“In a period of intense public interest in Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, the Foundation is pleased to be able to identify and support projects that help sustain and build this important momentum,” commented Harold Holzer, Chairman of the ALBF Board. “With encouragement, the ‘age of Spielberg’ can also become an age of renewed education, scholarship, and civic engagement on the vital subjects of Lincoln and freedom. We hope that the growing popular fascination with these topics, aided by our own help and attention to some particularly intriguing ideas, will translate into permanent, useful, and enlightening historical appreciation.”

The Board convened for its most recent meeting on January 27, 2013, following a public conference the previous day at HistoryMiami, entitled “1863: The Civil War and the Fight for Freedom,” which featured a keynote address on “Concepts of War: Abraham Lincoln and ‘Stonewall’ Jackson” by noted historian James I. Robertson, Jr., emeritus professor at Virginia Tech. His remarks were followed by a panel discussion featuring ALBF scholar/board members Orville Vernon Burton, Thomas Campbell, Edna Greene Medford, Frank J. Williams, and Holzer, along with University of Miami history professor Michael Bernath. Television newsman and ALBF member Antonio Mora led audience discussion for the more than 150 people in attendance. This was the second consecutive program co-sponsored at HistoryMiami by the ALBF. A third annual event is scheduled for January 2014. The events were made possible in part by ALBF Board Member Jean Soman and her husband, Bill Soman

Recipients of the latest round of ALBF grants are:

• The Hartford County Library, Belcamp, Maryland ($2,000)—to help fund its “Civil War 150” project, to embrace a performance of music associated with Lincoln, an exhibition based on the Smithsonian Institution’s “Mask of Lincoln,” and presentations by scholars.

• The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition, Yale University, in partnership with the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, Cincinnati ($10,200)—for a program, to train teachers on the meaning of the Emancipation P:roclam,ation.

• The Mary Todd Lincoln House, Lexington, Kentucky ($2,500)—for research and program development to support interpretation of the Todd Family mansion (home of Lincoln’s future wife) for future visitors.

• The University of Hawaii at Hilo ($7,500)—to support a symposium on the Lincoln legacy to be named for Professor James Oliver Horton, a member of the original U.S. Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.

• Friends of the Lincoln Collection of Indiana, Fort Wayne ($15,000)—to help support digitization of the former collection of the Lincoln National Life Foundation (later known as the Lincoln Museum).

Members of the ALBF Board are: Chairman Harold Holzer, of Rye, NY; Vice Chairman Burton, of Ninety-Six, South Carolina; Treasurer Thomas Campbell of Chicago; IL; Secretary Charles Scholz of Quincy, IL; Darrel Bigham of Evansville, IN; David Lawrence of Coral Gables, FL; Edna Greene Medford of Washington, D.C.; Antonio Mora of Coral Gables, FL; Jean Powers Soman of Pinecrest, FL; and Frank J. Williams of Hope Valley, RI.

The ALBF is the official successor foundation to the U. S. Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, created by the Congress and the President of the United States in 2000 to plan and organize events marking Lincoln’s 200th birthday. The successor organization seeks to encourage and support activities aimed at perpetuating the Commission’s original goal of completing Lincoln’s “unfinished work.”

Future applicants for grant funding should write Chairman Holzer at 205 East 78th Street, #14E, New York, NY 10075; or at haroldholzer@haroldholzer.com

For more information on the Foundation and its activities, pls see the ALBF website: www.lincolnbicentennial.org.

“Our mandate continues to be to identify and support activities nationwide that focus attention on the Lincoln legacy during this Civil War sesquicentennial period,” noted Harold Holzer, chairman of the board of the Foundation.  “In this latest round of awards we are especially pleased to be encouraging exciting new public and educational programs, Lincoln-related publishing and exhibition activities, and scholarly research and digitizing of vital original sources.  We congratulate the recipients and urge organizations interested in applying for future grants to secure information from our website (www:lincolnbicentennial.org) and submit applications in time for consideration at the board’s next meeting in late January.”

The Board met for its most recent meeting in Washington, D.C. on September 14.  That evening, the Foundation hosted a reception and tour of President Lincoln’s Cottage at the Soldiers’ Home (Lincoln’s summer residence from 1862-1864) followed by a lecture on the Emancipation Proclamation by historian Mark E. Neely, Jr.  The following morning, three Board members—Holzer, Frank J. Williams, and Orville Vernon Burton—participated with other scholars in a conference on “Lincoln and the Constitution” organized by the Lincoln Group of the District of Columbia with support from the Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation.

