Blog topics you may have missed through Dec. 19

The last few weeks have been busy in the Lincoln world, so there's been lots to write about. If you’ve missed some posts since my last "topics you may have missed" piece on Nov. 18, 2008, here’s a hyperlinked list of what we covered. If this is helpful, please check one of the Reaction checkboxes at the end of this article.

In the past few weeks, you might have missed articles:

• Reflecting on the Gettysburg Address
• Highlighting an documentary project about Lincoln biographer Carl Sandburg
• Celebrating Fords Theatre renovations
• Honoring Helga Sandburg
• Discussing the difficulty of accurately grading a president
• Remembering Lincoln’s Thanksgiving proclamation
• Lamenting the closing of historic sites (Nov. 29 and 30 stories)
• Celebrating Chris Vallillo’s Abraham Lincoln in Song
• Promoting ongoing C-SPAN Lincoln programming
• Touting the benefits of the Heartland College Lincoln class
• Celebrating the dedication of Looking for Lincoln markers
• Describing Lincoln-related events in Bloomington and Springfield, what I learned from the Heartland College Lincoln class and my next steps in the study of Lincoln
• Commemorating Mary Todd Lincoln’s 190th birthday
• Discussing C-SPAN’s White House programming, Michael Burlingame’s new book, Fort Wayne’s Lincoln Museum collection and possible hope for Illinois historic sites
• Honoring retirements of Rhode Island Chief Justice Frank J. Williams and U.S. Representative Ray LaHood
• Talking about birthday cards for Lincoln, a gift to try to keep the Vandalia Statehouse open, renovation of a McLean County home with Lincoln connections and the C-SPAN White House series
• Looking at the horrific institution of slavery
• Pointing gift givers to Lincoln books for young and old
• Celebrating our incoming Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood

For earlier articles
For articles between the birth of this blog on Oct. 9, 2008 and Nov. 18, see the Nov. 19 article.

The opportunity of a century
Remember, this time of bicentennial celebration will never be equaled by any in our lifetimes for opportunities to celebrate and learn about Lincoln. You can find a couple of great calendars of bicentennial happenings across the country at these websites:

• Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission
• Abraham Lincoln Online

Lasting mark left by Lincoln class

Last fall, I was all ready to sign up for the last course to complete a professional designation for my real job. The course? Liability Claims Practices. The designation? Associate in Claims – my sixth designation in the past 10 years or so. I’d set a goal of completing the designation by the end of 2009. However, those plans went awry one morning as I opened our local newspaper. There on the front page was an article about a college course, “The Life and Times of Abraham Lincoln.”

People I work with know of my love of lifelong learning. They don’t understand it – but they know it is part of my essence. They know I’m usually working toward a designation and I can tell them which one I’m doing next. The goals I set normally are no secret.

The secret goal
I set another goal a few years back, though. It was 2002 and the first articles were beginning to hit the press about the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth. Some courses I’d taken and some of my freelance articles were Lincoln-related. They had lit a fire under me that would likely not be extinguished. I resolved when I saw that article that I would begin to set things in motion so I could be doing Lincoln-related work – of some sort - by the Feb. 12, 2009 bicentennial. Life got busy and the flame smoldered some. And the dream? I didn’t share that one. That goal was secret – known only to a privileged few. It just seemed too far out there. Who would believe in me – or in my dream?

Then came that late summer morning, the front page article in the Pantagraph, Heartland College and Dr. Scott Rager - and the beginning of the realization of my dream. I could begin to move along the continuum from Lincoln enthusiast to Lincoln scholar. The course was to be my first real step.

A bittersweet goodbye
Tonight I said my good-byes for now to academia. I took my final exam. The course is complete, but my life is forever changed. I always take something from every course I take and, from this one, I took so much.

I truly can’t ever remember a time in my life when I wasn’t mesmerized by the Lincoln legacy - from backwoods roots like those of many of my ancestors to the White House – with less than a year of school. Who wouldn’t be impressed by a story like that one? I knew the popular Lincoln, and thanks to a great undergrad teacher who is an Illinois literature expert, I knew the literary Lincoln, but I didn’t know Lincoln the lawyer, the politician or the President.

Guess what I know now? I not only know a whole lot more, but I also know there’s a ton I don’t know. With more than 1600 books about him and hundreds of scholars turning up new information and new theories every day, there is a lot I will never know.

