The Gilder Lehrman Center strives to make a vital contribution to the understanding of slavery and its role in the development of the modern world. While the Center’s primary focus has been on scholarly research, it also seeks to bridge the divide between scholarship and public knowledge by opening channels of communication between the scholarly community and the wider public. In collaboration with secondary schools, museums, parks, historical societies, and other related institutions, the Center facilitates a locally rooted understanding of the global impact of slavery. To foster this understanding, the Center offers a variety of programs including:
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- Annual International Conference
- Lectures, forums, and workshops
- Visiting residential research fellowships
- Frederick Douglass Book Prize, an award for the most outstanding book in English on the subject of slavery, resistance, or abolition across time and all nations.
- Professional development workshops for high school and middle school teachers
- Accessible online databases of historical documents
- Management of the World Bibliography of Slavery and Abolition
- Annual Working Group interdisciplinary forum that brings together selected scholars to investigate specific themes related to slavery
- Other collaborative efforts with local, statewide, national, and international institutions to promote public education about slavery and its destruction