79 items
In a brief essay that appeared ca. 1925, poet Katharine Lee Bates described her inspiration for writing "America the Beautiful," the poem that would evolve into one of the nation’s best-loved patriotic songs, during a trip to Pike’s...
"Gittel's Journey: An Ellis Island Story"
Gittel and her mother were supposed to immigrate to America together, but when her mother is stopped by the health inspector, Gittel must make the journey alone. Her mother writes her cousin’s address in New York on a piece of paper....
"Grandfather's Journey"
When he was a young man, Allen Say’s grandfather left his home in Japan to explore the world. He began his journey by crossing the Pacific Ocean on a steamship, then wandered the deserts, farmlands, and cities of North America. Allen...
"Locomotive"
It is the summer of 1869, and trains, crews, and family are traveling together, riding America’s brand-new transcontinental railroad. These pages come alive with the details of the trip and the sounds, speed, and strength of the...
"Paper Son: The Inspiring Story of Tyrus Wong, Immigrant and Artist"
Before he became an artist named Tyrus Wong, he was a boy named Wong Geng Yeo. He traveled across a vast ocean from China to America with only a suitcase and a few papers. Not papers for drawing–which he loved to do–but immigration...
Alaina E. Roberts - "I've Been Here All the While: Black Freedom on Native Land"
Alaina E. Roberts is an assistant professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh. Order I’ve Been Here All the While at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link...
All Aboard: Making Connections with the Transcontinental Railroad
LESSON 1 Objectives Students will Read and understand primary source writings from two key documents that encouraged settlers to go west and that established congressional support of what would eventually become the transcontinental...
Anti-corporate cartoons, ca. 1900
These cartoons illustrate the growing hostility toward the practices of the big businesses that fueled the industrial development of the United States. In "The Protectors of Our Industries" (1883), railroad magnates Jay Gould and...
Building Carnegie Hall, 1889
In early 1889, industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie was working on plans for a major music hall in New York City. On January 31, 1889, Carnegie wrote to Hiram Hitchcock, the owner of New York’s Fifth Avenue Hotel, to...
Catherine Ceniza Choy - "Asian American Histories of the United States"
Catherine Ceniza Choy is a professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Order Asian American Histories at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link...
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...
Elliott West - "The Essential West: Collected Essays"
Elliot West is an Alumni Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Arkansas Order The Essential West: Collected Essays at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the...
Emma Goldman on the restriction of civil liberties, 1919
Emma Goldman was born to a Jewish family in Kovno, Russia (present-day Lithuania). In 1885, at the age of sixteen, she emigrated to the United States, becoming a well-known author and lecturer promoting anarchism, workers’ rights,...
Eric Foner, Kathleen DuVal, and Lisa McGirr - "Give Me Liberty! An American History"
Eric Foner is DeWitt Clinton Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University. Kathleen DuVal is a professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Lisa McGirr is a Charles Warren Professor of American...
Framing Soo Hoo Lem Kong
Overview Students will examine immigration documents and interviews in order to describe the experience of Chinese immigrants entering California in the 1900s. Students will use depth and complexity icons as tools to develop higher...
Gordon Chang - "The Ghosts of Gold Mountain: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad"
Order The Ghosts of Gold Mountain at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for supporting our programs!
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Guided Readings: Indian Policy
Reading 1 One [infantry] battalion...left Fort Lyon [Colorado] on the night of the 28th of November, 1864; about daybreak on the morning of the 29th of November we came in sight of the camp of friendly [Cheyenne and Arapaho] Indians.....
Guided Readings: The Rise of the City
Reading 1 To-day, what is a tenement? . . . When last arraigned before the bar of public justice: “It is generally a brick building from four to six stories high on the street, frequently with a store on the first floor which, when...
Historical Context: Go West ... and Grow Up with the Country
In 1854 Horace Greeley, a New York newspaper editor, gave Josiah B. Grinnell a famous piece of advice. "Go West, young man, and grow up with the country," said Greeley. Grinnell took Greeley's advice, moved west, and later founded...
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