44 items
On November 3, 2022, our curators were joined by Barbara Harris Combs of Kennesaw State University. Professor Combs discussed the NAACP pamphlet Meanwhile Back at the Branch... and the many ways in which civil rights activists worked...
Inside the Vault: David Blight Discusses Frederick Douglass Documents
On February 3, 2022, our curators were joined by Dr. David Blight to discuss his favorite Frederick Douglass documents in the Gilder Lehrman Collection. Click here to download the slides from the presentation. Featured Documents...
Celebrating Labor Day
Essential Question To what extent have the conditions of American workers improved over the past 100 years? Background After the Civil War, the United States witnessed an accelerating movement of people westward, a rapidly increasing...
Inside The Vault: Eleanor Roosevelt, “Four Basic Rights,” and Desegregation
Originally broadcast on August 21, 2020, this session of Inside the Vault: Highlights from the Gilder Lehrman Collection explores a 1944 letter by Eleanor Roosevelt defending the four basic rights of all Americans and desegregation...
Inside the Vault: John Brown
On October 1, 2020, the Gilder Lehrman Collection team was joined by Nate McAlister, 2010 National History Teacher of the Year, and Colby Lewis from Hamilton to discuss John Brown in this session of Inside the Vault: Highlights from...
Frederick Douglass: What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?
Click to download this five-lesson unit :
Inside the Vault: Abraham Lincoln
Originally broadcast on November 12, 2020, this session of Inside the Vault: Highlights from the Gilder Lehrman Collection explores Gilder Lehrman Collection materials relating to the life of Abraham Lincoln, both before and after he...
Inside the Vault: Women's Suffrage
In this session of Inside the Vault: Highlights from the Gilder Lehrman Collection , originally broadcast on October 15, 2020, our curators are joined by CherylAnne Amendola, 2017 New Jersey History Teacher of the Year, and Lauren...
Inside the Vault: The Emancipation Proclamation & FDR’s Advice to Students
The Gilder Lehrman curators were joined by Hamilton ’s Tyler Belo on September 3, 2020, in this session of Inside the Vault: Highlights from the Gilder Lehrman Collection where they celebrated the start of the school year with three...
Inside the Vault: "Your future rests… in your hands!”
Keisha Rembert, Assistant Professor of Teacher Preparation, National Louis University, and Nate McAlister, History Educator at Seaman High School in Topeka, Kansas, joined the Gilder Lehrman Collection curators in this session of...
Inside the Vault: July Anniversaries
The June 26, 2020 edition of Inside the Vault: Highlights from the Gilder Lehrman Collection explores a rare South Carolina printing of the Declaration of Independence and a soldier’s experience at the Battle of Gettysburg. The...
Race and Renaissance: African Americans in Pittsburgh Since World War II
Professor of History and Social Justice and Department Head, Carnegie Mellon University Professor Trotter talks about his recent book, Race and Renaissance: African Americans in Pittsburgh Since World War II .
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Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln
In this short clip, historian David Blight discusses the relationship between Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.
Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation
Joseph J. Ellis, Professor of History at Mount Holyoke College, discusses his Pulitzer Prize–winning book Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, explains the emergence of the men who led the Revolutionary War and created...
Killing for Coal: America’s Deadliest Labor War
Thomas G. Andrews, an associate professor of history at the University of Colorado Boulder, discusses his Bancroft Prize–winning book, Killing for Coal: America’s Deadliest Labor War, and the interconnection between railroads, coal,...
Inside the Vault: Robert F. Kennedy's Report on Civil Rights
At the end of 1962, President John F. Kennedy asked his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, to compile a report on the civil rights enforcement activities of the Justice Department over the previous year. In this report,...
Emancipation and the Question of Agency: The Power of the Enslaved, the Power of Policy
Historian James Oakes (The Graduate Center, City University of New York) addresses the timeless question of agency in emancipation—who freed the slaves?—by suggesting that the query demands greater nuance. The agency of slaves and...
American Antislavery Writings: Colonial Beginnings to Emancipation
James G. Basker (Barnard College, Columbia University) discusses his latest book, American Antislavery Writings: Colonial Beginnings to Emancipation (The Library of America, 2012). Basker, who is also the president of the Gilder...
Visions of State in the New Deal Era: International Perspectives
Historian Alan Brinkley looks at the New Deal era with an international perspective, exploring the evolution of global experiments in government occurring around the world, particularly fascism, communism, and liberal democracy.
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Elizabeth Cady Stanton: An American Life
Lori D. Ginzberg, professor of history and women’s studies at Pennsylvania State University, discusses her 2010 biography, Elizabeth Cady Stanton: An American Life.
The March on Washington: A Virtual Tour
Join Dr. Clayborne Carson, Director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University, for a virtual tour of the 1963 March on Washington.
Securing the Right to Vote: The Selma-to-Montgomery Story
Essential Question What conditions created the need for a protest march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965, and what did that march achieve? Background Throughout American history, African Americans have struggled to gain...
George Washington’s Rules of Civility
Introduction When George Washington was a teenager, he wanted to make a good impression on his elders. Good manners were important to him. He made sure that he knew how by copying Rules of Civility from a French rulebook in his own...
Declarations of Independence: Women's Rights and the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions
Background Under the leadership of Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a convention for the rights of women was held in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. It was attended by between 200 and 300 people, both women and men. Its...
Children’s Attitudes about Slavery and Women’s Abolitionism as Seen through Anti-slavery Fairs
Overview Over two days, students will examine the attitudes that children from northern states had about slavery during the 1830s to 1860s and how abolitionists tried to change their way of thinking. They will also explore how woman...
Abraham Lincoln on Slavery and Race
Background Slavery played a prominent role in America’s political, social, and economic history in the antebellum era. The "peculiar institution" was at the forefront of discussions ranging from the future of the nation’s economy to...
Nonviolent Direct Action at Southern Lunch Counters
Background On February 1, 1960, four black students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro, North Carolina, walked into a Woolworth’s store and quietly sat down at the lunch counter. This seemingly...
The Great Chicago Fire of 1871: A Story of Human Tragedy and Triumph
Background Ask anyone what the greatest disaster in Chicago was and probably no one will say, "The Great Iroquois Theatre Fire of December 30, 1903." Six hundred three souls perished in that fire. They probably won’t say, "The sinking...
The Jungle
Overview The United States was transformed in the last decades of the nineteenth century by the industrial revolution. The rapid growth of cities, increase in immigration, expansion of a struggling working class, and concentration of...
Abraham Lincoln: A Man for All Seasons
Overview At one time in our country’s history we stood divided as a nation over the issue of slavery. It was Abraham Lincoln’s ideology and sense of purpose that helped to unite our country and set us on a path toward realizing the...
The Promise of Democracy
Source JFK’s Radio and Television Report to the American People on Civil Rights, June 11, 1963 , John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum (full text and audio available) Background Information This document will be used to...
Nineteenth-Century Native American Viewpoints
Objective Identify and compare the ideas of major Native American leaders from the nineteenth century. Evaluate the impact of those ideas on the United States and Native Americans. Locate the original and final reservation territory...
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