The recipients of the latest round of grants are:

• The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington ($2,000), to support a 2013 conference on Jewish life in Civil War-era Washington.

• Southern Illinois University Press in Carbondale, Illinois ($7,500) to support a marketing campaign for its “Concise Lincoln” series.

• The Papers of Abraham Lincoln, Springfield, Illinois ($32,745) to help fund a major project to digitize the complete run of the Sangamo Journal (later the Illinois Daily State Journal), the key pro-Lincoln newspaper in the state’s capital for some thirty years and one of the most valuable sources of original information about the future president’s legal and political career.

• Friends of the United Nations in New York City ($10,000) to support a major international celebration of the 150^th anniversary of the Final Emancipation Proclamation at the UN on Martin Luther King Day, 2013.

• The Abraham Lincoln Foundation of the Union League of Philadelphia ($10,000) to fund an exhibit in its Sir John Templeton Heritage Center entitled Philadelphia 1863: Conceiving Liberty.

Members of the ALBF board are: Harold Holzer of Rye, New York, chairman; Orville Vernon Burton of Clemson, South Carolina, vice chairman; Thomas Campbell of Chicago, treasurer; Charles Scholz of Quincy, Illinois, secretary; and Darrel Bigham of Evansville, Indiana; David Lawrence of Miami, Florida; Edna Greene Medford of Washington, D.C.; Antonio Mora of Coral Gables, Florida; Jean Powers Soman of Pinecrest, Florida, and Hon. Frank J. Williams of Hope Valley, Rhode Island.

The Foundation’s funding comes from gifts raised in the final months of its predecessor organization the U.S. Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, create by Congress and the President in 23000 to plan and organize events marking Lincoln’s 200^th birthday in 2009.  The successor foundation seeks to encourage and support activities aimed at perpetuating the Commission’s original goal of completing Lincoln’s “unfinished work.”

Future applicants are urged to write Chairman Holzer at 205 East 78^th Street, 14-E, New York, NY  10028.

The Foundation’s funding comes from gifts raised in the final years of its predecessor organization, the U. S. Lincoln Bicentennial Commission (ALBC), created by the President and Congress in 2000 to plan and organize events marking Lincoln’s 200th birthday in 2009. The successor foundation has since sought to encourage and help support activities aimed at perpetuating its original goal of completing Lincoln’s “unfinished work.”

“We are proud to offer our support to these 10 well-conceived plans to promote Lincoln history and preservation at the highest levels of professional scholarship and popular appeal,” commented Harold Holzer, Chairman of the Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation. “My Foundation colleagues and I continue to be amazed and delighted by the range of activities that gestate nationwide—requiring only modest support to bring the Lincoln story to an ever-widening audience of Americans. In the current cycle we have covered a wide range of needs and issues, and we hope these projects that can now go forward with our help attract the kind of broad interest and local attention they deserve.”

Foundation support will go to the following recipients:
(over)

• The Abraham Lincoln Association, Springfield, IL ($5,000), to support a day-long 2013 conference, “The Results of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.”
• The Old State Capitol Foundation, Springfield, IL ($7,500), to help fund installation of a new audio and microphone system in historic Representative Hall, the chamber where Lincoln delivered his “House Divided” address in 1858, and now the site of many public history events.
• Looking for Lincoln Heritage Coalition, Springfield, IL ($33,000), to help develop and support development of a 42-county historic tourism area linked by road signage, website data, marketing, and programs at sites where Lincoln visited, lived, or worked during his Illinois years. U. S. Senator Dick Durbin, former co-chair of the ALBC, helped authorize and fund “Looking for Lincoln.”
• Lincoln Heritage Museum at Lincoln College, Lincoln, IL ($1,000), to support a summer seminar for teachers around the theme: “Abraham Lincoln: His Life, Leadership, and Legacy.”
• The Kentucky Lincoln Sites Alliance, Hodgenville, KY ($12,000), to help implement Lincoln-related educational and marketing initiatives along the new Lincoln Heritage trail in the state of his birth.
• The Department of History, Clemson University, Clemson, SC ($27,000), to support a 2013 Emancipation Proclamation conference as part of the university’s “On Home Ground” sesquicentennial initiative.
• The Ulysses S. Grant Association, Starkville, MS ($15,000), to sponsor a series of Lincoln lectures at the recently relocated USGA, focusing on the crucial partnership between the President and his most important general.
• Bureau of Historic Sites, New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, Waterford, NY ($15,000) fund conservation of the U. S. Flag that adorned Lincoln’s bier during his funeral in Albany, New York in 1865—part of a larger effort to preserve the State’s entire collection of Civil War-era battle flags.
• Lehigh Valley Heritage Museum, Allentown, PA ($5,000), to help fund a Lincoln exhibition and symposium on “Abraham Lincoln: A Modern American.”
• Lincoln Group of the District of Columbia, Washington, D.C. ($13,500), to fund a 2012 symposium on Lincoln and the Constitution on national Constitution Day, the 115th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution of the United States.

