85 items
Emma Goldman on the restriction of civil liberties, 1919
Emma Goldman was born to a Jewish family in Kovno, Russia (present-day Lithuania). In 1885, at the age of sixteen, she emigrated to the United States, becoming a well-known author and lecturer promoting anarchism, workers’ rights,...
"Gittel's Journey: An Ellis Island Story"
Gittel and her mother were supposed to immigrate to America together, but when her mother is stopped by the health inspector, Gittel must make the journey alone. Her mother writes her cousin’s address in New York on a piece of paper....
Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham - "From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans"
Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham is the Victor S. Thomas Professor of History and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. Order From Slavery to Freedom at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate...
Inside the Vault: Food Purity, Prohibition, and the 1884 Election
On March 2, 2023, our curators were joined by Lisa M. F. Andersen, Director of Academic Strategy at the Gilder Lehrman Institute, to discuss an 1884 pamphlet accusing presidential candidate Grover Cleveland of favoring “adulterated”...
Ken Burns - "Our America: A Photographic History"
Ken Burns, the producer and director of numerous film series, including The Roosevelts: An Intimate History and Country Music , founded his own documentary film company, Florentine Films, in 1976. His landmark film, The Civil War ,...
Elliott West - "Continental Reckoning: The American West in the Age of Expansion"
Elliott West is Alumni Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Arkansas. Order Continental Reckoning at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link...
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...
Pioneering New Methods to Expand Voting, 1865–1920
Paragraphs
> Access this essay as a PDF , including key vocabulary terms and discussion questions, or read the text of the essay below. A new chapter in voting rights began when the Civil War ended in 1865....
Jeremi Suri - "Civil War by Other Means: America's Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy"
Jeremi Suri is the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and a professor in the Department of History and the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Order Civil War by Other Means...
C. W. Goodyear - "President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier"
C. W. Goodyear is an author and historian based in Washington, DC. Order President Garfield at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for supporting...
Jean Pfaelzer- "California, a Slave State"
Jean Pfaelzer is a public historian, commentator, and professor of American studies at the University of Delaware. Order California, a Slave State at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase...
Witnessing History: The Pardon of Homer Plessy
In conjunction with our panel, Witnessing History: The Pardon of Homer Plessy (presented in partnership with the Office of the Governor of Louisiana), the Gilder Lehrman Institute has compiled this list of resources on the Plessy v....
Martha Jones - "Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All"
Order Vanguard at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for supporting our programs!
Richard Brookhiser - "Give Me Liberty: A History of America's Exceptional Idea"
Order Give Me Liberty at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for supporting our programs!
Harold Holzer - "The Presidents Vs. The Press: The Endless Battle between the White House and the Media—from the Founding Fathers to Fake News"
Order The Presidents Vs. The Press at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for supporting our programs!
...
David Blight - "Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom"
Order Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for supporting our programs! Classroom-Ready Resources Video...
Carl Smith - "Chicago’s Great Fire: The Destruction and Resurrection of an Iconic American City"
Order Chicago's Great Fire at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for supporting our programs!
Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross - "A Black Women's History of the United States"
Daina Ramey Berry is the Michael Douglas Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Kali Nicole Gross is the National Endowment for the Humanities Professor of African American Studies at Emory...
Inside the Vault: The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt
On May 5, 2022, our curators discussed documents written by President Theodore Roosevelt. Joined by his great-grandson Tweed Roosevelt, we learned more about Roosevelt and his legacy. This session of Inside the Vault was sponsored by...
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...
Richard White - "Who Killed Jane Stanford?: A Gilded Age Tale of Murder, Deceit, Spirits, and the Birth of a University"
Richard White is Margaret Byrne Professor of American History, Emeritus at Stanford University. Order Who Killed Jane Stanford at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link...
Steven A. Steinbach and Maeva Marcus - "With Liberty and Justice for All? The Constitution in the Classroom"
Steven A. Steinbach teaches US history and government at the Sidwell Friends School in Washington DC and Maeva Marcus is a professor of law at George Washington University. Order With Liberty and Justice for All? at the Gilder...
Matthew Davenport - "The Longest Minute: The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906"
Matthew J. Davenport’s first book, First Over There: The Attack on Cantigny, America’s First Battle of World War I (2015), was a finalist for the 2015 Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize in Military History. Davenport is a practicing attorney...
The Lion’s Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War
Edward J. Renehan Jr. examines Theodore Roosevelt’s view of war and how this affected his children, based on his book The Lion’s Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War.
...
New Spirits: Americans in the Gilded Age
Vassar College historian Rebecca Edwards discusses some of the complexities of the Gilded Age with Gilder Lehrman President James Basker. Professor Edwards's 2006 study, New Spirits: Americans in the Gilded Age, offers a nuanced view...
Populism and Agrarian Discontent
Today, the Gilded Age evokes thoughts of “robber baron” industrialists, immigrants toiling long hours in factories for little pay, massive strikes that were often put down by force, and political corruption in both big cities and the...
Immigration and Migration
The United States emerged in the last third of the nineteenth century as an industrial powerhouse, producing goods that then circulated around the world. People in distant countries used American-made clothes, shoes, textiles,...
"Hidden Practices": Frederick Douglass on Segregation and Black Achievement, 1887
Frederick Douglass recalled his feelings when slavery came to an end, after so much work and so many sacrifices. "I felt that I had reached the end of the noblest and best part of my life," he admitted. But Douglass hardly...
The Development of the West
In the summer of 1876, two dramatically different places captured the American nation’s attention. As the summer began, fairgoers in Philadelphia teemed into the Centennial Exhibition held to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary...
The Rise of Industrial America, 1877-1900
When in 1873 Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner entitled their co-authored novel The Gilded Age , they gave the late nineteenth century its popular name. The term reflected the combination of outward wealth and dazzle with inner...
Mary Elizabeth Lease: Populist Reformer
Blaming Wall Street for the nation’s economic woes is not a new idea in American history. Over a century ago, Mary Elizabeth Lease, the best-known orator of the Populist era, asserted, "Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a...
Anti-corporate cartoons, ca. 1900
These cartoons illustrate the growing hostility toward the practices of the big businesses that fueled the industrial development of the United States. In "The Protectors of Our Industries" (1883), railroad magnates Jay Gould and...
John Mosby on the silver issue, 1895
In the late nineteenth century, Democrats and Republicans fought over whether the gold standard ought to be retained or if the United States should switch to a free silver system. In 1890, the Sherman Silver Purchase Act was passed,...
People’s Party campaign poster, 1892
In July 1892, the Populist Party (or People’s Party), formed by farmers and labor supporters, held its first convention in Omaha, Nebraska. At that convention, the party created and ratified its Omaha Platform and nominated James B....
Showing results 1 - 50