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Period 2: 1607-1754 Europeans and American Indians maneuvered and fought for dominance, control, and security in North America, and distinctive colonial and native societies emerged. Topics may include: How Different European Colonies Developed and...
James G. Basker
James G. Basker is president of the Gilder Lehrman Institute and Richard Gilder Professor of Literary History at Barnard College, Columbia University. As president of the Gilder Lehrman Institute since 1997, Basker has overseen the...
Linda Pace
Linda Pace was partner and vice chairman of Global Credit at the Carlyle Group and currently serves as chair of Carlyle’s public and private Business Development Companies. She began her career at Carlyle over two decades ago focusing...
History of Childhood in America, from the Colonial Era to the Twenty-First Century (Teacher Seminar Online)
History of Childhood in America, from the Colonial Era to the Twenty-First Century Lead Scholar : Steven Mintz (University of Texas at Austin) Master Teacher : Anthony di Battista Partner Organization : American Jewish Historical Society Live...
Voting and Elections in American History (Teacher Seminar Online)
Voting and Elections in American History, 1788–2020 Lead Scholar : Allan J. Lichtman, American University Master Teacher : Alysha Butler Partner Organization : The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute Live Session Dates : Week of...
Lewis E. Lehrman
Lewis E. Lehrman was presented the National Humanities Medal at the White House in 2001 for his work in American history. He has written for the Finest Hour , Washington Post , The Churchill Project at Hillsdale College, New York...
Diego Javier Luis - "The First Asians in the Americas: A Transpacific History"
Diego Javier Luis is an assistant professor of history at Tufts University. Order The First Asians in the Americas at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided....
Special Events
The Gilder Lehrman Institute will be sponsoring the following events in the coming year: Wednesday, February 28, 2024: Frederick Douglass Book Prize Thursday, April 4, 2024 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize * by invitation only Tuesday,...
Understanding Lincoln: First Inaugural Address (1861)
Watch this close reading of a document by Abraham Lincoln, with Dickinson College historian Matthew Pinsker.
Understanding Lincoln: House Divided Speech (1858)
Understanding Lincoln: House Divided Speech Historian Matthew Pinsker discusses Lincoln's famous speech.
Iberian Roots of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, 1440–1640
In its broadest sense, African American history predates the history of the United States, colonial or otherwise; by the time the English colony of Virginia was founded in 1607, Africans and people of African descent had already been...
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World War I poems: “In Flanders Fields” and “The Answer,” 1918
Ella Osborn’s 1918 diary provides insight into the experiences of an American nurse serving in France at the end of World War I. In addition to her notes about the men under her care and events in France, Osborn jotted down two...
Veterans Legacy Program | Digital Exhibitions
Their Full Measure: Digital Exhibition Veterans Legacy Program This online exhibition explores the lives of nineteen military service personnel in six conflicts: Revolutionary War, Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Cold War (Vietnam and...
Veterans Legacy Program | Professional Development
Professional Development Veterans Legacy Program These professional development recordings explore the sacrifices, strengths, and legacies of American Veterans and Service Members across six major conflicts in United States history. Watch these...
Announcing the 2024 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize Finalists
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History is pleased to announce the finalists for the 2024 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize: Frank J. Cirillo , The Abolitionist Civil War: Immediatists and the Struggle to Transform the Union ...
Facing the New Millennium
In 1941, on the eve of Pearl Harbor, Time magazine publisher Henry Luce predicted that the twentieth century would become known as the "American Century." By many measures he was correct. During the next sixty years, the United States...
Evaluating Lyndon B. Johnson’s Character and Efforts during the Civil Rights Era
Background Information In 1969 Thomas Baker conducted an interview with Roy Wilkins, executive directory of the NAACP, based on Wilkins’s experiences with Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. This abridged version of the...
History U | Lyndon Johnson and American Liberalism
Lyndon Johnson and American Liberalism Watch Michael Flamm, Professor of History, Ohio Wesleyan University discuss Lyndon Johnson as part of the History U course "1960s in Historical Perspective."
The Gilder Lehrman Institute’s...
History U | The Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation Watch Denver Brunsman, Associate Professor of History at George Washington University, discuss the Articles of Confederation as part of the History U course "Foundations of American Government."
The...
History U | American Indian History Introduction
American Indian History Introduction Watch Ned Blackhawk (Western Shoshone), Howard R. Lamar Professor of History and American Studies at Yale University, introduce his History U course "American Indian History: Recasting the Narrative"
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The Seventies
Long overshadowed by the tumultuous 1960s and the transformative 1980s, the 1970s has finally been recognized as an era in its own right. And it is more than Watergate, big hair, and disco. During the 1970s, postwar affluence was...
Nominations Now Open for the 2024 National History Teacher of the Year
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History celebrates outstanding K–12 educators, providing a valuable opportunity to recognize and embrace diversity in education New York, February 12, 2024—Nominations are now open for the...
Join Us This Summer for an Inspiring Educational Journey at Gettysburg College
The Gilder Lehrman Teacher Symposium at Gettysburg College , running from July 7 to July 10, 2024, is a four-day residential program that allows K–12 educators to collaborate with other passionate educators, explore innovative...
