Harold Holzer, is the Chairman of the newly established Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation, the official successor organization of the U. S. Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, which he co-chaired with Sen. Dick Durbin and Rep. Ray LaHood for nine years, appointed by President Bill Clinton. He is the author, co-author, or editor of 37 books on Lincoln and the Civil War era. Among them are The Lincoln Image, The Confederate Image, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, Lincoln as I Knew Him, Dear Mr. Lincoln: Letters to the President, Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: The Civil War in Art, The Lincoln Family Album, Lincoln on Democracy (co-edited with Mario Cuomo and published in four languages), and Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech that Made Abraham Lincoln President, which won a second-place Lincoln Prize).
Holzer has won research, writing, and lifetime achievement awards from the Illinois State Historical Society, the Manuscript Society, The Victorian Society, the Civil War Round Tables of New York and Chicago, and the Lincoln Groups of New York, Peekskill, and Washington. In 2008 he was awarded the National Endowment Medal by the President of the United States.
Holzer’s most recent works include Lincoln President-Elect: Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter 1860-1861 (2008), which won the Barondess/Lincoln Award and the Award of Achievement of the Lincoln Group of New York; The Lincoln Anthology (2009), a Library of America collection featuring 150 years of great writers on the subject of Abraham Lincoln; In Lincoln’s Hand (2009), featuring Lincoln’s original manuscripts with commentary by distinguished Americans; Lincoln in New York, the catalogue of a 2009-10 New-York Historical Society exhibition for which he served as chief historian; and The Lincoln Assassination, a collection of essays from The Lincoln Forum, which Holzer serves as founding vice-chairman. His newest book is The New York Times Complete Civil War, co-edited with Craig L. Symonds.
He has also written 450 articles over the past 35 years in both scholarly and popular publications, contributed chapters and prefaces to some 30 additional volumes. His forthcoming books include: Lincoln on War; Hearts Touched By Fire: The Best of Battles and Leaders of the Civil War; a young readers book on the Lincoln family entitled Father Abraham: Lincoln and His Boys; and a co-edited volume of Harvard University lectures, The Living Lincoln.
In addition to his writing, Holzer lectures throughout the nation. One of his programs, “Lincoln Seen and Heard” with actor Sam Waterston, has been staged and broadcast from such venues as the White House, the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library, the Clinton Presidential Library, the Library of Congress, and Ford’s Theatre. Their recent program, “Lincoln in American Memory,” was televised by PBS on Bill Moyers’ Journal. Holzer also appears frequently on C-SPAN and the History Channel, and has served as an on-air commentator for such Lincoln Bicentennial TV specials as “Looking for Lincoln” and “Stealing Lincoln’s Body” and on PBS, the National Geographic Network, NBC, and the BBC.
A former journalist, and political and government press secretary (for both Congresswoman Bella Abzug and Governor Mario Cuomo), Holzer has served as an executive at the Metropolitan Museum of Art since 1992. He is currently Senior Vice President for External Affairs, responsible for Communications, Marketing, Government Affairs, Visitor Services, Admissions, Internal Communications, and Multi-Cultural Audience Development.
He and his wife, Edith, who live in Rye, New York, have two grown daughters and a grandson. His website is www.haroldholzer.com