"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Proclamation, the Thirteenth Amendment, a rare printed copy of the first draft of the Constitution, and thousands of unpublished Civil War soldiers' letters."--Collections page.

A description of the Collection's holdings by era includes the following: the Colonial Era, the Founding Era, Slavery and the Antebellum Era, the Civil War and Reconstruction Era, the Modern Era, and Women's History. Holdings pertaining to civil rights for African Americans include: copies of the Emancipation Proclamation; a 1963 report on the state of civil rights in the United States from Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to President John F. Kennedy; the United States Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision declaring segregated schools unconstitutional; a 1960 New Orleans broadside promoting a boycott of Ford Motor Co. for its support of the Civil Rights Movement; Governor George C. Wallace's 1964 reply to a letter from Pamela Martin of Cedar Springs, Michigan, in which he defends the status quo of segregation in Alabama and blames "outside agitators" for unrest between black and white citizens; a 1919 Thanksgiving address by Reverend Francis J. Grimke examining unrest following World War I, discussing African Americans' lack of civil rights, and exploring the interaction between race issues and religion; a copy of an 1873 "act to protect all persons in their civil rights, in the state of Arkansas, and to furnish means for their vindication"; a copy of a 1968 poster in support of the sanitation workers' strike in Memphis, Tennessee, which states "I am a man"; and a pair of abolitionist movement slave tokens from the eighteenth or nineteenth century.

The Civil Rights Digital Library received support from a National Leadership Grant for Libraries awarded to the University of Georgia by the Institute of Museum and Library Services for the aggregation and enhancement of partner metadata.

For the Gilder Lehrman Collection all rights and Reproduction inquires and request contact: Reference@GilderLehrman.org