Members of the Foundation Board are: Orville Vernon Burton, Vice Chairman; Thomas Campbell, Treasurer; Charles Scholz, Secretary; Darrel Bigham, David Lawrence, Edna Greene Medford, Antonio Mora, Jean Powers Soman, and Frank J. Williams.

LINCOLN BICENTENNIAL FOUNDATION
Announces New Round of Grands for Lincoln-Related Projects Across the Country

Actor Stephen Lang reads the words of Lincoln at Meeting in Washington. Photo: Henry F. Ballone.

(August 1, 2011)
The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation (ALBF) today announced its latest round of grants to museum exhibitions, symposia, education programs, preservation efforts, and other projects around the country that plan to emphasize the Lincoln theme during the Civil War Sesquicentennial.
The Foundation board voted to approve the latest round of grants at its July 18 meeting in Washington.

Support will go to the following organizations:

• The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D. C., to co-sponsor its forthcoming Civil War sesquicentennial exhibition, The African-American Experience During the Civil War, particularly to fund professional development workshops for the show; and also funding to produce a family guide for another forthcoming Portrait Gallery exhibition on Civil War-era photographer Alexander Gardner.
• The Camp Douglas Restoration Foundation in Chicago, to help fund preliminary archaeological investigation at the site of the Civil War training and prisoner-of-war camp built on land owned by, and named for, Senator Stephen A. Douglas.
• The College of Charleston in South Carolina (the city where the Civil War began 150 years ago with the firing on Fort Sumter in April 1861) to co-sponsor a 2013 conference of the African Literature Association focused on the sesquicentennial of the Emancipation Proclamation.
• The Lincoln Monument Association in Springfield, Illinois, to support preliminary outreach, fundraising, and marketing for the rehabilitation and preservation of Abraham Lincoln’s tomb and other historic monuments at historic Oak Ridge Cemetery.
• The Huntington Library in San Marino, California, to co-sponsor its 2012 exhibition: A Strange and Fearful Interest: Death, Mourning, and Memory in the American Civil War.
• The Newberry Library in Chicago, to co-sponsor a two-day seminar, Teachers as Scholars: Abraham Lincoln.
• The National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to help fund the creation of an interactive component of its recently introduced virtual exhibit, Meet Mr. Lincoln.
• The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History in New York, to re-print its acclaimed “History in a Box” on Abraham Lincoln, and distribute it to history departments in schools across the country.
• The Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, to co-sponsor a number of initiatives, including new educational outreach programs, document transcription, and sesquicentennial symposia.
• The New York State Archives Partnership Trust in Albany, New York, to support Civil War sesquicentennial events, particularly a 2012 Albany Law School scholarly conference on Lincoln and Civil Liberties.
• President Lincoln’s Cottage at the Soldiers’ Home in Washington, D.C., to support and co-sponsor its annual Cottage Conversation lecture series.
• The Lincoln at the Crossroads Alliance to co-sponsor its forthcoming 150^th anniversary re-enactment and conference to commemorate the Grand Review of the Army at Bailey’s Crossroads, Virginia in 1861.

Commented Harold Holzer, Chairman of the Foundation: “We are proud and delighted to support all these institutions and initiatives, and to endorse their compelling plans to keep Abraham Lincoln at the forefront of the national conversation during the Civil War Sesquicentennial.  Their efforts promise to galvanize significant numbers of scholars, students, and enthusiasts to further explore the Lincoln legacy and its significance to both historical commemoration and the national future.  The Foundation remains committed to stimulating that dialogue.”

The ALBF is the official successor organization of the U. S. Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, which oversaw observances of Lincoln’s 200^th birthday.  Members of the foundation are: Orville Vernon Burton (vice chairman), Thomas Campbell (treasurer), Charles Scholz (secretary), Darrel Bigham, David Lawrence Jr., Antonio Mora, Edna Greene Medford, Jean Powers Soman, and Frank J. Williams.

Applicants for future funding are encouraged to log onto the ALBF website (abrahamlincoln200.org) to consult guidelines, or to write the chairman for further information at 205 East 78^th Street, #14E, New York, NY  10075.  The next meeting and funding cycle are scheduled for January 2012.