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Campaign flag (Lincoln and Johnson.. Lithographed cotton, 1863. New-York Historical Society. Samuel T. Shaw Memorial Collection. # 1946.243. |
Tickets for public programs are sold through SmartTix. To purchase tickets, visit www.smarttix.com or call (212) 868-4444.
Prices (unless otherwise noted): $20 (members $10)
Lincoln’s New York: The City in the 1860s
Wednesday, October 14, 6:30 pm
Abraham Lincoln visited New York—its churches, streets, shops, and its leading photo gallery—when he arrived here for his Cooper Union speech in 1860. A year later he returned as President to a mixed reception, a divided and impassioned public, and a hostile mayor. What was the New York Lincoln encountered, and after his assassination, conquered?
Harold Holzer, moderator, is co-chairman of the U.S. Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and has written or edited more than 30 books on Lincoln and the Civil War. Barry Lewis hosts a popular series of walking tours on PBS. He is an architectural historian and teaches at Cooper Union CU Forum and the New York School of Interior Design.
Remembering David Herbert Donald: Tributes to a Great Historian
Wednesday, October 21, 6:30 pm
Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and incomparable Lincoln biographer David Herbert Donald died earlier this year—but his enormous influence lives on. Three generations of Donald students, all famed in their own right, gather to recall the fabled scholar and assess his impact on the field. A night of fond memories and serious history alike.
Harold Holzer, moderator, is co-chairman of the U.S. Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and has written or edited more than 30 books on Lincoln and the Civil War. Jonathan Alter is senior editor of Newsweek and a contributing correspondent for NBC News. Jean H. Baker is Professor of History at Goucher College. Matthew Pinsker is Associate Professor of History at Dickinson College.
Lincoln’s Constitution: From the Civil War Amendments to the Warren Court
Thursday, October 29, 6:30 pm
The Civil War Amendments caused a constitutional revolution—in civil rights and civil liberties, in the relations between the nation and the states, and in the power and authority of the Supreme Court. But this fundamental reconstruction of the Constitution took a century to manifest itself. Why was this revolution so long deferred, and why and how did the Warren Court, in the middle of the 20th century, build a new constitutional order on amendments ratified in the middle of the 19th?
Benno Schmidt, moderator, is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the City University of New York and Co- Chairman of Nations Academy. Akhil Reed Amar is Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University and the author of America’s Constitution: A Biography. Charles Ogletree is the Jesse Climenko Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the Director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice.
Lincoln as Commander-in-Chief
Tuesday, December 1, 6:30 pm
The Civil War began five weeks after Lincoln took office and ended only one week before he died: thus with no military experience, he spent his entire presidency managing the world’s largest army and navy. The leading scholars of his “military record” explore his remarkable self-education, relationship to generals and admirals, and revolutionary embrace of new technology and joint command.
Harold Holzer, moderator, is co-chairman of the U.S. Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and has written or edited more than 30 books on Lincoln and the Civil War. Craig L. Symonds is Professor of History Emeritus at the United States Naval Academy, where he taught for 30 years. He is the author of Lincoln and His Admirals, which won the Lincoln Prize. James M. McPherson is George Henry Davis ’86 Professor of American History Emeritus at Princeton University. He is a Pulitzer Prize winner and the author of Tried By War: Lincoln as Commander-in-Chief.
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New-York Historical Society Presents the Original Play Mr. Lincoln
Mr. Lincoln, an original play by Tom Klingenstein, dramatizes the reunion in 1906 of two fictional characters—a former slave, and a New York society matron—who had met one another, and Abraham Lincoln, in 1860, when Lincoln came to New York to deliver his epoch-making address at The Cooper Union. Mr. Lincoln is at once a touching and bittersweet tale of love and a celebration of the power of Lincoln’s character and words, and his ability to inspire others. The play brings to life a key moment in the intertwined careers of America’s greatest President and its greatest city.
The play features Peter Jay Fernandez (Broadway’s Cyrano de Bergerac, Julius Caesar, Henry IV, Jelly’s Last Jam) and Jane Summerhays (Broadway’s A Chorus Line, Cabaret, The Real Inspector Hound and Me and My Girl, for which she earned a Tony nomination) and is directed by Margarett Perry (Artistic Fellow at the Lark Play Development Center). Lighting and Scenic design: Solomon Weisbard. Costume design: David Toser. Audiovisual design: Ross Minicheillo, Riverside Digital Productions. Stage Manager: Sarah Koehler. Sound Design: Brendan Murphy. Casting Director: Judy Bowman. Producer: NYHS and Fresh Ice Productions.
