Crowe Academy
Abraham
Lincoln:
Now He Belongs to the Ages
June 18, 19, 20, 2004 
Location: Hanover College Campus
Featured Speakers
Gabor S. Boritt is Professor of History, Robert C. Fluhrer Professor of Civil War Studies, and founder and Director of the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Among the fifteen books he has authored, co-authored, or edited are Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream (1978), The Lincoln Image: Abraham Lincoln and the Popular Print (with Harold Holzer and Mark E. Neely, Jr., 1984), The Historian's Lincoln: Pseudohistory, Psychohistory, and History (1988), Lincoln, the War President: The Gettysburg Lectures (1993), and The Lincoln Enigma: The Changing Faces of an American Icon (2001). Many of these have been Book of the Month Club and History Book Club selections.
Donna McCreary is one of the leading Mary Todd Lincoln presenters. She is author of Lincoln's Table which is a compilation of authentic recipes of the foods Lincoln loved from his boyhood in Kentucky and Indiana, to his courtship and marriage to Mary Todd, through his law practice in Illinois and on to the White House. Recipes from this book will be served on the cruise and the book will be on sale in the bookstore.
Mark E. Neely Jr. is McCabe Greer Professor in the American Civil War Era and Senior Historian in Residence at the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center at Pennsylvania State University in State College, Pennsylvania. Among his books are The Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia (1982), The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties (1991), which won the Pulitzer Prize in History, The Last Best Hope of Earth: Abraham Lincoln and the Promise of America (1993), and The Civil War and the Two-Party System (forthcoming).
Daniel P. Murphy is Professor of History and Associate Director of the Center for Free Inquiry at Hanover College. A 1981 alumnus of Hanover College, he earned his Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 1988 and joined the Hanover College faculty that same year. He is the Founding Director of CFI and is currently the program director for CFI's symposium series.
Sarah McNair Vosmeier is Assistant Professor of History at Hanover College, where she teaches United States history and specializes in family and women's history. While a member of the staff of the Lincoln Museum in Fort Wayne, she wrote articles for Lincoln Lore. Her research interests include the history of photography and family photograph albums. Her article "Seeing the South: Family Photograph Albums and Family History, 1860-1930" appeared in Southern Quarterly in 1998.
Matthew N. Vosmeier is Assistant Professor of History at Hanover College and Associate Director of the Center for Free Inquiry, where he directs Crowe Academy. While on the staff of the Lincoln Museum in Fort Wayne, he wrote articles for Lincoln Lore. His research interests include the Whig party and antebellum politics and culture. At Hanover, he teaches early American history and offers a course on Abraham Lincoln.
Films
Abe Lincoln in Illinois
(1940)
Raymond Massey plays Abe Lincoln in this moving adaptation of Robert Sherwood's
Pulitzer Prize-winning play. Expanded a bit for cinematic purposes, the
film traces Lincoln's progress from his days of scrambling for a living
as a woodsman, to his courtship of the tragic Ann Rutledge (Mary Howard)
and then the mercurial Mary Todd (Ruth Gordon), to the formative years
of his law practice, to his debates with Stephen Douglas (Gene Lockhart),
and finally to his election as President of the soon-to-be-divided United
States in 1860. Even the most stone-hearted viewer will be moved by such
scenes as Lincoln riding through the ruins of what once was the village
of Salem; Abe's heated election-eve quarrel with his spiteful wife Mary;
and his climactic speech from the observation car of the train that will
carry him to Washington...and immortality.
Young Mr. Lincoln
(1939)
John Ford's fine direction distinguishes this highly fictionalized account
of the early life of Abraham Lincoln. The film shows Lincoln (Henry Fonda)
as he rises from a country boy born in a log cabin to a lawyer in Springfield,
Illinois defending two young men unjustly accused of murder. The film,
produced by Darryl F. Zanuck, received an Academy Award nomination for
"Best Original Screenplay" for its screenwriter Lamar Trotti. Henry Fonda
perhaps the most American of actors, is at his best playing Lincoln as
the quintessential, compassionate American hero.
Discussion Leaders:
Michelle Bartel, Chaplain
Daniel Murphy, History Department
Ronald Smith, Political Science Department
Matthew Vosmeier, History Department
Sarah McNair Vosmeier, History Department