631 items
New York University historian Nicole Eustace discusses the "tempest of emotion" that swept through the Age of Reason, epitomized by the earliest call for a full break between the American colonies and Great Britain, Thomas Paine’s...
Taxation and Representation: The Imperial Debate between Britain and the Americans
Brown University historian Gordon Wood describes the British and American conceptions of representation during the eighteenth century, widely diverging points of view that were forged by radically different experiences with...
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.
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War Letters: Extraordinary Correspondence from American Wars
Andrew Carroll, founder of the Legacy Project, recounts his search for letters from America’s wars and reads excerpts from several.
Lincoln at Cooper Union
Author Harold Holzer discusses his book, Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President.
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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Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson: A Study in Character
Roger Kennedy, former director of the National Park Service, discusses the "fatal twins," Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, whose military, legal, and political careers intersected for nearly thirty years before they came to duel in...
Federalists vs. Anti-Federalists
Historian Carol Berkin briefly discusses the arguments put forth by Federalists and Anti-Federalists in the state ratification conventions.
The Formation of Slave Culture
Historian Ira Berlin briefly discusses the evolution of slave culture based on African and American experiences of the enslaved.
Teaching the Topic of Slavery
Historian Ira Berlin briefly discusses ways to address slavery in the classroom and teach students how to engage in historical argument.
Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World
Pulitzer Prize–winner and Yale historian David Brion Davis discusses his 2006 book, Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World. In his opening remarks, delivered at the New-York Historical Society in January 2007,...
Calvin Coolidge and Economic Growth
Amity Shlaes, chair of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation and author of Coolidge (2013), discusses Calvin Coolidge and his economic policies during a seminar for history teachers in Wichita, Kansas.
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Living and Dying in the Civil War
West Virginia University historian Aaron Sheehan-Dean offers thoughts on the Library of America series The Civil War Told by Those Who Lived It at a Gilder Lehrman webinar on the Civil War 150 traveling exhibition. The exhibition is...
National History Teacher of the Year Award
Since 2004, the Gilder Lehrman Institute has presented awards to the best history teachers in the United States. Together with our partners Preserve America and HISTORY, we award 53 winners from US states and territories and one...
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...
The Haitian Revolution: A New Vision of Freedom in the Atlantic World
Duke University historian Laurent Dubois discusses slavery, culture, and ideology in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, which upon the triumph of its revolution in 1804 became the nation of Haiti—the first and only nation...
Historians Now: The Wright Brothers by David McCullough
David McCullough discusses his new book The Wright Brothers.
Historians Now: "The American Revolution: Writings from the Pamphlet Debate 1764-1776"
Gordon Wood discusses the book "The American Revolution: Writings from the Pamphlet Debate 1764-1776".
"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...
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...
"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 Road to War
‘A house divided against itself can not stand’ I believe this government can not endure permanently, half slave, and half free . . . I do not expect the Union to be dissolved - I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it...
Admiration and Ambivalence: Frederick Douglass and John Brown
John Brown did not make it easy for people to love him—until he died on the gallows. Frederick Douglass, from his first meeting with Brown in 1847, through a testy but important relationship in the late 1850s, had long viewed the...
The Civil War and Reconstruction in the American West
The histories of the Civil War and of the emerging West were tangled together from their beginnings. Although the war was fought mostly in the East, the events that set it off were born of the expansion of the 1840s, and in turn the...
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