Events
Abraham Lincoln: Private Man, Public Leader
July 22, 2009, 7 p.m.
Cowles Library Reading Room
MATTHEW PINSKER holds the Brian Pohanka Chair of Civil War History at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He has published two books and numerous articles on Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War era, including Lincoln's Sanctuary: Abraham Lincoln and the Soldiers' Home. He has served as a visiting fellow at the National Constution Center in Philadelphia and leads annual K-12 teacher workshops on the Underground Railroad for the National Endowment for the Humanities. See video and photos of this event
November 5, 2009, 7 p.m.
Cowles Library Reading Room
GORDON WOOD is the Alva O. Way University Professor Emeritus at Brown University. He received his BA degree from Tufts University and his PhD from Harvard University. He taught at Harvard University and the University of Michigan before joining the faculty at Brown in 1969. His latest book, The Purpose of the Past: Reflections on the Uses of History, was published in 2008. Professor Wood is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.
November 17, 2009, 7 p.m.
Cowles Library Reading Room
BETH PRINDLE is manager of the John Adams Library Project at the Boston Public Library, a grant-funded project to provide widespread public access to the 3,500 volume personal library of America's second president. Prindle developed and curated the current traveling John Adams Unbound exhibition based upon a major gallery exhibition of Adams' library at the BPL in 2006-2007. Prindle also oversaw all content and development of the John Adams Library companion website, www.johnadamslibrary.org, which provides access to digital copies of Adams' catalog and books as well as education and scholarly materials related to Adams' library. Originally from California, Prindle holds degrees from Standford and Harvard and previously taught high school English and American Studies.
January 21, 2010, 7 p.m.
Cowles Library Reading Room
RONALD RIETVELD has been a professor of history at California State University Fullerton since 1969. He holds an AB from Wheaton College, a BD magna cum laude from Bethel Theological Seminary, and an AM and PhD from the University of Illinois. He has been a student of Lincoln since the age of 14, when he discovered the last photograph of Lincoln in 1952 in the Nicolay papers of the Illinois State Historical Library. From 1981 to 1984, he served as an academic advisor to the White House speech-writing staff under President Ronald Reagan. He continues to lecture and write extensively on Lincoln and the American Civil War and is currently serving as a member of the Historical Advisory and Content Team for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, IL. In addition, Rietveld is also currently serving as an advisor to the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, which established the 200th celebration of Lincoln's birthday in 2009.
February 4, 2010, 7 p.m.
Cowles Library Reading Room
VERNON BURTON is the Burroughs Distinguished Professor of Southern History and Culture at Coastal Carolina University. Vernon Burton is author or editor of eight books, including In My Father's House Are Many Mansions: Family and Community in Edgefield, South Carolina (1985). His research and teaching interests include the American South, especially race relations, family, community, politics, religion, and the intersection of humanities and social sciences, especially humanities computing.