The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History is pleased to announce the opening of our exhibition, Freedom: A History of US, at The New-York Historical Society.

Freedom presents 200 artifacts, many never exhibited before, that evoke the evolving meaning of freedom for Americans from the late eighteenth century to recent years. Artful pre-Revolutionary propaganda by Paul Revere, a letter by George Washington expressing his hope for an end to slavery, a 10’ x 5’ Abolitionist flag from the 1850s in which slave states are omitted from the stars-and-stripes tally, a letter from Frederick Douglass to his former master proclaiming “I love you but hate slavery,” an original 1959 speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. on integration – all this and more is on display in Freedom. For more information on location, hours, etc., please contact The New-York Historical Society at 212-873-3400 or visit www.nyhistory.org.

The items in Freedom are drawn from the Gilder Lehrman Collection, the largest private collection of American historical documents in the U.S., and the Meserve-Kunhardt Collection, a photographic collection rich with rare nineteenth-century originals. The exhibition is co-curated by the Gilder Lehrman Institute and Kunhardt Productions, sponsored by General Electric and presented by Picture History. It was organized in conjunction with the upcoming PBS series (based on Joy Hakim’s acclaimed book series) of the same title.

The exhibition runs through January 26th at The New-York Historical Society, and will open at the Decatur House Museum in Washington, D.C. on February 2, 2003.