https://realclearwire.com/articles/2020/12/04/bringing_history_to_the_classroom_the_gilder_lehrman_institute_of_american_history_651924.html
Though it’s easy to be pessimistic about America’s future after such a traumatic year, James Basker, president of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, feels optimistic: “History teaches us that our country has faced terrible crises in the past and still found its way forward.”
GLI offers a full-spectrum view of American history to classrooms and the general public by providing a vast collection of primary source documents, along with education programs and interactive online exhibits.
Housed at the New-York Historical Society, GLI’s publicly accessible archive contains a treasure trove of documents from 500 years of American history, from Christopher Columbus’s 1493 letter describing the New World to letters soldiers sent back home while fighting World War II and in Vietnam.
GLI’s namesakes are the late Richard Gilder, an investor who helped revitalize New York’s Central Park and the New-York Historical Society, among other important New York City landmarks; and Lewis Lehrman, an entrepreneur, academic, and author of many well-received books such as Lincoln at Peoria: The Turning Point and Lincoln & Churchill: Statesmen at War.
Basker has fond recollections of Gilder, who died earlier this year. “Dick rejoiced at the flow of immigrants into America and did everything he could to encourage it,” he says, “because of his passionate belief that our country was based on a set of ideals anyone of any background could embrace and make their own.”