"On Juneteenth": A Conversation with Annette Gordon-Reed
Recording of a Book Talk on On Juneteenth presented by author Annette Gordon-Reed (Harvard University) in conversation with Edward L. Ayers (University of Richmond).
Andrew Jackson’s Shifting Legacy
Of all presidential reputations, Andrew Jackson’s is perhaps the most difficult to summarize or explain. Most Americans recognize his name, though most probably know him (in the words of a famous song) as the general who "fought the...
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Barack Obama’s First Inaugural Address, 2009
The inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States in 2009 was a historic moment not only because Obama was the first African American ever sworn into executive office but also because he entered the presidency at a...
Everyone’s Backyard: The Love Canal Chemical Disaster
It all started quietly. There were no alerts, no sirens, no evacuation plans, no reports from Jim Cantore on the Weather Channel. Most people living in the LaSalle neighborhood of Niagara Falls, New York, first heard about problems in...
President Ford’s remarks in Japan, 1974
In November 1974, Gerald Ford became the first sitting American president to visit Japan—the trip was also Ford’s first abroad since replacing Nixon in August of that year. He used the trip to reinforce US-Japanese relations, and in...
John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address, 1961
On January 20, 1961, John F. Kennedy was sworn in as the thirty-fifth President of the United States. His short, fourteen-minute inaugural address is best remembered for a single line: "My fellow Americans: ask not what your country...
The struggle for married women’s rights, circa 1880s
In the early nineteenth century, married women in the US were legally subordinate to their husbands. Wives could not own their own property, keep their own wages, or enter into contracts. Beginning in 1839, states slowly began to...
Lincoln’s Interpretation of the Civil War
On March 4, 1865, Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office for the second time. The setting itself reflected how much had changed in the past four years. When Lincoln delivered his First Inaugural Address, the new Capitol dome, which...
Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Matter of Influence
One hundred years after Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852, the poet Langston Hughes called the novel, "the most cussed and discussed book of its time." Hughes’s observation is particularly apt in that it avoids...
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The "House Divided" Speech, ca. 1857–1858
By 1850, the extension of slavery into the new territories won through the Mexican-American War of 1846–1848 provided a testing ground for competing visions of America. The passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850 and the Kansas...
Buying Frederick Douglass’s freedom, 1846
After he had escaped from slavery in 1838, Frederick Douglass became a well-known orator and abolitionist. He wrote an autobiography in 1845, but because he was a runaway slave, its publication increased the chances that he would be...
Lydia Maria Child on women’s rights, 1843
The best-known work of the poet and novelist Lydia Maria Child may be her poem "Over the River and through the Woods," but she is also remembered for her compelling objections to slavery and her support for underrepresented groups....
The Legal Status of Women, 1776–1830
State law rather than federal law governed women’s rights in the early republic. The authority of state law meant that much depended upon where a woman lived and the particular social circumstances in her region of the country. The...
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No Way Out: Lord Cornwallis, the Siege of Yorktown, and America’s Victory in the War for Independence
Early on the morning of October 17, 1781, Lieutenant General Charles, Lord Cornwallis, found himself hunkered down in a cave near the southern shoreline of the York River. Above him was the disintegrating hamlet of Yorktown, Virginia,...
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Hamilton’s Report on the Subject of Manufactures, 1791
When George Washington became president in 1789, he appointed Alexander Hamilton as his secretary of the Treasury. Hamilton’s vision for the economic foundation of the United States included three main programs: 1) the federal...
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...
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...
Sir Francis Drake’s attack on St. Augustine, 1586
Five years after leading the first English circumnavigation of the globe in 1577–1580, Sir Francis Drake led a raid against Spanish settlements in the Caribbean including Santiago, Santo Domingo, and Cartagena, as well as St....
Eleanor Roosevelt’s four basic rights, 1944
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, a lifelong advocate of equal rights, used her position as First Lady to advocate against discrimination in the United States. However, Mrs. Roosevelt’s ideas were not embraced by everyone in the pre-civil...
The origins of FDR’s New Deal, 1932
When the nation fell into the Great Depression following the stock market crash of 1929, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was serving as New York’s governor and was responsible for shaping the state’s response to the crisis. The origins of...
FDR’s Court-Packing Plan: A Study in Irony
The Great Depression of the 1930s was the nation’s grimmest economic crisis since the founding of the American republic. After the 1932 elections, Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced a series of innovative remedies—his New Deal—but the...
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The Influenza Pandemic of 1918–1919
On September 19, 1918, 21-year-old Army private Roscoe Vaughan reported to sick call at Camp Jackson, South Carolina, feeling achy and feverish. He was promptly hospitalized along with eighty-two other soldiers that day. Influenza had...
The Pueblo Revolt
In 1680 the people known collectively as "Pueblos" rebelled against their Spanish overlords in the American Southwest. Spaniards had dominated them, their lives, their land, and their souls for eight decades. The Spanish had...
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Allen C. Guelzo - "Our Ancient Faith: Lincoln, Democracy, and the American Experiment"
Allen C. Guelzo serves as the Thomas W. Smith Distinguished Research Scholar and Director of the Initiative on Politics and Statesmanship in the James Madison Program at Princeton University. Order Our Ancient Faith at the Gilder...
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