Matthew Pinsker, Featured Scholar at National Teach-In
February 9, 2009
Dickinson College Professor Matthew Pinsker will be a featured scholar at the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial National Teach-in in Washington D.C. The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, in partnership with The History Channel, will host the National Teach-in on the life and legacy of our 16th president on the bicentennial of his birth, Feb. 12. The presentation will feature three prominent Lincoln scholars, including Pinsker, Dickinson College associate professor of history and The Brian C. Pohanka '77 Faculty Chair in American Civil War History, Doris Kearns Goodwin and Harold Holzer.
The Teach-in will be held at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and broadcast live in a webcast on Feb. 12 at 1:30 p.m. E.S.T. at www.history.com/lincoln.
As the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth approaches, interest in his legacy is at an all-time high. The 45-minute long Teach-In will bring history to life as these three prominent Lincoln scholars share their expertise, answer questions from the audience and from students at schools tuning in to the webcast. Libby O'Connell, chief historian, senior vice president corporate outreach for HISTORY, will moderate the Teach-In.
More than 80 students from the District of Columbia and Fairfax County, VA, will be in the Teach-In audience, and more than 3,000 schools from around the country and abroad have already registered to participate in the webcast. Registration will be available right up until the broadcast begins. Afterward, the archived program will be available at www.history.com/lincoln and www.abrahamlincoln200.org.
Pinsker has published two books and numerous articles on Lincoln and the Civil War era, including Lincoln's Sanctuary: Abraham Lincoln and the Soldiers’ Home (2003). He has served as a visiting fellow at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia and leads annual K-12 teacher workshops on the Underground Railroad for the National Endowment for the Humanities. Pinsker serves on the advisory committee for the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. A Lincoln scholar who teaches courses in U.S. political, legal and diplomatic history, Pinsker’s research focuses on the career of Lincoln, partisanship in the Civil War era, American constitutionalism, the Underground Railroad and the history of U.S. campaigns and elections. Named by the Organization of American Historians as one of about 300 scholars from across the country to join the 2008-09 Distinguished Lectureship program, Pinsker also was appointed in June 2007 by Gov. Ed Rendell to serve as a member of the Pennsylvania Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.
Doris Kearns Goodwin is an award-winning author and Lincoln historian. Goodwin served as an assistant to President Lyndon B. Johnson and helped draft his personal memoirs. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1995 for her book No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The American Homefront During World War II. She was awarded the Lincoln Prize in 2006 for her best-selling work Team of Rivals, about Lincoln's Cabinet. Goodwin serves on the Advisory Committee for the ALBC.
Harold Holzer is considered one of the country's top authorities on the political culture of the Civil War era. He serves as co-chairman of the national Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. Recipient of the Lincoln Prize for his book Lincoln at Cooper Union, Holzer is co-editor of In Lincoln’s Hand: His Original Manuscripts with Commentary by Distinguished Americans (January 2009), the companion volume to the Library of Congress Lincoln exhibition. Holzer's latest book, Lincoln President-Elect: Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter 1860-1861 details Lincoln’s thoughts and actions during the four months between his election and inauguration.