Keynote Speaker:

David Gergen is one of the most respected interpreters of American politics for the last three decades. As commentator, editor, teacher, public servant and advisor to four presidents, Gergen commands a unique place in American history. Many of his insights are contained in Eyewitness to Power: The Essence of Leadership, Nixon to Clinton (2000).

He is Professor of Public Service at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government and director of its Center for Public Leadership, as well as a regular guest on The News Hour and editor at large at U.S. News and World Report.

Gergen spent eight years in the White House as an advisor to Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Reagan. He also served for as year as Counselor to President Clinton, and for six months as Special Advisor to President Clinton and Secretary of State Madeline Albright.

A native of Durham, North Carolina, he is an honors graduate of both Yale University (A.B., 1963) and Harvard Law School (LLB, 1967). Gergen is a member of the District of Columbia bar.

Conference Participants:

Jean H. Baker is Elizabeth Todd Professor of History at Goucher College. A specialist in nineteenth century political and cultural history, Baker is best known for her definitive biography, Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography (1987). Her most recent work is an introduction to the late C.A. Tripp's The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln (2005). Baker served as a historical consultant for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum.

Roger D. Bridges, formerly the director of the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library and Museum, is currently president of the Abraham Lincoln Association. A specialist in the Civil War and Reconstruction era, Bridges has written about Senator John Sherman of Ohio.

Richard J. Carwardine is Rhodes Professor of American History at St. Catherine's College, University of Oxford, where he heads the American Studies program. A specialist in the antebellum and Civil War era, Carwardine has written numerous studies exploring evangelicalism and politics, especially his insightful Evangelicals and Politics in Antebellum America (1993). His recent biography of the sixteenth President, Lincoln, (2004), won the Lincoln Prize.

Michael Chesson is a Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. A student of the Civil War era, Chesson has written Richmond After the War, 1865-1900 (1981) and Exile in Richmond: The Confederate Journal of Henri Garidel (2001). He has also written an afterword for The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln (2005).

Rodney O. Davis is co-director of the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College. With co-author Douglas L. Wilson, Davis transcribed and edited the interviews conducted by William H. Herndon and published as Herndon's Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln (1998). Davis served as a historical consultant for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum.

David Herbert Donald is the Charles Warren Professor Emeritus of American History and American Civilization at Harvard University. A student of the famed Lincoln and Civil War scholar James Garfield Randall, Donald has trained many of today's leading historians. Winner of two Pulitzer Prizes for biography, Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War (1961) and Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe (1988), Donald is author of the acclaimed Lincoln (1995), considered the definitive one volume biography for our time and winner of the Lincoln Prize. Donald served as a historical consultant for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum.

Allen C. Guelzo is Professor of History at Gettysburg College. His study of American intellectual history resulted in the brilliant treatment of Lincoln's intellectual development, Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President (1999) which won the Lincoln Prize. His most recent book, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America (2004) is an eloquent treatment of the immense difficulties faced by Lincoln and his allies in advancing emancipation.

Harold Holzer, vice-president of communications for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is co-chair of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. He has edited and compiled numerous books dealing with many aspects of the Lincoln theme. With Mark E. Neely and Gabor Boritt, Holzer pioneered the study of Lincoln iconography. His most recent book, Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech that Made Abraham Lincoln President (2004), has inspired a White House reenactment of the speech by noted actor Sam Waterston.

Daniel Walker Howe is a Professor of History at the University of California at Los Angeles and former Rhodes Professor of History at Oxford University. His path-breaking study of the Whig Party, The Political Culture of the American Whigs (1979), remains a classic study. His most recent volume, Making the American Self: Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln (1997), offers important insights into the concept of "self-made." He is currently working on the Jacksonian volume for the Oxford History of America.

Michael W. Kauffman is an independent researcher who has investigated the Lincoln assassination for three decades. Author of numerous articles, his research culminated in his recent book, American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies (2005). Kauffman has served as a guide of Booth's escape route and also provided expert testimony at the 1995 Booth exhumation hearings in Baltimore.

Brian Lamb is CEO of C-SPAN, the cable television network covering the proceedings of Congress and other public affairs events. Lamb recently ended his long running program "Booknotes" in which he interviewed 800 non-fiction authors about their writings. C-SPAN's televised reenactments of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, as well as its American Presidents, Alexis de Tocqueville and American Writers series offered innovative ways to present history to viewers by the millions.

