The Gilder Lehrman Institute will be sponsoring the following events in the coming year:
Wednesday, April 19, 2021: Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize (online)
Tuesday, May 18, 2021: Gilder Lehrman Gala (online)
For more information about any of these prizes or events, contact events@gilderlehrman.org.
The Making of America: Colonial Era to Reconstruction
Dates: July 11–17, 2021Location: Virtual SeminarApplication Deadline: March 1, 2021
The Making of America: Colonial Era to Reconstruction is a virtual, weeklong 2021 summer institute that offers K–8 educators the opportunity to explore the people, ideas, and events that made America into a cultural, social, and political reality. This institute will be purposefully broad to address the needs of K–8 educators.
Teachers will learn about indigenous peoples and colonial societies, the American Revolution and the US Constitution, slavery and
Have you seen other students’ performance pieces from the Hamilton Education Program and wondered, “How do I do that?” In this class, we will look at primary source documents on the Hamilton Education Program website and find their dramatic potential. We will focus on the Founding Era’s untold stories and people who lived in the world of Hamilton.
Each week we will be joined by a guest from the musical Hamilton. Both cast and creative team members will provide insight into how they find their own story in the text. Not only will students learn the historiography of documents from the
This course covers the long struggle for Vietnam, waged between 1940 and 1975, with particular attention to the period of direct American involvement. The events will be considered in their relationship to Vietnam’s history, to US politics and society, and to the concurrent Cold War
Gilder Lehrman Book Breaks features the most exciting history scholars in America discussing their books live with host William Roka, followed by a Q&A with home audiences.
Every Sunday at 2 p.m. ET.
Student Question Submission Competition
Middle and high school students (age 13 and up), submit your questions for one of the historians being featured on Book Breaks. If your question is chosen, it will be announced live on the program and in recognition you and your teacher will each win a $50 gift certificate to the Gilder Lehrman Gift Shop! Your question can be about the book or the topic
Cawo Abdi, Professor of Sociology University of Minnesota
Laura Rosanne Adderley, Associate Professor of African Diaspora HistoryTulane University
Westenley Alcenat, Assistant Professor of HistoryFordham University
Catherine Allgor, PresidentMassachusetts Historical Society
Patrick Allitt, Cahoon Family Professor of American HistoryEmory University
Lisa M. F. Andersen, Assistant Professor for Liberal ArtsThe Juilliard School
Stephen Andrews, Adjunct Professor of History and Managing Editor of the Journal of American History Indiana University
Thomas G. Andrews, Professor of HistoryUniversity
This seminar examines the lives and legacies of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. These pillars of the Civil Rights Movement are often portrayed as opposites. While it is true that their rhetoric and methods differed, they are less dissimilar than the popular narrative of their lives allows. By looking simultaneously at both men as they battle White supremacy and the oppression of African Americans, we will highlight their similarities and their influence on one another and the Civil Rights Movement.
Live Sessions:
• Scholar Session: August 2, 1:00–2:00 p.m. ET
• Scholar Session and
Alexander Hamilton is very much the man of the moment, but he was equally a man of his times. This seminar puts Hamilton in the context of the colonial and Revolutionary eras to help us fully understand both where he came from and the impact he had on American government and politics.
In the seminar, participants will come to appreciate the many ways in which Hamilton’s story opens up multiple perspectives on US history. From the close economic connections between the Caribbean and mainland colonies of the British empire, to the importance of cities in the developing nation, to the workings
A four-year cataclysm that left in its wake more than six hundred thousand dead and two million refugees—and destroyed legal slavery in the United States—the Civil War sparked some of the most heroic and achingly dark moments in American history. Join Gilder Lehrman and Allen C. Guelzo of Gettysburg College in a study of the war’s strategy, tactics, and memory, and consider the legacy of the Civil War 150 years after its end.
Live Sessions:
• Scholar Session: July 12, 3:00–4:00 p.m. ET
• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: July 13, 3:00–5:15 p.m. ET
• Scholar Session and Optional Social
The Enlightenment is often associated with Europe, but in this seminar we will explore how the specific conditions of eighteenth-century North America—slavery, the presence of large numbers of indigenous peoples, a colonial political context, and even local animals, rocks, and plants—also shaped the major questions and conversations of the time. We will examine how Enlightenment ideas directly influenced the American Revolution’s commitment to liberty, natural rights, separation of powers, and the pursuit of happiness—and how those ideas crept into almost every other area of American life as
This seminar explores the struggles and achievements of major groups who journeyed to a new home in the United States, including Irish, Italian, Jewish, Asian, and Latino Americans. Historian Vincent Cannato, author of the acclaimed American Passage: The History of Ellis Island, leads a consideration of exclusion and inclusion; patterns of settlement; questions of race, gender, and ethnicity; and the evolution of federal government policy.
Live Sessions:
• Scholar Session: June 28, 11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. ET
• Scholar Session and Pedagogy Session: June 29, 11:00 a.m.–1:15 p.m. ET
• Scholar
Ignored for generations, American Indian history has recently become among the most dynamic fields of historical inquiry. As scholars now recognize, Indian peoples have fundamentally shaped and defined the modern world. From the founding of the first European settlements in North America to continuing debates over the meanings of American democracy, Indian history remains integral to understanding US history and culture. This seminar introduces this complex and often ignored field of study.
