1,473 items
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Beverly Gage - "G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century"
Beverly Gage is a professor of twentieth-century American history at Yale and winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Order G-Man at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided....
"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.
Frederick Douglass Exhibition Resources
Throughout his life, Frederick Douglass worked for equal rights. From the abolition of slavery to the fight against Jim Crow, he challenged Americans to live up to the founding ideals of the United States. The resources featured here...
Common Man and Contradictions: A Mock Trial of Andrew Jackson
Overview The election of Andrew Jackson in 1828 marked a change in American politics. For the first time a presidential candidate had been elected from west of the Appalachian Mountains, marking an end to the streak held by wealthy...
Clayton Butler - "True Blue: White Unionists in the Deep South during the Civil War and Reconstruction"
Clayton Butler earned his PhD in History from the University of Virginia in 2020 and was previously a postdoctoral fellow at the Nau Center for Civil War History. Order True Blue at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an...
Ashley White-Stumpf
Ashley White-Stumpf Iraq & Afghanistan Ashley White-Stumpf served in the Army during the Afghanistan War. She was posthumously awarded a Bronze Star and the Purple Heart for her service. Image Source: Photograph of the unveiling ceremony for...
Jose Angel Garibay
Jose Angel Garibay Iraq & Afghanistan In 1979, Simona Garibay and her youngest son, Jose Angel Garibay, came to the United States from Jalisco, Mexico. After his death in Iraq, the US government awarded Cpl. Jose Garibay posthumous citizenship....
Alan G. Rogers
Alan G. Rogers Iraq & Afghanistan Alan G. Rogers served in the Army during the Gulf and Iraq Wars. For his master’s thesis in policy management from Georgetown, Rogers wrote about the effect of the US military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on...
Grace Murray Hopper
Grace Murray Hopper Cold War Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper was a naval computer scientist who held the rank of rear admiral when she retired in 1985. Image Source: Lynn Gilbert, Photograph of Grace Murray Hopper in her office in Washington, DC,...
Perry Watkins
Perry Watkins Cold War Perry Watkins served fifteen years in the Army as an openly gay man. Despite this, in 1980, the Army revoked his security clearance and had him discharged because he was gay, a discharge he successfully fought in court. Image...
Walter Schirra Jr.
Walter Schirra Jr. Cold War After completing ninety combat missions during the Korean War, Walter Schirra Jr. was named one of seven test pilots for NASA’s Project Mercury. Image Source: Yvette Smith, Photograph of Walter Schirra emerging from the...
John W. Rogers Sr.
John W. Rogers Sr. World War II In World War II, John W. Rogers was one of the original twenty-eight Black airmen recruited to the 99th Pursuit Squadron, also known as the Tuskegee Airmen. Rogers flew more than 120 missions in Europe. Image Source:...
Annie Fox
Annie Fox World War II Annie Fox was Station Hospital’s chief nurse during the attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawai'i. On October 26, 1942, Fox became the first woman in America to be awarded the Purple Heart for her heroism during the attack. Image...
Joe Morris Sr.
Joe Morris Sr. World War II Joe Morris Sr. was one of four hundred “code talkers” who memorized a code that substituted traditional Navajo words for military phrases. The contributions of the Navajo code talkers were classified until 1968. Image...
Yeiichi “Kelly” Kuwayama
Yeiichi “Kelly” Kuwayama World War II Yeiichi Kuwayama served as a platoon medic in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, composed of Japanese Americans. His unit fought in some of the fiercest World War II battles in Italy and France. Image Source:...
James Reese Europe
James Reese Europe World War I James Reese Europe, a bandleader in New York City, was an advocate for uniquely Black music. Europe enlisted during World War I and became a lieutenant in the 369th Regiment, known as the Harlem Hellfighters. Image...
Ella Osborn
Ella Osborn World War I Ella Jane Osborn, a nurse deployed to France during World War I, is buried at Wainscott Cemetery in New York. She kept a remarkable diary in 1918 and 1919 that captured her experiences during the war. Image Source: Ella Jane...
Louis Santop Loftin
Louis Santop Loftin World War I Louis Santop Loftin, Hall of Fame baseball player and WWI Veteran, is buried at the Philadelphia National Cemetery. Loftin played baseball in the Negro Leagues from 1909 to 1926 and was one of the league’s first star...
Edward Day Cohota
Edward Day Cohota Civil War Edward Day Cohota served in the Union Army for thirty years and was one of approximately 300 Asians and Pacific Islanders who fought in the Civil War. Image Source: Photograph of Edward Day Cohota, ca. 1880-1890, Cape Ann...
Pauline Cushman
Pauline Cushman Civil War Pauline Cushman served as a spy for the Union Army and is buried at San Francisco National Cemetery. She was an actress who used her skills to gather intelligence for the Union Army. Image Source: Mathew Brady Studio,...
Federico Fernández Cavada
Federico Fernández Cavada Civil War Cuban-born Federico Fernández Cavada served in the Union Army during the Civil War as an engineer and topographer with the Balloon Corps, sketching Confederate forces from the air. Image Source: Mathew B. Brady,...
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...