What I do know is that I had an opportunity of a lifetime – and I shared it with some incredible people. The class was open to the public, either for credit or for enrichment. Students ran the gamut from some really cool, really bright traditional college students to a husband and wife team, a mother and daughter, a retiree with several degrees and others in between. Each of them brought their own unique perspective to the class, and I learned from all of them.

All across the board
Just to give you an example of the wide variety of knowledge and varied interests in the class, here are some of the topics selected by the students who completed term papers:

• Lincoln and Slavery
• Lincoln and the Constitution
• Mary Todd Lincoln’s Marriage
• Lincoln’s Romances
• Lincoln’s Changing Views on Race and Slavery
• Lincoln: His Choices, His Public, His Critics
• Lincoln and His Cabinet
• Lincoln Assassination Theories
• Mentoring Lincoln: A Worthwhile Investment

These are some pretty heavy topics for a 200-level course and the students all “nailed it.”

An enriching semester
I guess maybe as a non-traditional student, you come to a course with a different perspective and a greater appreciation. I knew that since this was a new course, Dr. Rager was having even more homework to do than we were. Preparing lectures, lesson plans, seeking enrichment materials – it couldn’t have been easy. Yet, each week he was ready for us. He supplemented his lectures with several of the great documentaries available on Lincoln, arranged a couple field trips and kept us abreast of local Lincoln-related events. We even had guest speakers – three local Lincoln scholars, all known and respected in the Lincoln world:

• Roger Bridges,
• Guy Fraker and
• Stewart Winger.

Watch for more about these brilliant men and their areas of expertise in an upcoming article.

Don’t miss the opportunity
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. This bicentennial year is an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity – or as Julie Cellini of the U.S. and Illinois Bicentennial Commissions says, a once-in-a-century opportunity. If you missed the fall class at Heartland, though, you didn’t miss your chance to take this class. It’s offered again in the spring. Enrollment closes very soon. Don’t miss your chance. Call Heartland College and tell them you want to take History 296.

Oh, and as for me? I’m now beginning that Claims class I put off, my blog continues and my Lincoln studies have just begun…

Fun Lincoln information coming soon

This is a busy week for the Lincoln Buff - student presentations in the Heartland College Lincoln class, a professional organization meeting with a speaker from the U.S. and Illinois Bicentennial Commissions, a David Davis Mansion Foundation event and preparation for the final exam. Please forgive me if my posts the next few days are short and not quite as frequent.

I promise I've got lots of interesting things coming. Watch for:

• an overview of the class presentation topics - a wide variety and quite interesting,
• what the bicentennial commissions are planning and
• kudos to some folks in the Lincoln world.

My list of topics grows by the days. There are all sorts of Lincoln-related things to share over the coming weeks. Please return to my blog often and stay awhile to read earlier posts.

Thank you for visiting and for sharing news of my blog with your friends. Have a great week. Ann

First Lady, Lincoln’s Rivals, Ford’s Theatre and Abe’s Home make news

This was a big day in Lincoln news. Plenty of other great scribes penned Lincoln stories today with all kinds of interesting news. Let me direct you to the top four in my book.

First Lady doesn’t let Kentucky down
I was so excited last February 12 when the Abraham Bicentennial celebration was to officially begin at Lincoln’s birthplace in Kentucky. It did get off to a start that day, in spite of a snow storm moving into the area.

Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer and actor Sam Waterston, who portrays the Cooper Union Lincoln, were there to kick things off. You can watch an interview of the two from that day on C-SPAN’s Lincoln Bicentennial website. Unfortunately, First Lady Laura Bush couldn’t make it then because the blizzard conditions got too severe.

She kept her commitment to the bicentennial, though, and today, a little more than eight months later, much to the delight of an eight-year-old who got to introduce her, she was there to kick off the "Give a Lincoln For Lincoln" fundraising campaign for six key Lincoln sites. Thank you, Mrs. Bush.

Be sure to read about her trip to Hodgenville in Bruce Schreiner’s Associated Press article, as featured in the Chicago Tribune.

Matthew Pinsker cautions using Lincoln’s team as model
In my blog and in person, I've stayed away from the whole Lincoln-Obama thing. I'm not a politician. Until this fall, when I started the Lincoln class at Heartland College, my knowledge was of the popular Lincoln, the mythological Lincoln and Lincoln in the literature of Illinois. I had a fairly good grasp of them, but his legal career, his political career, his presidency - those where all overwhelming and foreign to me.

