130 items
Thirteenth Amendment Prohibited slavery in the United States Fourteenth Amendment Defined national citizenship Reduced state representation in Congress proportional to number of disfranchised voters Denied former Confederates the...
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...
"Your Late Lamented Husband": A Letter from Frederick Douglass to Mary Todd Lincoln
On March 4, 1865, Frederick Douglass attended President Abraham Lincoln’s second inauguration. Standing in the crowd, Douglass heard Lincoln declare slavery the "cause" and emancipation the "result" of the Civil War. Over the crisp...
The Union Army and Juneteenth, 1865
This engraving depicts a White Union soldier reading the Emancipation Proclamation to an enslaved family. It was published in 1864 by Lucius Stebbins, based on a painting by Henry W. Herrick. According to Stebbins, the scene ...
President Truman’s Farewell Address, 1953
It has none of the catch phrases or warnings of other, more famous presidential inaugural or farewell addresses, no cautions against permanent alliances or military-industrial complexes, no appeals to better angels or declarations...
Historical Context: The Breakdown of the Party System
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...
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...
Using Historical Content to Ground Difficult Conversations
A follow-up conversation to a 2021 Teacher Seminar program on Using Historical Content to Ground Difficult Conversations led by 2016 Ohio History Teacher of the Year Justin Emrich and 2020 Illinois History Teacher of the Year Corey...
Democracy in Early America: Servitude and the Treatment of Native Americans and Africans prior to 1740
Essential Questions How did European explorers and colonists who came to the New World for "Gold, Glory and/or God" justify their treatment of Native Americans, enslaved Africans, and indentured servants? To what extent were there...
Runaway slave ad, 1852
Broadsides and notices posted by slave owners or their agents offer dramatic and concrete evidence of the inhumanity of slavery. Defined as both property and responsible persons by law, slaves were sold with cows, sheep, and furniture...
Inside the Vault: Benjamin Banneker
Benjamin Banneker is known for his work in science, mathematics, and astronomy. In 1791, he wrote to Thomas Jefferson to point out the contradictions between the existence of slavery and the American ideals espoused in the...
Inside the Vault: Primary Sources about Enslaved People
While conducting research for the film Twelve Years a Slave , director Steve McQueen and his team came to the Gilder Lehrman Collection to view original primary sources. In this session, Antuan Raimone from Hamilton and Corey...
"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 death of enslaved Africans on a voyage, 1725
Slavery in English America underwent profound changes during the first two centuries of settlement. During the early seventeenth century, some Black laborers were enslaved; others, however, were treated like White indentured servants...
The Middle Passage, 1749
Historians estimate that approximately 472,000 Africans were kidnapped and brought to the North American mainland between 1619 and 1860. Of these, nearly 18 percent died during the transatlantic voyage from Africa to the New World....
“Columbia’s Noblest Sons”: George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, 1865
Abraham Lincoln’s death on April 14, 1865, stunned the nation. He was the first US president to be assassinated and the third to die in office. As Americans mourned, they also began to see him as a martyr and the savior of the Union....
The Union Is Dissolved!, 1860
The election of Abraham Lincoln as the sixteenth president of the United States in November 1860 led to the eventual secession of eleven slave-holding states and the formation of the Confederacy. Convinced that the federal government...
An African American protests the Fugitive Slave Law, 1850
This 1850 letter written by Henry Weeden is a statement against slavery by a free African American. Weeden was one of Boston’s leading abolitionists. In the 1840s, he had been an activist for the integration of Boston’s schools. [1]...
President Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address, 1861
On March 4, 1861, the day Abraham Lincoln was first sworn into office as President of the United States, the Chicago Tribune printed this special pamphlet of his First Inaugural Address. In the address, the new president appealed to...
Showing results 76 - 100