October Performances:
Friday, October 9, at 7 pm
Saturday, October 10, 2:00 and 4:00 pm
Sunday, October 11, 2:00 pm
Saturday, October 17, 5:00 pm
Sunday, October 18, 1:00 and 4:30 pm
Saturday, October 24, 4:30 pm
Tuesday, October 27, 5:30 pm
Saturday, October 31, 2:00 and 4:00 pm
November Performances:
Sunday, November 1, 2:00 pm
Saturday, November 7, 2:00 pm and 4:00 pm
Sunday, November 8, 2:00 pm
Saturday, November 14, 2:00 pm and 4:00 pm
Sunday, November 15, 2:00 pm
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Symposium price: $40 (members $20)
Lincoln & Emancipation: An Anniversary Symposium
Saturday, January 23, 9:00 am – 3:00 pm
An all-day conference offering fresh analysis from leading historians to mark the 147th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation—the most important act of Abraham Lincoln’s presidency. Each session includes an audience Q &A.
Continental breakfast, 9:00 – 9:30 am
Welcome, 9:30 am
Louise Mirrer, President and CEO, New-York Historical Society
Opening remarks
Harold Holzer, Chief Historian for the exhibition Lincoln and New York
Reading, Lincoln’s 1862 Annual Message to Congress
George Buss, Lincoln Enactor
Session One: Lincoln Evolves—The Slavery Issue
9:45 – 10:45 am
Lincoln’s opposition to slavery—but respect for its Constitutional protection— put him at odds with both Southern slaveholders and Northern abolitionists, triggering both secession and impatience for emancipation. How did Lincoln’s views on slavery and race evolve from the antebellum years through the Civil War, and how did it ultimately produce a “new” Constitution that emerged in 1865?
Harold Holzer, moderator, is co-chairman of the U.S. Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and has written or edited more than 30 books on Lincoln and the Civil War. David Blight is Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance & Abolition at Yale University. Among his many books, he is the author of A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom. Richard Blackett is Andrew Jackson Professor of History at Vanderbilt University and one of the nation’s foremost historians of the abolitionist movement.
Session Two: Lincoln Acts—The Emancipation Proclamation
11:00 am – 12:00 pm
Pushed by Congressional Republicans and abolitionist editors, opposed by many Northern Democrats including General George McClellan, Lincoln sought a perfect moment to issue his “thunderbolt” order—after which troops deserted in record numbers, the stock market tumbled, and his party lost mid-term elections. What was the legal grounding for the proclamation? What did it accomplish?
Frank J. Williams, moderator, is a Lincoln scholar and a member of the U.S. Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. He is the former Chief Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court. Edna Green Medford is an Associate Professor of History and former Director of the Graduate Program in History at Howard University. Paul Finkelman is the President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law and Public Policy at Albany Law School.
Reading, The Gettysburg Address, 1:15 pm
George Buss, Lincoln Enactor
Session Three: New York Reacts—The Draft Riots
1:20 – 2:20 pm
New York responded to the Emancipation Proclamation by ousting Republicans from statewide office, heightening the criticism of Lincoln, and in July 1863, by rioting against the draft on the streets of Manhattan—the worst urban riot in American history. How did this violent response reflect national resistance to freedom and equality? What was Lincoln’s role in quelling the riots and battling back for military conscription, black recruitment, and a new social order?
Harold Holzer, moderator (see bio above). James M. McPherson is George Henry Davis ’86 Professor of American History Emeritus at Princeton University. In 1989 he won the Pulitzer Prize in history for Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. Barnet Schecter is the author of The Devil’s Own Work: The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America.
Musical Finale, 19th-century Spirituals from the Contraband Camps
2:30 – 3:00 pm
Featuring New York vocal group “Just Friends.”
Shelton Becton is a composer, arranger, and pianist and the former Associate Music Director of The Wiz at City Center. Gail Blanche-Gil was a featured soloist for Nelson Mandela’s 1991 visit to NYC and has performed in numerous operas. A. Makea McDonald, a member of the Riverside Church Inspirational Choir, has performed in Hair and Guys and Dolls. Michael Neal is a multi-instrumentalist who has worked with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Nedra Olds-Neal is director of the Riverside Church Inspirational Choir and a Grammy nominee for Sony Music’s Legacy Recordings. Jamet Pittman, named one of “Tomorrow’s Diva’s” by The New York Times, debuted with New York City Opera in their televised performance of Porgy and Bess: Live from Lincoln Center.
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Ex parte Milligan–Military Commissions During the Civil War: A Supreme Court Re-enactment
Thursday, February 4, 6:30 pm
In 1864 Lambdin Milligan was arrested for his alleged involvement in a conspiracy to free Confederate soldiers from Union prison camps. Sentenced to death for treason by a military commission, Milligan subsequently challenged the commission’s jurisdiction in a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. After the war, the Supreme Court granted Milligan’s writ and held in a landmark decision that military tribunals cannot try U.S. citizens when courts are open and functioning.
Antonin Scalia (presiding) is Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Walter Dellinger (advocate) is partner and chair of the Appellate Practice at O’Melveny & Myers LLP. Philip Lacovara (advocate) is Senior Counsel at Mayer Brown JSM. Benno Schmidt (host) is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the City University of New York.