Thanks to the class, my professor, Dr. Scott Rager, David Herbert Donald's book, Lincoln, which we’re using as a text, the scholarly events I'm attending and the independent research I'm doing, those aspects of Lincoln aren’t quite so foreign anymore. Yet still, I leave comments on Barack Obama, Lincoln and politics to those who are more qualified than I am. I know I have miles to go before I'm an authority on those subjects.

I've read some of the Team of Rivals comparisons, but not yet read the book. Yet, as a Lincoln blogger, I’d be remiss if I didn’t draw your attention – and President-Elect Obama’s - to an opinion column by Lincoln scholar Matthew Pinsker today in the Los Angeles Times.

Pinsker reminds us that some of the lessons to be learned from Lincoln’s team were pretty tough ones. And, as I would expect from an accomplished scholar like Dr. Donald’s protégé, he uses diary quotes from Lincoln’s day with which the common reader - and likely Obama - may not be familiar, to substantiate his opinion. May the column serve as food for thought for our president-elect and his advisors.

Ford’s Theatre awarded honors
First Lady Laura Bush wasn’t the only one honoring Lincoln this week.

Her husband, President George W. Bush, named the Ford's Theatre Society a 2008 National Medal of Arts recipient. The award was presented in a White House ceremony yesterday. The Ford’s Theatre, where Lincoln was shot, is one of the sites to be helped by the “Give a Lincoln for Lincoln” campaign.

And, at the Lincoln Forum in Gettysburg, the Volk Lincoln Honor was also awarded to the Ford's Theatre yesterday. This award honors the contributions the theatre makes to the Lincoln legacy. Read more about the theatre’s honors in Adam Hetrick’s Playbill article.

Springfield sites gussy up for company
Back here in Illinois, we’re making news, too. Several of our Springfield Lincoln sites are getting all fancied up for Lincoln’s upcoming birthday. Read about the redecorating at the Lincoln home and at the nearby James Morse house. Thanks to two of our great State Journal-Register journalists, Bruce Rushton and Mike Kienzler, for sharing these stories.

Mike is also a blogger. Check out his cool ALO blog, and don’t forget to add it to your list of “must click” Lincoln sites.

Lincoln’s Home is also a “Give a Lincoln for Lincoln” benefactor.

© Copyright 2008 Ann Tracy Mueller. All rights reserved.

Sowing the seeds of Lincoln scholarship

It may surprise some of you to know that my excitement about the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial isn’t something which sprouted up overnight. Like anything worthwhile, it took seed, was nurtured and is now coming into its own.

My growth with Lincoln
I truly have been interested in Lincoln for as long as I can remember – very early childhood. Part of that comes from growing up in Illinois, some of it comes from the pride of this great state and its famous son instilled by my parents and grandparents, some also grew in the classroom, and the rest of it comes from inheriting a trait with roots stronger than an old milkweed plant on an Illinois prairie – an insatiable curiosity.

What many of you don’t know is that I earned my college degree much later than most – just a few days before my forty-first birthday. One of the courses I took was a Literature of Illinois class offered through Western Illinois University’s Board of Governors/ BA program (now Board of Trustees/BA). I’d been away from school a long time, and from my studies of Lincoln even longer, but I knew during the first evening of that class that I’d found my true passion. The history and literature of Illinois are so rich, and the legacy of Lincoln even richer. This was something that had a grip on me that would not let go. And – I wasn’t going to let it.

A few years later, through the encouragement of my professor from that class, I attended a writers’ workshop at the Carl Sandburg Days Festival in Galesburg, Ill. I then began writing freelance book reviews on books by Illinois authors or about Illinois subjects, including Lincoln, for The State Journal-Register of Springfield, Ill.

Then in 2002, the U.S. Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, co-chaired by U.S. Senator Richard Durbin, U.S. Representative Ray LaHood and Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer, put out a press release announcing its new Web site. It was then that I began to formulate what I called my seven-year plan. I’d hoped that by Lincoln’s 200th birthday on Feb. 12, 2009 I could be making a significant contribution to keeping the legacy of Lincoln alive.

