Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

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The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History was founded in New York City by businessmen-philanthropists Richard Gilder and Lewis E. Lehrman in 1994 to promote the study and interest in American history. [1]

Contents

The Institute serves teachers, students, scholars, and the general public. Its activities include the following:

Website

The institute maintains a website to offer educational material for teachers, students, historians, and the public, and to provide up-to-the-minute information about the institute's programs and activities. The website offers learning modules on major topics in American history, podcasts from noted historians discussing their work, online exhibitions of primary source documents, and information about the institute's programs.

Journal

The institute publishes a quarterly online history journal, History Now, featuring articles by historians, teacher lesson plans, interactive activities, and advice from the archivist.

The Gilder Lehrman Collection

The collection contains more than 60,000 documents on deposit at the New-York Historical Society 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. It 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Proclamation, the Thirteenth Amendment, a rare printed copy of the first draft of the Constitution, and thousands of unpublished Civil War soldiers' letters.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 et al. vividly record the issues and events of their day. The writings of such notable women as Lucy Knox, Mercy Otis Warren, and Catharine Macaulay discuss a variety of military, political, and social issues.

The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition

The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition was established at Yale University. [2]

Prizes

In 1990 the $50,000 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize was established by the institute and Gettysburg College. [3]

In 1999 the $25,000 Frederick Douglass Book Prize was established by the institute. [4]

In 2005 the $50,000 George Washington Book Prize was established by the institute, Washington College, and George Washington's Mount Vernon. [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lewis Lehrman</span>

Lewis E. "Lew" Lehrman is an American investment banker, businessman, politician, economist, and historian who supports the ongoing study of American history based on original source documents. He was presented the National Humanities Medal at the White House in 2005 for his contributions to American history, the study of President Abraham Lincoln, and monetary policy. In 1982, Lehrman ran for Governor of New York against Democratic candidate Mario Cuomo, ultimately losing the election by two percentage points.

The Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize, founded by the late Richard Gilder and Lewis Lehrman in partnership with Gabor Boritt, Director Emeritus of the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College, is administered by the Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History. It has been awarded annually since 1991 for "the finest scholarly work in English on Abraham Lincoln, the American Civil War soldier, or the American Civil War era."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David W. Blight</span> American historian (born 1949)

David William Blight is the Sterling Professor of History, of African American Studies, and of American Studies and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. Previously, Blight was a professor of History at Amherst College, where he taught for 13 years. He has won several awards, including the Bancroft Prize and Frederick Douglass Prize for Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, and the Pulitzer Prize and Lincoln Prize for Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom. In 2021, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.

The George Washington Book Prize was instituted in 2005 and is awarded annually to the best book on the founding era of the United States; especially ones that have the potential to advance broad public understanding of American history. It is administered by Washington College's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience; it is sponsored by Washington College in partnership with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and George Washington's Mount Vernon. At $50,000, the George Washington Book Prize is one of the largest book awards in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Brion Davis</span> American intellectual and cultural historian (1927–2019)

David Brion Davis was an American intellectual and cultural historian, and a leading authority on slavery and abolition in the Western world. He was a Sterling Professor of History at Yale University, and founder and director of Yale's Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gabor Boritt</span> American historian (born 1940)

Gabor S. Boritt is an American historian. He was the Robert Fluhrer Professor of Civil War Studies and Director of the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College. Born and raised in Hungary, he participated as a teenager in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 against the Soviet Union before escaping to America, where he received his higher education and became a scholar of Abraham Lincoln and the American Civil War. He is the author, co-author, or editor of 16 books about Lincoln or the War. Boritt received the National Humanities Medal in 2008 from President George W. Bush.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harold Holzer</span> American academic (born 1949)

Harold Holzer is a scholar of Abraham Lincoln and the political culture of the American Civil War Era. He serves as director of Hunter College's Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute. Holzer previously spent twenty-three years as senior vice president for external affairs at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York before retiring in 2015.

James G. Basker is an American scholar, writer, and educational leader. He is president of the Gilder Lehrman Institute and Richard Gilder Professor of Literary History at Barnard College, Columbia University.

The Frederick Douglass Book Prize is awarded annually by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University.

The New-York Historical Society gives three book prizes annually. From 2005 to 2012 there was one award for American history. A second award was added in 2013 for children's history. A third award was added in 2016 for military history.

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Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora is a book by Stephanie E. Smallwood and the 2008 winner of the Frederick Douglass Book Prize. The book attempts to tell the story of enslaved Africans through the accounts of the Royal Africa Company (RAC) from 1675 to 1725.

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John Stauffer is Professor of English, American Studies, and African American Studies at Harvard University. He writes and lectures on the Civil War era, antislavery, social protest movements, and photography.

<i>Word by Word</i> 2013 historical book

Word by Word: Emancipation and the Act of Writing is a 2013 historical book and analysis of a collection of writings by American slaves and befreed slaves. It was written by Christopher Hager and published by Harvard University Press.

<i>Race and Reunion</i> Book on the United States civil war in popular memory

Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory is a 2001 book by the American historian David W. Blight. The book was awarded the Frederick Douglass Prize for the best book on slavery of 2001.

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Ada Ferrer is a Cuban-American historian. She is Julius Silver Professor of History and Latin American Studies at New York University, and will join the faculty at Princeton University as the Dayton-Stockton Professor of History in July of 2024. She was awarded the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in History for her book Cuba: An American History.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thavolia Glymph</span> American historian and professor

Thavolia Glymph is an American historian and professor. She is Professor of History and African-American Studies at Duke University. She specializes in nineteenth-century US history, African-American history and women’s history, authoring Out of the House of Bondage: The Transformation of the Plantation Household (2008) and The Women's Fight: The Civil War's Battles for Home, Freedom, and Nation (2020). Elected the 140th president of the American Historical Association, she is the first Black woman to serve in that office.

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References

  1. Monte-Sano, Chauncey (1 March 2009). "The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History". Journal of American History. doi:10.2307/27694720. JSTOR   27694720 . Retrieved 2022-09-21.
  2. "Welcome - The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition". Archived from the original on 2006-06-20.
  3. "Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize - The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History". 31 October 2011.
  4. "Frederick Douglass Book Prize - The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History". 4 February 2012.
  5. "George Washington Prize - The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History". 4 February 2012.