Civil Rights | New-York Historical Society

Underground Railroad Resources

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Curriculum Library

Explore all the New-York Historical Society-created curriculum materials, which align with New York State Learning Standards and contain lesson plans and primary sources (documents, photos, maps and more). Materials are available digitally and/or for purchase in hard copy, as indicated in the list below.

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The First Shot: 1861

Speaker:

James M. McPherson

Craig L. Symonds

Adam Goodheart

Harold Holzer

Thu, 04/07/2011 - 7:30pm

A century and a half after Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter to ignite the Civil War, leading historians ask and answer the crucial questions: What really caused the conflict? Could the Civil War have been avoided? Did Lincoln invite the first shot—or did the Union “get lucky?” This program marks the start of an ongoing New-York Historical Society focus on the great American tragedy with the first of several discussions and lectures.

Lincoln and New York

Oct 9 2009 - Mar 25 2010

Abraham Lincoln—the quintessential westerner—owed much of his national political success to his impact on the eastern state of New York—and, in turn, New York’s impact on him.

The Lincoln Family, ca. 1865, Francis Bicknell Carpenter, 1830-1900, Oil on canvas, Gift of Warren C. Crane, 1909.6

Click here to visit the exhibition website

John Brown: The Abolitionist and his Legacy

Sep 15 2009 - Mar 25 2010

Planned by the Gilder Lehrman Institute in collaboration with the New-York Historical Society. October 16, 2009 marks the 150th anniversary of John Brown's doomed raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia in 1859. Brown, an ardent abolitionist who believed in racial equality, embraced violence as a means to end slavery. Executed in 1859, he has been both vilified as a murderer and celebrated as a martyr. This exhibition of rare materials from the Gilder Lehrman Collection and New-York Historical explores Brown's beliefs and activities at a critical juncture in American history and invites us to ponder the struggle for civil rights down to the present.

Thomas Satterwhite Noble (1835 – 1907) John Brown's Blessing 1867 Oil on canvas 1939.250, New-York Historical Society, Gift of the children of Thomas S. Noble and Mary C. Noble, in their memory

Planned by the Gilder Lehrman Institute in collaboration with N-YHS.
http://www.gilderlehrman.org/

The Draft Riots: 1863

Speaker:

Barnet Schecter

Barry Lewis

Harold Holzer (moderator)

Tue, 06/14/2011 - 7:30pm

Event details

Time & Location

Date: Mon, March 21, 2011, 6:30 PM

New York City’s only “Civil War Battle” was the 1863 Draft Riot—a convulsive, racially-motivated street fight for the very soul of Manhattan. Experts provide a frank, no-holds-barred account of the sickening excesses of the bloody struggle, its lasting impact on New York politics, the efforts of the mayor, governor, and President Lincoln himself to quell the frightening disturbance, and what it all meant to the future of New York.

Inherently Unequal: The Betrayal of Equal Rights by the Supreme Court, 1865-1903

Speaker:

Lawrence Goldstone

Eric Foner

Khalil Gibran Muhammad

Thu, 05/26/2011 - 7:30pm

Antietam and the Battles of 1862

Speaker:

James M. McPherson

Stephen W. Sears

Harold Holzer (moderator)

Thu, 05/12/2011 - 7:30pm

Franklin, Eleanor, and the Four Freedoms

Speaker:

William E. Leuchtenburg

William J. vanden Heuvel

Douglas Brinkley (Moderator)

Thu, 03/31/2011 - 7:30pm

In his State of the Union Address on January 6, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt looked forward to a world in which everyone enjoyed four essential freedoms: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. These values were central to both Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, who made it her personal mission to codify those rights in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Experts discuss the speech and its far-reaching influence, and also delve into this extraordinary couple’s influence on one another.