Today’s school children are familiar with fire drills, earthquake drills, tornado drills, and even tsunami drills. Filing out-doors to athletic fields or hiding under desks from imaginary natural disaster debris is expected, scheduled, and routine. Parents and grandparents of these students, however, likely remember duck-and-cover drills.
During the Cold War, nuclear war with the Soviet Union seemed constantly on the horizon. Adults around the United States built fallout shelters and stocked their basements with canned food, water, and safety supplies. Children learned to "duck and cover"
On January 5, 1914, automaker Henry Ford made history by instituting a $5-a-day wage. The move made national news. Five dollars a day constituted double the industry norm—and double the pay of most of Ford’s own employees. At the same time, Ford reduced the working day from nine hours to eight—becoming one of the first companies in America to adopt the 40-hour work week.
Massachusetts set the first statewide minimum wage in 1912 and in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, the federal government set a minimum wage of $.25 per hour for eligible workers—then about 20 percent of the American
Did you know that the most popular written work in American history was published before America was an actual nation of its own?
On January 10, 1776, six months before the adoption of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress, Thomas Paine published his explosive pro-independence pamphlet, Common Sense. The polemical work, which sold one copy for every five people living in the colonies, is famous not only for its revolutionary anti-monarchy message, but for the language with which Paine delivered that message. "I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and
Alexander Hamilton was born on this day, either in 1755 or 1757 (historians debate the year). Explore Hamilton’s life and legacy in this interactive digital exhibit.
The Statue of Liberty has long welcomed newcomers to the United States as a shining beacon of freedom and opportunity in the middle of New York Harbor. Children are taught that the Statue of Liberty was gifted to the United States by the people of France, commemorating the long-lasting alliance between the two nations. Beyond that, however, how much does the average American really know about the Statue of Liberty?
Although the structure was designed and delivered by France, the US agreed to construct a pedestal for the statue. The US officials responsible for raising the necessary $250,000
Either you love ’em or you hate ’em. Everyone has an opinion on sideburns, and few fashion choices provoke quite so much controversy.
Yet sideburns have a rich history that can be appreciated by supporters and detractors alike. Sideburns got their name from Ambrose Burnside, a Union general who sported the distinctive hairstyle. Although Burnside served briefly as the commander of the Army of the Potomac and as the first president of the National Rifle Association (NRA), he is best remembered today for his outstanding sartorial contribution. Burnside did not invent the look, but his facial
Read an excerpt of the letter written by George Wallace and explore the online exhibition Freedom Riders, detailing the struggle for civil rights when Wallace was governor.
This weekend, our country celebrates the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., a Baptist minister and activist who became one of the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. Throughout his life, which was cut too short by his tragic assassination in 1968, Dr. King played key roles in many of the important events of the Civil Rights Movement. In 1955, he led the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a political and social campaign against segregation on public transportation in Montgomery, Alabama. In 1957, he helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), an important civil rights
Read an essay about the abolitionist Grimke sisters and the essay "The Civil Rights Movement: Major Events and Legacies" to explore the long struggle for civil rights.
Did you have a good National Handwriting Day? What? You didn’t know that penmanship-appreciators across the nation celebrate January 23 as National Handwriting Day? The rising popularity of typewriters and word processors in the 20th century, and today’s culture of quippy texts and tweets have led many to mourn the decline of penmanship. The Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association (WIMA) instated this little-known holiday in 1977 in the hopes of combating handwriting malaise.
WIMA chose January 23 in honor of the Founding Father with the most iconic—and sizeable—signature, John Hancock.
Read about photography in the 19th century, explore select images from the American Civil War, and create your own Civil War-era portrait.
Are you teaching the Progressive Era this spring? Use the infographic below to provide your students an overview of the reform movements that make the Progressive Era stand out as a time of massive social, political, and economic change.
To view "Progressive Era Reform Movements" in History by Era, click here. To print the infographic as a PDF, click here.
As part of a Google Cultural Institute initiative on African American history, the Gilder Lehrman Institute created six digital exhibits featuring Gilder Lehrman’s rich materials relating to African American history. In celebration of Black History Month, we will be sharing these exhibits throughout the month. In honor of yesterday’s Google Doodle, here’s our Frederick Douglass from Slavery to Freedom digital exhibit.
