(NEW YORK, OCTOBER 1, 2012)—The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation (ALBF) announced today a new round of grants to help fund public programs, exhibits, publishing, and digitizing projects in New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Carbondale, Illinois, and Springfield, Illinois. The Foundation awarded a total of $62,000 to the five projects.
“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 150th 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 200th 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 78th Street, 14-E, New York, NY 10028.