184 items
James G. Basker is president and CEO of the Gilder Lehrman Institute and Richard Gilder Professor of Literary History at Barnard College, Columbia University. Order Black Writers of the Founding Era at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We...
Black Writers of the Founding Era: A Conversation with James Basker
Black Writers of the Founding Era: A Conversation with James Basker Recorded at Roosevelt House, Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, April 17, 2024.
This discussion of the new Library of America anthology Black Writers of the...
Brooke Barbier - "King Hancock: The Radical Influence of a Moderate Founding Father"
Brooke Barbier is a public historian and independent scholar with a doctorate in American history from Boston College. Order King Hancock at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through...
Jeffrey Rosen - "The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America"
Jeffrey Rosen is a legal scholar who serves as the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center and a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School. Order The Pursuit of Happiness at the Gilder Lehrman Book...
Phillis Wheatley’s poem on tyranny and slavery, 1772
Born in Africa, Phillis Wheatley was captured and sold into slavery as a child. She was purchased by John Wheatley of Boston in 1761. The Wheatleys soon recognized Phillis’s intelligence and taught her to read and write. She became...
Steven Hahn - "Forging America: A Continental History"
Steven Howard Hahn is a professor of history at New York University. Order Forging America at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for supporting our...
Colonists Divided: A Revolution and a Civil War
Background The Stamp Act, the Quartering Act, the Declaratory Act, the Sugar Act, and the Tea Act were just a few of the many policies Great Britain enacted in the British North American colonies in the eighteenth century. To many...
Maurizio Valsania- "First Among Men: George Washington and the Myth of American Masculinity"
Maurizio Valsania is a professor of American history at the University of Turin, Italy. Order First Among Men at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you...
Inside the Vault: Honoring America’s First Woman Veteran: The Revolutionary War Service of Margaret Corbin
Celebrate Veterans Day and learn about the Revolutionary War service of Margaret “Molly” Corbin! On November 2, 2023, our curators discussed Corbin’s life and legacy with Dr. Holly Mayer of Duquesne University. Margaret “Molly”...
Stacy Schiff - "The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams"
Stacy Schiff is a Pulitzer Prize–winning author. Order The Revolutionary at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for supporting our programs!
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Using Works of Art in Teaching American History
The best teachers of Western Civilization courses have long made use of the European fine arts—painting, sculpture, architecture, the decorative arts—to bring the subject alive to their students. It is perhaps less well recognized...
Inside the Vault: The Treaty of Paris
More than 240 years ago, the United States became independent from England when the Treaty of Paris officially ended the Revolutionary War. On September 7, 2023, our curators discussed and examined key parts of the treaty with Dr....
José Manuel Guerrero Acosta - "Unveiling Memories: Spain and the Hispanic Contribution to US Independence"
José Manuel Guerrero Acosta is the author of more than forty articles and a dozen books and has curated several exhibitions in Spain and the US. Find out more about Unveiling Memories here
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Guided Readings: Impact of the Revolution on Women and African Americans
Reading 1 I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If...
Guided Readings: Slavery and Abolition
Sid Lapidus Collection: Liberty and the American Revolution Introduction The campaign to end slavery was a prolonged struggle. In England and in America in the eighteenth century, some authors such as Daniel Defoe and Samuel Johnson...
Guided Readings: Toward Revolution
Reading 1 For fire and water are not more heterogeneous than the different colonies in North America. Nothing can exceed the jealousy and emulation which they possess in regard to each other. . . . In short . . . were they left to...
Paul Revere’s engraving of the Boston Massacre, 1770
By the beginning of 1770, there were 4,000 British soldiers in Boston, a city with 15,000 inhabitants, and tensions were running high. On the evening of March 5, crowds of day laborers, apprentices, and merchant sailors began to pelt...
Benjamin L. Carp - "The Great New York Fire of 1776: A Lost Story of the American Revolution"
Benjamin L. Carp is the Daniel M. Lyons Professor of American History at Brooklyn College and also teaches at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Order The Great New York Fire of 1776 at the Gilder Lehrman Book...
A report from Spanish California, 1776
Fernando de Rivera y Moncada, military commander of Alta California, wrote this letter from Mission San Gabriel. Rivera y Moncada was instrumental in the development of missions in California and was in a sometimes-contentious...
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...
John Wood Sweet- "The Sewing Girl's Tale: A Story of Crime and Consequences in Revolutionary America"
John Wood Sweet, a historian of early America, is the former director of the University of North Carolina’s interdisciplinary Program in Sexuality Studies. Order The Sewing Girl’s Tale at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an...