Live Sessions:
• Scholar Session: July 26, 11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. ET
• Scholar Session and Pedagogy
This seminar takes an in-depth look at the history and powers of the executive office through case studies of six twentieth- and twenty-first-century presidents:
• Franklin Roosevelt
• Lyndon Johnson
• Richard Nixon
• Jimmy Carter
• Ronald Reagan
• Barack Obama
Through the examination of these modern presidents, participants will develop an understanding of the evolution of presidential power in relation to other branches of government, and in the country more generally. Seminar materials include optional selected readings from a number of texts as well as archival audio and video.
The American West has played an enduring role in the popular culture of the nation and the world. The images are familiar: cowboys and cattle drives, Indian wars, wagon trains, rowdy mining towns, and homesteaders. All, in fact, were part of the story, but behind the color and drama of films, novels, and art were developments critical to the creation of the modern American nation and its rise as a global economic, political, and military power. The West was as well a showplace of the industrial, social, technological, and scientific forces remaking the world beyond America. This seminar will
In this seminar, Professor James Basker and a number of guest speakers restore to view the lives and writings of a wide array of African Americans in the period 1760 to 1800. Drawing on rare and long-forgotten texts, we will focus on prominent individuals such as Phillis Wheatley, Benjamin Banneker, Jupiter Hammon, Absalom Jones, Richard Allen, Prince Hall, and James Forten, along with others who lived more ordinary lives—Black soldiers, formerly enslaved people petitioning the government, women both enslaved and free, religious and civic leaders, and writers of early slave narratives.
Live
This seminar covers the long struggle for Vietnam, waged between 1940 and 1975, with particular attention to the period of direct American involvement. The events will be considered in their relationship to Vietnam’s history, to US politics and society, and to the concurrent Cold War.
We are excited to be offering this seminar in partnership with the USS Midway Museum. The USS Midway's Institute for Teachers emphasizes professional development through seminars about the Vietnam War, Cold War, and related conflicts. Thanks to the USS Midway's support, teachers in this seminar will have the
This seminar examines the struggles and successes of American women in fighting for equality in American politics, life, and culture, from the movement for suffrage through campaigns for fair wages.
Led by esteemed historian and two-time Bancroft Prize winner Linda Gordon, seminar participants study grassroots political activism, landmark court decisions, significant achievements in the arts, and the intersection of work on behalf of women’s rights in the United States with other galvanizing movements for equality at home and abroad. We also consider the evolving role of gender in mediating
The Constitution is the founding document of the United States. Yet ever since the process of ratification, the document’s meaning—and questions about who gets to decide its meaning—have spurred pitched political battles, campaigns for elected office and social change, and arguments among ordinary voters from all walks of life. Americans have debated the question of what the Constitution means in courtrooms and legislatures, at lunch counters and on picket lines, outside medical clinics and in schools. Studying the Constitution in the twentieth century means learning about how law, society,
This seminar examines African American history from emancipation to the present, focusing on the struggle of African Americans to achieve full citizenship in the aftermath of legal slavery. In particular, it considers the promise and demise of citizenship represented by Reconstruction, the era of breathtaking anti-Black violence and terror known as “Redemption,” and the Great Migrations of African Americans from the South to the North.
The seminar studies the rise of Jim Crow, the roots of Black political organizing in the early twentieth century, and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.
The American Revolution is arguably the most significant event in US history. Put simply, without the Revolution, the United States as we know it would not exist. And yet, the Revolution is also one of the events in American history most misunderstood by the general public. It is a much more complex, surprising event than most Americans realize. Participants will gain insight into new scholarly approaches to traditional subjects, including American resistance to British rule, the decision for independence, and America’s victory in the Revolutionary War.
In addition, participants will consider
This seminar explores the diverse political philosophies of influential Black Americans as they sought to secure their dignity as human beings and rights as citizens. What makes this story intriguing is that Black Americans struggled to secure justice for themselves on the basis of principles White Americans professed to hold near and dear. Quite simply, Black Americans asked that America be true to herself. As Frederick Douglass put it: “Not a Negro problem, not a race problem, but a national problem; whether the American people will ultimately administer equal justice to all the varieties
The tension between presidents and journalists is as old as the republic itself. George Washington, upon seeing an unflattering caricature of himself in a local newspaper, “got into one of those passions when he cannot command himself,” according to then Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. Since the founding era, almost everything about access and expectation, literacy and technology has changed. At the same time, the office of the president has grown increasingly powerful. This seminar chronicles the eternal battle between the core institutions that define the republic, revealing that the
This seminar is a study of enslaved people and the ways in which human beings coped with captivity. It also listens to their voices through audio files, diaries, letters, actions, and silences. Centering on the people of slavery rather than viewing them as objects shifts the focus to their commentary on slavery. In addition to listening to enslaved people, students will have the opportunity to engage some of the most cutting-edge scholarship on the subject. Although the early literature objectified enslaved people and hardly paid attention to their experiences, work published since the Civil
This seminar focuses on African American women’s history in the United States with certain aspects of Black women’s activism and leadership covered within the African Diaspora. We will examine ways in which these women engaged in local, national, and international freedom struggles while simultaneously defining their identities as wives, mothers, leaders, citizens, and workers.
We will pay special attention to the diversity of Black women’s experiences and to the dominant images of Black women from Mumbet (the first enslaved Black woman to sue for her freedom and win) to contemporary issues
Too often the history of the “American colonies” focuses on the thirteen British provinces that rebelled against the mother country in 1776 and formed what became known as the United States. While such an approach allows us to understand the British roots of our current national identity, it fails to do justice to those regions of North America (many of which eventually became part of the United States) and those people and groups that did not participate in the grand experiment of American independence. Rather than thinking about this period as a necessary forerunner to the American
