Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

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.

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

• creating history-centered schools;
• organizing seminars and programs for educators;
• producing print and electronic publications and traveling exhibitions;
• sponsoring lectures by eminent historians;
• administering a History Teacher of the Year Award in every state through its partnership with Preserve America;
• awarding the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize, Frederick Douglass Book Prize, George Washington Prize, and the Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military History;
• offering fellowships for scholars to work in the Gilder Lehrman Collection and other archives.

Despite the conservative political activist credentials of its two founders, some prominent liberal historians familiar with them, including David Brion Davis and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. insist that the two founders did not let their own political ideology influence their promotion and preservation of history, or the teachings of their organizations.