As often happens in life, my plans went awry, and I’m not making a huge contribution to the Lincoln world. I did, however, get to attend all the events associated with the April 2005 opening of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, met some brilliant Lincoln scholars and learned a lot. Then this fall I had an opportunity of a lifetime – to take a course on Abraham Lincoln at Heartland, the local community college. Through the course and a number of other Lincoln-related events here in the center of the Land of Lincoln, I’m finally pursuing my interests.

This blog is one way I hope to plant that Lincoln passion in others. Significant contribution? Maybe not. But a little seed - maybe…

Heartland Community College course
The Heartland course, “The Life and Times of Abraham Lincoln,” will also be offered in the Spring of 2009, so if you’re from Central Illinois, you may want to check it out.

And let me tell you about a couple other places where students are learning about Lincoln.

Galesburg High School Lincoln Seminar
Galesburg has a rich Lincoln tradition, which is part of the reason I was always so passionate about the sixteenth president. Unfortunately, in the past much of the Galesburg community didn’t latch onto Lincoln with the same enthusiasm that held a grasp on Carl Sandburg and me.

This year, though, Galesburg High School is offering an interdisciplinary course, Lincoln Seminar. Sixteen young people have already been exposed to many wonderfully rich Lincoln-related experiences, which they’re chronicling on their own blog. I wonder if those young people really understand the magnitude of what this experience can mean to them. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if one of those students – or better yet all of them – were the next generation of Lincoln scholars?

Loyola University courses
Through a comments post to another Lincoln blog, I recently learned of an exciting Lincoln class at Loyola University, “Lincoln and Citizen Journalism,” taught by John Slania. See some of the outstanding work of this group on their class Web site.

According to information on the Loyola Web site and in the Loyola online publication, this is just one of several Lincoln-related courses to be offered at Loyola this year. And, to top it off, they’ll also be hosting Lincoln scholar Doris Kearns Goodwin for a lecture on Feb. 11, 2009.

Other Lincoln courses?
Are there other Lincoln courses you’d like people to know about? If so, please let me know. I’ll try to let readers know about them here on Lincoln Buff 2.

© Copyright 2008 Ann Tracy Mueller. All rights reserved.

Learning with Lincoln

Forgive me for not posting for a few days. I've been busy learning with Lincoln -- and with so many others who forged the path before me.

Lincoln - the student or the teacher?
I'm currently working on my term paper for my class at Heartland College. My topic is Lincoln and his mentors. I spent this weekend doing lots of online research and reading in books about the teacher at New Salem, Mentor Graham. Though Lincoln was already an adult at New Salem, his schooling to that point had been less than a year.

Lincoln befriended the village teacher, Mentor Graham, or perhaps Graham befriended him. Either way, as Lincoln delved into his studies - of grammar, of surveying, of law - and read books on a wide range of topics, Graham was there. If the sources I'm reading are to be believed, the two also spent hours discussing many of the topics which would be important or confusing to Lincoln throughout his life - internal improvements, slavery, religion.

The primary book I read today, Mentor Graham: The Man Who Taught Lincoln, by Kunigunde Duncan and D. F. Nikols, was written in 1944, and much of it may be anecdotal, based on myth, stories told by minds that have reshaped them, and hearsay. Yet, I came away believing that there were two students here. I think Graham learned as much in many ways as his student did.

Lincoln Studies Center and Lincoln Studies.com
Those of you who have been following my blog know how much I admire, laud and appreciate the work of the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College. Drs. Rodney Davis, Douglas Wilson and their colleagues do amazing research there and have made invaluable contributions to the study of Lincoln. One work alone, Herndon's Informants, is perhaps one of the most valuable tools for any Lincoln scholar's bookshelf. I could devote several posts to their work and likely will.

I found another valuable research tool this weekend, though. There is an ambitious young PhD candidate at Southern Illinois University, Samuel P. Wheeler. Wheeler has created a website titled Lincoln Studies: Abraham Lincoln and the American Civil War, which is out of this world in getting students of Lincoln to the sources they need. His Research Links section takes you to nearly any online source possible without the access provided by colleges and universities to their students, including thousands of newspaper articles about Lincoln. Wheeler’s site, http://www.lincolnstudies.com/, was a big help to me this weekend. I know I’ll use it over and over again.

Can’t go wrong
Whether you’re seeking the experience Drs. Davis and Wilson have accumulated over nearly half a century, or the sources to which a budding scholar will guide you, remember two words – Lincoln Studies – and seek both as valuable contributions to your work in the world of Lincoln. I will.