What can you tell me about Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History?

 

Founded in 1994, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History promotes the study and love of American history. The Institute serves teachers, students, scholars, and the general public. It helps create history-centered schools, organizes seminars and programs for educators, produces print and electronic publications and traveling exhibitions, sponsors lectures by eminent historians, and administers a History Teacher of the Year Award in every state through its partnership with Preserve America. The Institute also awards the Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and George Washington Book Prizes, and offers fellowships for scholars to work in the Gilder Lehrman Collection.

The Institute maintains this website to serve as a portal for American history on the Web; to offer high-quality educational material for teachers, students, historians, and the public; and to provide up-to-date information about the Institute's programs and activities.

 

How extensive is The Collection at the Gilder Lehrman Institute?

The Gilder Lehrman Collection, on deposit at the New-York Historical Society, contains more than 60,000 documents detailing the political and social history of the United States. The collection's holdings include manuscript letters, diaries, maps, photographs, printed books and pamphlets ranging from 1493 through modern times.

The Collection is particularly rich with materials in the Revolutionary, Antebellum, Civil War and Reconstruction periods. Highlights of the Collection include signed copies of the Emancipation Proclamation, the Thirteenth Amendment, a rare printed copy of the first draft of the Constitution, and thousands of unpublished Civil War soldiers' letters. Letters written by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass and others vividly record the issues and events of their day. The writings of such notable women as Lucy Knox, Mercy Otis Warren and Catherine Macaulay discuss a variety of military, political and social issues.