. Films set in the past provide a vivid record of history: of the "look," the clothing, the atmosphere, and the mood of past eras. Nevertheless, movies remain a...

Classroom Resources

Historical Context: Newsies

In the movies, scrappy urban newsboys hawk papers with screaming headlines, shouting, "Extra! Extra! Read all about it!" Real late nineteenth and early twentieth century newsboys were very different than the Hollywood image of lovable...

Classroom Resources

Historical Context: Post-World War I Labor Tensions

Economics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The years following the end of World War I were a period of deep social tensions, aggrevated by high wartime inflation. Food prices more than doubled between 1915 and 1920; clothing costs more than tripled. A steel strike that began...

Classroom Resources

Historical Context: Slavery in a Capitalist World

Economics, World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Why were the South's political leaders so worried about whether slavery would be permitted in the West when geography and climate made it unlikely that slavery would ever prosper in the area? The answer lies in the South's growing...

Classroom Resources

Historical Context: The Breakdown of the Party System

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

As late as 1850, the two-party system seemed healthy. Democrats and Whigs drew strength in all parts of the country. Then, in the early 1850s, the two-party system began to disintegrate in response to massive foreign immigration. By...

Classroom Resources

Historical Context: The Confederacy Begins to Collapse

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

By early 1863, the Civil War had begun to cause severe hardship on the southern home front. Not only was most of the fighting taking place in the South, but also as the Union blockade grew more effective and the South's railroad...

Classroom Resources

Historical Context: The Constitution and Slavery

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

On the 200th anniversary of the ratification of the US Constitution, Thurgood Marshall, the first African American to sit on the Supreme Court, said that the Constitution was "defective from the start." He pointed out that the framers...

Classroom Resources

Historical Context: The Economics of Slavery

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Like other slave societies, the South did not produce urban centers on a scale equal with those in the North. Virginia's largest city, Richmond, had a population of just 15,274 in 1850. That same year, Wilmington, North Carolina's...

Classroom Resources

Historical Context: The First National Census

Economics, Geography, Government and Civics

6, 7, 8

Early in August 1790, David Howe, an assistant federal marshal, began the difficult task of counting all the people who lived in Hancock County, Maine. One of 650 federal census takers, charged with making "a...perfect enumeration.....

Classroom Resources

Historical Context: The Global Effect of World War I

World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

A recent list of the hundred most important news stories of the twentieth century ranked the onset of World War I eighth. This is a great error. Just about everything that happened in the remainder of the century was in one way or...

Classroom Resources

Historical Context: The Human Meaning of Migration

World History

13+

For more than two centuries novelists and autobiographers have explored the human meaning of migration. In hundreds of stories, novels, and autobiographies, these writers have examined what it means to be uprooted, voluntarily or...

Classroom Resources

Historical Context: The Post-World War I Red Scare

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The end of World War I was accompanied by a panic over political radicalism. Fear of bombs, Communism, and labor unrest produced a “Red Scare.” In Hammond, Indiana, a jury took two minutes to acquit the killer of an immigrant who had...

Site Search

64 items

Abraham Lincoln Highlights

Breaking from Great Britain, 1776

Cultural Encounters: Teaching Exploration and Encounter to Students

Guided Readings: American Foreign Policy in the 1970s

Historical Context: "Birth of a Nation"

Historical Context: American Slavery and Abolition through Hollywood

Historical Context: American Slavery in Comparative Perspective

Historical Context: Black Soldiers in the Civil War

Historical Context: Facts about the Slave Trade and Slavery

Historical Context: Go West ... and Grow Up with the Country

Historical Context: Immigration Policy in World War II

Historical Context: Life on the Trail

Historical Context: Mexican Americans and the Great Depression

Historical Context: Movies and Migration

Historical Context: Newsies

Historical Context: Post-World War I Labor Tensions

Historical Context: Slavery in a Capitalist World

Historical Context: The Breakdown of the Party System

Historical Context: The Confederacy Begins to Collapse

Historical Context: The Constitution and Slavery

Historical Context: The Economics of Slavery

Historical Context: The First National Census

Historical Context: The Global Effect of World War I

Historical Context: The Human Meaning of Migration

Historical Context: The Post-World War I Red Scare

Stay up to date, and subscribe to our quarterly newsletter.