An Interview with Kate Masur

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An Interview with Kate Masur Jonathan W. White Kate Masur is the Board of Visitors Professor in History at Northwestern University. She is the author or editor of several books, including Until Justice Be Done: America’s First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction, which won the Littleton-Griswold Prize, the John Nau Book Prize, […]

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The Biblical Texts in Memorial Sermons for Abraham Lincoln

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The Biblical Texts in Memorial Sermons for Abraham Lincoln Mark Noll   In the wake of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, churches and synagogues became the most prominent sites for the nation’s most fervent memorials to the slain president. Usually the centerpiece in these memorial events was a sermon, and almost always the sermon began with a […]

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An Interview with Harold Holzer

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An Interview with Harold Holzer Jonathan White Harold Holzer is the Jonathan F. Fanton Director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College in New York City. The author or editor of 56 books, he won the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize for Lincoln and the Power of the Press (2014) and a second-place […]

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ALFRED ZACHER: A Profile of a Lifetime of Service

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ALFRED ZACHER: A Profile of a Lifetime of Service Tim Harmon Al Zacher, who literally wrote the book on the challenges of the second terms of U.S. presidents, has been particularly fascinated by how Abraham Lincoln was preparing for his. “Lincoln had four years, and look what his achievements were,” the longtime board member of […]

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Lincoln and McClellan: SET IN STONE?

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Lincoln and McClellan: SET IN STONE? George C. Rable Mention George B. McClellan to students of the American Civil War, and the response is predictable. They know McClellan as a foil to Lincoln who might be able to organize an army but was reluctant to commit it to combat. As Lincoln once said, McClellan had […]

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An Interview with Ronald C. White

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An Interview with Ronald C. White Jonathan W. White Ronald C. White is the New York Times bestselling author of two presidential biographies: A. Lincoln: A Biography (2009) and American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant (2016). He is also the author of Lincoln’s Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural (2002), a New York Times […]

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A TUB TO THE WHALE: Lincoln’s 1862 Colonization Speech to African Americans & the “Lullaby Thesis”

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  A TUB TO THE WHALE: Lincoln’s 1862 Colonization Speech to African Americans & the “Lullaby Thesis” Michael Burlingame Critics of Lincoln’s August 14, 1862, meeting with five leading Black Washingtonians reject the “lullaby thesis” that the president’s “conspicuous advocacy of colonization” was an insincere “device or ploy” designed “to make emancipation more palatable to a […]

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From the Collection: German-Americans in the Civil War Era

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From the Collection: German-Americans in the Civil War Era Kayla Gustafson and Jessie Cortesi In honor of German-American Heritage Month in October, librarians at the Rolland Center for Lincoln Research launched a new digital exhibit on lincolncollection.org highlighting items in the Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection related to German-Americans from the Civil War period. From 1845 […]

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An Interview with Gerald J. Prokopowicz

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An Interview with Gerald J. Prokopowicz Jonathan W. White Gerald J. Prokopowicz is professor of history at East Carolina University and a longtime member of The Lincoln Forum Advisory Board. A highly sought-after public speaker and battlefield tour guide, Prokopowicz is perhaps best known as the host of the popular podcast Civil War Talk Radio, […]

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LINCOLN, DOUGLASS, & THE POLITICS OF RACE

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  LINCOLN, DOUGLASS, & THE POLITICS OF RACE EDNA GREENE MEDFORD A few weeks before the 1864 presidential election, Frederick Douglass penned a letter to Theodore Tilton, an abolitionist and the editor of The Independent, a New York newspaper. Referring to the impending election, Douglass wrote: “To all appearance [the Republicans] have been more ashamed […]

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Book Review: William E. Bartelt and Joshua A. Claybourn, Abe’s Youth; J. Edward Murr, Abraham Lincoln’s Wilderness Years

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William E. Bartelt & Joshua A. Claybourn: Abe’s Youth: Shaping the Future President J. Edward Murr, edited by Joshua Claybourn: Abraham Lincoln’s Wilderness Years: Collected Works of J. Edward Murr Review Essay by Andrew F. Lang The “Lincoln legend” goes something like this. Born in 1809 to impoverished Kentucky parents whose earthly possessions consisted of […]

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Book Review: Edward Achorn, The Lincoln Miracle

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Edward Achorn, The Lincoln Miracle: Inside the Republican Convention that Changed History Book Review by Phelps Gay Sixty-three years ago, the Lincoln Sesquicentennial Commission published a three-volume work called Lincoln Day by Day, A Chronology, 1809-1865, edited by Earl Schenck Miers. An invaluable reference work, it tells us in short factual entries what Lincoln was […]

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