Read a letter from Douglass to his former owner and his views on Jim Crow.
Despite unfair compensation, segregation, and even legal bars on military service, African Americans have served in every conflict in United States history. Take a peek at the next digital exhibition in Gilder Lehrman’s Black History Month initiative, created through a partnership with the Google Cultural Institute. (Click here to launch the interactive feature in a new window.)
You can see more essays, videos, online exhibitions, and primary sources on African American history.
We are thrilled to contribute to today’s Google Doodle honoring Frederick Douglass. Today is the first day of Black History Month, and the approximate date of Frederick Douglass’s 198th birthday.
Gilder Lehrman contributed to today’s Frederick Douglass Doodle in two ways. On the Google homepage, click "Explore the life and work of Frederick Douglass" to be routed to the Google Cultural Institute’s Black History and Culture series. Our Frederick Douglass from Slavery to Freedom exhibit is today’s featured exhibit. As part of a Google Cultural Institute initiative on African American history,
Ada Ferrer, professor of history and Latin American and Caribbean studies at New York University, was awarded the Frederick Douglass Book Prize Thursday night in a ceremony at the Yale Club in New York City. The award, which recognizes Ferrer’s book Freedom’s Mirror: Cuba and Haiti in the Age of Revolution, was presented by David Blight, director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition.
Gilder Lehrman supporters, historians, students, and teachers came to honor Ms. Ferrer, whose winning book discusses the relationship between Cuba and Haiti during
The movement to end slavery has existed in various forms throughout American history, but the abolitionist movement slowly gained ground as a political force in our country through the mid-nineteenth century. Take a peek at the next digital exhibition in Gilder Lehrman’s Black History Month initiative, created through a partnership with the Google Cultural Institute. Click here to launch the interactive feature in a new window.
Explore more essays, videos, online exhibitions, and primary sources on African American history.
Written by Stephanie Townrow and Mary Kate Kwasnik.
William Woodlin enlisted in the United States Colored Infantry 8th Regiment in October 1863. Remarkably, Woodlin kept a journal during his service with the US Colored Troops. Woodlin’s brief entries describe camp life, his service with the regimental band as a horn player, several battles, the weather, equal pay with white soldiers, and the famous 54th Massachusetts Regiment, among many other topics.
In October 1864, Woodlin describes the bravery of black troops in the Siege of Petersburg, Virginia, reporting that "the johnnies made furious
Read the full transcript of the letter Lincoln wrote Mary Owens and view the Lincoln Speaks exhibition that explores the power of Lincoln's words.
Throughout American history, enslaved people have resisted bondage in a variety of ways: some escaped, rebelled, or sabotaged work tools or work product. They also resisted in more subtle ways, refusing privately to use names given to them by slave holders and maintaining their identity by keeping track of family members. Music, folk tales, and other African cultural forms also became weapons of resistance. Take a look at the next digital exhibition in Gilder Lehrman’s Black History Month initiative, created through a partnership with the Google Cultural Institute.
Click here to launch the
Looking for something interactive to use with your students? Check out Gilder Lehrman’s new Online Exhibitions page to see what resources we can offer your classroom. Our digital exhibitions range from the founding era to the twentieth century, and focus on key people, events, and themes in American history.
In a rare 1846 freedom suit, Dred and Harriet Scott sued their master for their own freedom as well as their daughters’. The resulting appeals and rulings that pushed the suit to the Supreme Court marked a turning point in the years leading up to the Civil War, calling into question issues of slavery, freedom, and states’ rights. Take a look at the next digital exhibition in Gilder Lehrman’s Black History Month initiative, created through a partnership with the Google Cultural Institute.
Click here to launch the interactive feature in a new window.
Today is the anniversary of the publication of the groundbreaking book The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan in 1963. Debunking the idea of the feminine mystique which glorified the role of women as homemakers as a myth, which has "succeeded in burying millions of women alive," Friedan challenged American women to seek fulfillment through education and work outside of the home. Friedan’s book quickly became a sensation and a catalyst for a second wave of the women’s rights movement. As a leader of the movement, Friedan was a key founder of NOW (National Organization for Women) in 1966, and
Read a transcript of the certificate and examine an African American’s pay warrant from the Revolutionary War.