Mark E. Neely, Jr. is McCabe-Greer Professor of the History of the Civil War Era at Pennsylvania State University. His nearly two decades as director of the Lincoln Museum in Fort Wayne, Indiana brought scholarly distinction to that institution. Author of numerous books on Lincoln images, Neely won the Pulitzer Prize for The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties (1991). The Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia (1982) remains an indispensable reference work. His most recent book, The Union Divided: Party Conflict in the Civil War North (2002) explores the role political parties played during the Civil War.

Phillip S. Paludan is Naomi Lynn Lincoln Chair at the University of Illinois at Springfield. A prolific author, Paludan's study of the social history of the Civil War, "A People's Contest": The Union and Civil War, 1861-1865 (1988), is a seminal work. His comprehensive monograph, The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln (1994), won the Lincoln Prize. Paludan served as a historical consultant for the Abraham Lincoln Museum.

Graham Peck is Associate Professor of History at St. Xavier University, Illinois. His dissertation, Politics and Ideology in a Free Society: Illinois from Statehood to Civil War (2001), explores the changing landscape of political parties in Illinois and the differing ideologies of Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln. Peck won the 2003 Hay-Nicolay Dissertation Prize.

Matthew Pinsker is on the history faculty at Dickinson College, Pennsylvania. He studied with David Herbert Donald at Harvard before completing his studies abroad. His engaging study of Abraham Lincoln's excursions to the Soldier's Home, Lincoln's Sanctuary: Abraham Lincoln and the Soldier's Home (2003), shed new light on a previously unexplored topic.

Ronald D. Rietveld is Professor of History Emeritus at California State University at Fullerton. He has written extensively on Lincoln, the antebellum period, the Civil War and Reconstruction, and the history of religion in America. His most recent writings have appeared as selections in A Day with Mr. Lincoln (1994) and Abraham Lincoln: Sources and Style of Leadership (1994). Rietveld was a historical consultant for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum.

Silvana R. Siddali is an assistant Professor of History at St. Louis University. She studied with the late William E. Gienapp at Harvard and has published From Property to Person: Slavery and the Confiscation Acts, 1861-1862 (2005). An authority on the Civil War, nineteenth century politics and society, and material culture, Siddali is currently working on a book about state constitution writing.

Louise Taper is the foremost collector of Abraham and Mary Lincoln materials and co-author of "Right or Wrong God Judge Me": The Writings of John Wilkes Booth (1997). She originated the idea that resulted in the largest exhibition of original Lincoln materials at the Huntington Library in 1993-94 entitled, "'The Last Best Hope of Earth': Abraham Lincoln and the Promise of America." Ms. Taper served as a historical consultant for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum.

Wendy Hamand Venet is a Professor of History at Georgia State University. She authored an important study of women in the Civil War era, Neither Ballots nor Bullets: Women Abolitionists and the Civil War (1991). Currently she is working on a book on Mary Livermore. Venet served as a historical consultant for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum.

Jennifer Weber received the Ph.D. in American History from Princeton University in 2004 where she studied with James M. McPherson. Her dissertation, The Civil War and Northern Society, received a King V. Hostick Award. She is currently a lecturer at Princeton University.

Ronald C. White, Jr. is Professor of American Intellectual and Religious History at San Francisco Theological Seminary and a Fellow at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. White wrote a brilliant analysis of Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address in Lincoln's Greatest Speech (2002). His most recent book is an extended examination of Lincoln's evolution as a speaker, The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words (2005).

Frank J. Williams is the Chief Justice of the Rhode Island State Supreme Court. A long-time collector of Lincolniana, Williams has served as president of The Lincoln Group of Boston and the Abraham Lincoln Association. He currently heads the Lincoln Forum. Justice Williams is a member of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and author of a collection of essays entitled, Judging Lincoln (2002).

Douglas L. Wilson is co-director of the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College. His study of Lincoln's early development, Honor's Voice: The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln (1998), won the Lincoln Prize. He is currently at work on a study of Lincoln the writer. Wilson served as a historical advisor for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum.

Stewart Winger is an assistant Professor of History at Lawrence Technological University. He received the Ph.D. in the History of Culture from the University of Chicago in 1998 where he studied with Martin Marty. His dissertation, "Lincoln's Religious Rhetoric: American Romanticism and the Antislavery Impulse," won the 2001 Hay-Nicolay Dissertation Prize and was published under a new title, Lincoln, Religion, and Romantic Cultural Politics (2003).