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Corporate Contributions to Education
Richard Gilder & Lewis Lehrman Make History Come Alive
By Emily Sherwood, Ph.D.
When two passionate and multi-talented businessmen team up to improve the study
and teaching of American history, their results dramatically demonstrate that
one plus one equals three. Thanks to the explosive synergy of powerhouse financiers
Richard Gilder and Lewis Lehrman, The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American
History has assembled the largest collection of U.S. historical documents ever
(now on deposit at the New York Historical Society), while offering a burgeoning
repertoire of educational programs, seminars, and resources for teachers,
students, and scholars alike.
The Gilder-Lehrman partnership traces its
roots some twenty years back in time, when mutual investment opportunities
brought the two men together and they discovered that they shared a deep passion
for history. (Both had been history majors at Yale, but six years apart.) Like
J.P. Morgan, who had purposefully set out to be one of the largest collectors
of American antiquities, they devised a plan to systematically accumulate
manuscript letters, diaries, maps, photographs, and other documents that would
reflect, in a very human way, the social and political history of the United
States. “At that time, there was a very quiet, moribund market for historical
documents,” explains Richard Gilder, a principal at investment banking giant
Gilder, Gagnon, Howe, and Company. “Lew formulated the strategy of storming the
market…I thought, if we’re right, and the documents do go up in value, then
when we donate them, the increased value and the tax savings there from will be
equal to our original investment.”
True to their plan, the team sent
representatives to bid for tokens of American heritage at auction houses from
London to New York and even New Zealand and Australia. They left no private
dealer’s cache unexamined in their quest to secure original copies of the most
important transactions in American history, from a printed copy of Columbus’
1493 announcement of the discovery of the New World to President Ford’s pardon
of President Nixon. “We ramped up the enterprise to 12 cylinders and 300
horsepower,” recalls Lewis Lehrman, who presided over his family business, Rite
Aid, before ultimately founding L.E. Lehrman & Co, a Greenwich-based,
investment banking firm. (New Yorkers may also remember that he mounted a
failed campaign for governor against Mario Cuomo in the early eighties.)
Sometimes, artifacts arrived fortuitously from unexpected places: an eight foot
abolitionist flag, hand-sewn by John Brown’s followers, was discovered in the
walls of an inn in southern Ohio when it was being remodeled. Ever the savvy
businessmen, the collectors avoided the fakes and charlatans: in one high
profile case, a private dealer tried to sell them a stolen copy of the Bill of
Rights before the FBI intervened and returned it to its rightful owner, the
state of North Carolina.
Both Gilder, an early buff of battlefield preservation, and Lehrman, a
self-proclaimed Lincolnian, take a personal thrill in the 60,000 documents
they’ve amassed, a collection unparalleled in breadth that is currently valued
at $100 million. Their eyes light up when they talk about some of their
favorites—several thousand letters and diaries of Revolutionary and Civil
War soldiers, the Papal Bull which divided the New World upon discovery,
Abraham Lincoln’s House-divided speech, and a particularly artful letter
written by John Adams when he served as America’s ambassador to England.
The Gilder Lehrman collection, for all its
munificence, is but one shining example of what these two philanthropic
historians have accomplished in fulfilling their goal of engaging the American
public with history. One of their first initiatives was to endow a $50,000
annual Lincoln prize in 1990 (the most generous history prize in the nation,
many times the size of the Pulitzer), awarded to the best scholar on Lincoln or
the Civil War era and administered by the Lincoln and Soldiers Institute at Gettysburg
College. Last year’s recipient, renowned historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, who
authored a recent biography depicting the political genius of Abraham Lincoln,
was, coincidentally, an early recipient of grant monies from Gilder and Lehrman
in her formative years as a scholar. “Lincoln is a central figure in American
history,” explains Lehrman to clarify why they chose to support Lincoln
scholarship so generously. “He’s the man who fulfills George Washington’s hope
that all slaves ultimately will be free…We see President Lincoln as the moral
and Constitutional example that all Americans should be edified and guided by.”
(Gilder and Lehrman have since added to their scholarship awards by endowing a
$25,000 Frederick Douglass book prize in 1999 and a $50,000 George Washington
book prize in 2005.)
Near and dear to the hearts of the financier duo are a slew of educational
programs for students and teachers in all 50 states. A growing cadre of Teacher
Seminars housed on college campuses has educated some 6,000 teachers to date.
The Institute also sponsors 42 college-preparatory history schools nationwide,
often in some of the poorest neighborhoods, allowing students to take more
focused history courses rather than electives. Gilder and Lehrman routinely
roll up their sleeves and go into the classroom as guest lecturers, recently
delighting some New York City students with a lesson on Hamilton and Jefferson
(not surprisingly, the overwhelming majority of students, many of them
immigrants, identified with Hamilton when later polled.) The Institute also sponsors
Saturday Academies, weeklong teacher seminars, teaching grants, teacher awards,
and a slew of other programs and accolades to stimulate high quality
instruction of history.
With so much already on their plate, Gilder
and Lehrman continue to think big. “They’d like to find a way to reach every
teacher and every kid in the country,” reflects James Baskin, President of the
Gilder Lehrman Institute, professor of History at Barnard, and the driving
force behind programming for the Institute. With 700,000 new American citizens
being sworn in every year, 71,000 of them in New York City, the Institute is
seeking to find a way to give each one a bound book of American historical
documents that it’s published in limited numbers, called Treasures
of American History. “We should
be saying, ‘Welcome,’” says Baskin, who recently hosted a ceremony at the New
York Historical Society for 100 new citizens. “I wish the government could fund
these books to give something concrete to every new citizen…Maybe individuals
could even adopt one ceremony at a time,” he muses thoughtfully, the spark of a
new idea forming in his mind.
Abraham Lincoln once stated that education is “the most important subject which
we as a people can be engaged in.” Clearly, Richard Gilder, Lewis Lehrman, and
their colleagues at the Institute have been well guided by Lincoln’s wisdom and
have set a high standard for future generations of Americans.#
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