| NEW YORK,
NY, July 14, 2008— On October 16, 1854, Abraham
Lincoln, then a relatively unknown Illinois lawyer and
former state legislator, rose to speak in front of the
Peoria, Illinois, courthouse. When he finished speaking
more than three hours later, he had delivered one of
the most rigorous and eloquent critiques of slavery
in American history.
The genesis of that speech and its far-reaching effects
are the subject of Lincoln at Peoria: The Turning
Point, by Lewis Lehrman, Co-Chairman of the Gilder
Lehrman Institute of American History. Tracing Lincoln’s
complex attitude toward slavery, his habits of mind
and his maturation as a writer, Lincoln at Peoria
is a landmark work of historical scholarship and an
absorbing story of political courage that Pulitzer Prize-winning
historian Doris Kearns Goodwin calls “brilliant
and elegant” and historian James Oliver Horton
says “is a must read for anyone seeking to understand
Lincoln in his time.”
Born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, August 15, 1938,
Lewis E. Lehrman received his Bachelor of Arts degree
at Yale University in 1960, after which he won a Carnegie
Teaching Fellowship as an instructor of history on the
Yale faculty. Subsequently, he received his master’s
degree as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow from Harvard University.
He also has been awarded honorary degrees from Babson
College (Babson Park, MA), Gettysburg College (Gettysburg,
PA), Marymount University (Arlington, VA) and Thomas
Aquinas College (Santa Paula, CA).
Lehrman has written books and articles on American
history, national security, and economic and monetary
policy, including Money and the Coming World Order
of which he is co-author. He has also written on economic,
foreign policy and national security issues in publications
such as Harper's, the Washington Post,
the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal,
National Review, and Policy Review.
Lehrman actively lectures and writes on economic and
American history. He has published numerous articles
on Abraham Lincoln, Alexander Hamilton and other historical
figures in addition to teaching a seminar on Abraham
Lincoln at Gettysburg College. He is the managing partner
of the Gilder Lehrman Collection, a national resource
of American historical documents, now on deposit at
the New-York Historical Society, where he is also a
trustee. He is presently Senior Partner, L. E. Lehrman
& Co., an investment firm he established.
Founded in 1994, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American
History promotes the study and love of American history.
The Institute serves teachers, students, scholars, and
the general public. It helps create history-centered
schools, organizes seminars and programs for educators,
produces print and electronic publications and traveling
exhibitions, sponsors lectures by eminent historians,
and administers a History Teacher of the Year Award
in every state through its partnership with Preserve
America. The Institute also conducts awards including
the Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and George Washington
Book Prizes, and offers fellowships for scholars to
work in the Gilder Lehrman Collection. The Institute
maintains two websites, www.gilderlehrman.org
and the quarterly online journal www.historynow.org.
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