American Colonization Society membership certificate, 1833
When James Madison signed this membership certificate as president of the American Colonization Society in 1833, the organization’s effort to repatriate America’s free black population to Africa had been underway for over a decade. On...
Back in 1734
Introduction Present the following scenario to your students. You can either read it to them or enlist students to act it out. The scenario is about two children who lived in 1734 and were the age of your students. "Anna Elizabeth and...
Literacy and the immigration of "undesirables," 1903
During the Progressive era, tens of millions of immigrants came to the United States from Europe to fulfill their American dream. During this period most came from southern and eastern Europe, particularly from Italy, Russia, and the...
Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady for Social Justice: A Common Core Unit (Grades 9–12)
Objectives Students will be asked to read and analyze primary and secondary sources about Eleanor Roosevelt and the work she did to support social justice issues both in the United States and around the world. They will look at the...
The price of war: A letter from Mary Kelly to Sarah Gordon, 1862
James Kelly served with the 14th Indiana Volunteers beginning in 1861. In March 1862, his wife, Mary, traveled to the field hospital in Virginia where he lay wounded after the Battle of Winchester. She described the terrible...
The Battle to Expand Access to the Ballot from 1920 to 2000
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> Access this essay as a PDF , including key vocabulary terms and discussion questions, or read the text of the essay below. State and local governments have primary responsibility for setting the...
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...
Pioneering New Methods to Expand Voting, 1865–1920
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> Access this essay as a PDF , including key vocabulary terms and discussion questions, or read the text of the essay below. A new chapter in voting rights began when the Civil War ended in 1865....
Derek LeeBaert - "Unlikely Heroes: Franklin Roosevelt, His Four Lieutenants, and the World They Made"
Derek LeeBaert is the Truman Book Award winner and co-founder of the National Museum of the United States Army. Order Unlikely Heroes at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the...
Jeremi Suri - "Civil War by Other Means: America's Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy"
Jeremi Suri is the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and a professor in the Department of History and the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Order Civil War by Other Means...
Inside the Vault: Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Voting Rights
On May 4, 2023, our curators were joined by Dr. Andrew Robertson (The Graduate Center and Lehman College, CUNY) to discuss materials related to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century voting rights. Dr. Robertson explained how voting...
Statistics: The Growth of Cities
Urban Growth Number of Cities 1860 1900 100,000-499,999 7 32 500,000 or more 2 6 Percent of Total Population 1860 1900 100,000-499,999 4% 8% 500,000 or more 4% 11% Questions for Discussion What factors contributed to the growth of...
Our Constitution: The Bill of Rights (Grades 4–6)
View the Constitution in our collection by clicking here and here . For a resource on the variations between a draft and the final version of the Constitution click here . For additional resources click here . Unit Objective This...
History Times: A Nation of Immigrants
Coming to the Land of Opportunity Throughout American history, millions of people around the world have left their homelands for a chance to start a new life in this country—and they continue to come here to this day. People who come...
Emily Bingham - "My Old Kentucky Home: The Astonishing Life and Reckoning of an Iconic American Song"
Emily Bingham serves as an Honors Faculty Fellow at Bellarmine University. Order My Old Kentucky Home at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for...
Jacqueline Jones - "No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston's Black Workers in the Civil War Era"
Jacqueline Jones is the Ellen C. Temple Professor of Women’s History Emerita at the University of Texas at Austin and a past president of the American Historical Association. Order No Right to an Honest Living at the Gilder Lehrman...
Elliott West - "Continental Reckoning: The American West in the Age of Expansion"
Elliott West is Alumni Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Arkansas. Order Continental Reckoning at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link...
Inside the Vault: Lynching and Anti-Lynching Materials
On April 6, 2023, our curators were joined by Dr. Terry Anne Scott (Director, Institute for Common Power). Dr. Scott used primary sources to discuss the history of anti-lynching activism and the dreadful events that gave rise to it,...
Beth Bailey - "An Army Afire: How the U.S. Army Confronted Its Racial Crisis in the Vietnam Era"
Beth Bailey is a Foundation Distinguished Professor in the Department of History at The University of Kansas and the founding director of the Center for Military, War, and Society Studies. Order An Army Afire at the Gilder Lehrman...
David P. Cline - "Twice Forgotten: African Americans and the Korean War"
David P. Cline is a professor of history and director of the Center for Public and Oral History at San Diego State University. Order Twice Forgotten at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every...
The death of enslaved Africans on a voyage, 1725
Slavery in English America underwent profound changes during the first two centuries of settlement. During the early seventeenth century, some Black laborers were enslaved; others, however, were treated like White indentured servants...
Ken Burns - "Our America: A Photographic History"
Ken Burns, the producer and director of numerous film series, including The Roosevelts: An Intimate History and Country Music , founded his own documentary film company, Florentine Films, in 1976. His landmark film, The Civil War ,...
Marc J. Selverstone - "The Kennedy Withdrawal: Camelot and the American Commitment to Vietnam"
Marc J. Selverstone, an associate professor in Presidential Studies, heads the Presidential Recordings Program at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, where he edits the secret White House tapes of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B....
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