28 items
Richard Brookhiser, senior editor at National Review , discusses his book, Alexander Hamilton, American . Brookhiser recounts Alexander Hamilton's great successes and tragic failures as Revolutionary, bovernment-shaper, financial...
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...
Alexander Hamilton’s "gloomy" view of the American Revolution, 1780
By October 1780, in the midst of the American Revolution, Alexander Hamilton was discouraged by the apparent apathy of the American people and the ineffectuality of their elected representatives, as well as by the recent discovery of...
Caroline Winterer - "American Enlightenments: Pursuing Happiness in the Age of Reason"
Caroline Winterer is William Robertson Coe Professor of History and American Studies at Stanford University. Order American Enlightenments at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through...
Eric Foner, Kathleen DuVal, and Lisa McGirr - "Give Me Liberty! An American History"
Eric Foner is DeWitt Clinton Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University. Kathleen DuVal is a professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Lisa McGirr is a Charles Warren Professor of American...
Glory Liu- "Adam Smith's America: How a Scottish Philosopher Became an Icon of American Capitalism"
Glory Liu is the assistant director for the Center for Economy and Society and assistant research professor at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. Order Adam Smith’s America at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive...
The Declaration of Independence in Global Perspective
No American document has had a greater global impact than the Declaration of Independence. It has been fundamental to American history longer than any other text because it was the first to use the name "the United States of America":...
The Post-Revolutionary Generation
Joyce Appleby, Professor Emerita, University of California, Los Angeles, explores how the men and women born after the American Revolution experienced and developed the theoretical ideas of liberty and independence put in place by...
Inside the Vault: A Summary View of the Rights of British America
On April 7, 2022, our curators were joined by Professor Andrew Robertson to discuss A Summary View of the Rights of British America . Written in 1774 by Thomas Jefferson, this document laid out the principal point that he would argue...
Washington Encourages a Prospective Immigrant: The Economic Potential of the States in 1796
During his second presidential term, George Washington enjoyed a lively correspondence with Sir John Sinclair, member of Parliament and leader of Britain’s scientific agriculture movement, on matters of mutual interest to the two...
How Hamilton Solved the Economic Problems Facing the United States
Lesson Overview In this lesson students will develop an understanding of the economic challenges facing the newly independent United States. Those challenges included the lack of a national currency, the national government’s...
The Battle over the Bank: Hamilton v. Jefferson
Background After months of battling and compromises, the US Constitution was finally sent to Congress by the Constitutional Convention on September 17, 1787. Through the ratification process and the first decade under the new...
Guided Readings: Federalists and Jeffersonians
Reading 1 Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people, whose breasts He has made His peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue. —Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia ...
Study Aid: Major Slave Rebellions
New York City, 1712 Like many later revolts, this one occurred during a period of social dissension among White colonists following Leisler’s Rebellion. The rebels espoused traditional African religions. Stono Rebellion, 1739 The...
The Whiskey Rebellion, 1794
In 1791, the federal government imposed a tax on distilled spirits to pay off the nation’s debts from the American Revolution. The tax, which was payable only in cash, was particularly hard on small frontier farmers, who bartered and...
Study Aid: The Articles of Confederation
Deficiencies of the Articles of Confederation No separate executive branch to carry out the laws of Congress No national judiciary to handle offenses against the central government’s laws or to settle disputes between states Congress...
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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The First Inaugural Address of George Washington
Unit Objectives This lesson on the First Inaugural Address of George Washington is part of the Gilder Lehrman Institute’s series of Common Core–based units. These units were written to enable students to understand, summarize, and...
Revolutionary in America
The image is so clear in our minds, seen first in elementary school and reinforced countless times since: a few dozen gentlemen with powdered wigs and period suits (coats, waistcoats, and knee-length breeches) gathered in a large...
George Washington on the abolition of slavery, 1786
Of the nine presidents who were slaveholders, only George Washington freed all his own slaves upon his death. Before the Revolution, Washington, like most White Americans, took slavery for granted. At the time of the Revolution, one...
Bruce A. Ragsdale - "Washington and the Plow: The Founding Farmer and the Question of Slavery"
Bruce A. Ragsdale has served as the director of the Federal Judicial History Office at the Federal Judicial Center. Order Washington and the Plow at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase...
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