Department News

Derek Heidemann '09 was recently named a 2008 Gilder Lehrman History Scholar. Applicants to the 2008 program represented 166 colleges and universities across the United States. Heidemann is one of fifteen students selected by competitive application to participate in the program. This summer, the scholars will study in New York City for five weeks in a program that combines historical research, seminars with eminent historians, and behind-the-scenes tours of historical archives. Each scholar will have the opportunity to produce original research resulting from his or her work. This year’s class will work with primary source documents from the Revolutionary Era in the Gilder Lehrman Collection.

“These are the brightest young historians in America,” said Professor James G. Basker, president of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, which sponsors the program. “We see them as something like Rhodes Scholars among history majors. We hope this spurs them all to consider careers as scholars, history teachers, or public historians in the future.”

Founded in 1994, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History promotes the study and love of American history. The Gilder Lehrman Collection 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.

Now in its sixth year, the Gilder Lehrman History Scholars Program has included students who have gone on to history Ph.D. programs at Columbia University, the University of Michigan, and the University of North Carolina. Some now work for history research organizations. One is a winner of the renowned Marshall Scholarship, and another was awarded a Gates Scholarship to Cambridge University.