Listening to Lincoln
You can now download the audio of Harry S. Stout’s recent Huntington lecture, “Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural as America’s Sermon to the World.” The recording includes a full reading of the address by Lincoln biographer Ronald C. White Jr.
“More Like a Sermon”
When Abraham Lincoln completed his Second Inaugural Address in the waning days of the Civil War, Frederick Douglass remarked that “the address sounded more like a sermon than a state paper.” In a lecture at The Huntington Wednesday night, historian Harry S. Stout will explain how that speech was an American sermon to the world.
The Lincoln Lawyer
At the recent conference “Civil War Lives,” historian Ronald C. White Jr. described Abraham Lincoln’s unique diary and the impact of his legal training on his presidency. You can download the talk from iTunes U.
My Back Pages
“Sean Wilentz,” says Robert C. Ritchie, The Huntington’s W. M. Keck Foundation Director of Research, “is one of our country’s leading interpreters of 19th-century American history.” You can judge him for yourself on Monday night when Wilentz delivers a lecture titled “‘Let There Be No Compromise’: Lincoln, Slavery, and Democracy in the Secession Crisis.”
In Good Company
Monday was President’s Day all over again. Pulitzer Prizes in history and biography went to books about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Many Huntington scholars have been past winners and finalists for the award.
Capture the Flag
Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter early in the morning of April 12, 1861. Two days later, Major Robert Anderson surrendered the fortification off the coast of South Carolina, but not before lowering the American flag and keeping it as a souvenir. A fragment of that flag is bound into a volume of a unique set of books in The Huntington Library.
Mystic Chords of Memory
Today we mark the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address. In a way, the commemoration kicks off the sesquicentennial of the Civil War.