Kariann Yokota - "Unbecoming British: How Revolutionary America Became a Postcolonial Nation"
Kariann Yokota is an associate professor of history at the University of Colorado, Denver. Order Unbecoming British at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided....
The Early Republic
In April of 1789 the ink on the recently ratified Constitution was barely dry when George Washington began the trek from his Mount Vernon plantation to the national capital at New York. The public reverence usually accorded to royalty...
Alexander Hamilton: Witness to the Founding Era
This series of online exhibitions explores the importance of Alexander Hamilton to the founding of the United States. Each mini-exhibition features locations where Alexander Hamilton made history and documents written by or about him...
A British view of rebellious Boston, 1774
In the years leading up to the American Revolution, both the British and the colonists used broadsides to influence public opinion. This broadside, “The Bostonian’s Paying the Excise-man, or Tarring & Feathering,” printed in...
"You Drop A Petal in the Water, and It Has a Ripple Effect": The Disability Rights Movement, 1950-1990
Click here to download this four-lesson unit.
The Boston Massacre: Paul Revere and Captain Thomas Preston
Click here to download this two-lesson unit.
Henry Knox
Henry Knox Revolutionary War Henry Knox rose through the ranks during the American Revolution to become chief of artillery in George Washington’s army. Image Source: Gilbert Stuart, Oil painting of Henry Knox, 1806, The Museum of Fine Arts Boston
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Cuffee Saunders
Cuffee Saunders Revolutionary War Born into slavery, Cuffee Saunders secured his freedom by serving during the Revolutionary War. Image Source: Benjamin Huntington, Oath certifying Cuffee Saunders's purchase of freedom, 1821, Gilder Lehrman...
Margaret Corbin
Margaret Corbin Revolutionary War Margaret “Molly” Corbin was the first woman in the United States to earn a military pension, based on her service at the Battle of Fort Washington. Image Source: Herbert Knotel, Twentieth-century sketch representing...
The Declaration of Independence
View the Declaration in the Gilder Lehrman Collection by clicking here and here . For additional primary resources click here and here . Unit Objective This unit is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based...
David Waldstreicher - "The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet's Journeys through American Slavery and Independence"
David Waldstreicher is a Distinguished Professor of History, American Studies, and Africana Studies at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center. Order The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We...
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: Benjamin Franklin
On February 2, 2023, our curators discussed Benjamin Franklin’s copy of the US Constitution and Jean-Antoine Houdon’s bust of Franklin. They were joined by Liz Covart (Founding Director, Colonial Williamsburg Innovation Studios) and...
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...
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...
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...
The Battles of Lexington and Concord, 1775
By April 1775, reconciliation between England and the thirteen colonies had failed. Two months earlier, Parliament had declared Massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion, and on April 14 General Thomas Gage received secret orders...
The Declaration of Independence and the Long Struggle for Equality in America: An Introduction
Whatever else the Declaration of Independence encompassed—a proclamation of political sovereignty, an indictment against the King of England, an appeal for allies—its assertion that “all men are created equal” shines as the polestar...
T.H. Breen - "The Will of the People: The Revolutionary Birth of America"
T. H. Breen is William Smith Mason Professor Emeritus of American History at Northwestern University. Order The Will of the People at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the...
Revolutionary Propaganda: Persuasion and Colonial Support
Background Many students misconstrue the American Revolution as a period of unanimous support for independence from Great Britain. However, colonists generally considered themselves loyal British citizens, asserting rightful...
The Boston Massacre (Grades 4–6)
View the engraving The Bloody Massacre in King Street in the Gilder Lehrman Collection by clicking here . Unit Objective This unit is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based teaching resources. These units...
Inside the Vault: Founding Era Propaganda
On the May 1, 2020 session of Inside the Vault: Highlights from the Gilder Lehrman Collection , Kevin Cline, 2016 Gilder Lehrman National History Teacher of the Year, joined the Institute’s curators to explore Paul Revere’s engraving...
The Brotherton Indians of New Jersey, 1780
During the French and Indian War, the Lenni-Lenape (or Delaware) Indians of New Jersey were among the tribes that signed the Treaty of Easton of 1758. The tribes agreed not to support the French in the colonial conflict and to leave...
US Treaties with American Indian Nations
After the American Revolution, the United States and Indian tribal nations governed their diplomatic relations through formal treaties. States could not be signatories to these treaties because the US Constitution required that only...
Inside the Vault: Thomas Paine's "Common Sense"
On July 7, 2022, our curators discussed Thomas Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense . They were joined by Eric Slauter, Associate Professor of English at the University of Chicago, who provided an overview of the pamphlet’s publication...
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...
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