Lincoln Forum Presents Achievement Awards

Originally published January 2018 · p. 4

Annual Lincoln Forum Achievement Awards To Ron Chernow, Friends Of Lincoln Collection Of Indiana GETTYSBURG, Penn.—The Lincoln Forum has presented its coveted annual achievement awards to one of the nation’s most esteemed and acclaimed biographers, and to an Indiana non-profit organization working to preserve, digitize, exhibit, and study the collections of the onetime Lincoln National Life Foundation in Indiana. The 22nd annual 2017 Richard Nelson Current Award, honoring an individual who has elevated the study of Lincoln and the Civil War era, went on November 18 to Ron Chernow, whose recently released, best-selling biography of Ulysses S. Grant caps a long list of career achievements highlighted by definitive life stories of J.P. Morgan, George Washington, and Alexander Hamilton, among others. His biography of the nation’s first Treasury Secretary in turn inspired the monumental Broadway hit musical, Hamilton. This year’s Wendy Allen Award, recognizing groups and organizations that similarly enhance knowledge of the Civil War, was given on November 17 to the Friends of the Lincoln Collection of Indiana, the Fort Wayne-based not-for-profit that supports the Lincoln Financial Foundation collections now residing in both the Indiana State Museum in Indianapolis and the Allen County Library in Fort Wayne. Both awards were presented during the 22nd annual Lincoln Forum symposium at the Wyndham Gettysburg Hotel. More than 300 enrollees and guests were in attendance for the three-day gathering. Mr. Chernow offered the keynote address on “Ulysses S. Grant: Worthy Successor to Abraham Lincoln.” “We are honored by the opportunity to honor this year’s extraordinary award recipients,” said Frank J. Williams, the former Rhode Island Chief Justice who serves as Chairman of The Lincoln Forum. “Ron Chernow has reached more Americans with American history than nearly any other writer of non-fiction in our times. His brilliant syntheses of great lives have re-defined how we think about those who founded, funded, and preserved our country. Few biographers have done more to keep history alive, well, and relevant. The Friends of the Lincoln Collection of Indiana have not only preserved a great research and exhibit collection, but worked effectively to curate it and deploy it to continue educating scholars and students alike. Thanks to their efforts, relics, documents, artworks, and 19th-century newspaper archives that tell the Lincoln story will now become more widely available than ever before. Both 2017 award winners fit beautifully into the Forum’s honor roll of past winners: individuals and groups who advance the cause of exploring, remembering, and consecrating the Civil War and its greatest leader, Abraham Lincoln.”

Richard Nelson Current Award to Ron Chernow In presenting the Current Award to Mr. Chernow at the closing dinner, Lincoln Forum Vice Chairman Harold Holzer acknowledged the honoree’s unique and extraordinary impact on both historical understanding and popular culture. “Ron Chernow has achieved an exceptional distinction in history and letters,” Holzer said. “Today he is nothing less than our national portal to the understanding and appreciation of our past. His brilliant biographies of some of American history’s most memorable figures have redefined characters we thought we understood, vivified eras we too long neglected, and deservedly built a huge and appreciative audience for stories that belong in the forefront of national thought. To paraphrase some already iconic lines from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s libretto from Hamilton, Ron Chernow has helped us define ‘who lived, who died, and who tells their story’—and every place Ron goes to share his insights, including the Lincoln Forum, becomes ‘the room where it happens.’ He truly represents the phrase that Broadway audiences hear every night at the beginning of that musical: ‘Get your education and don’t forget from whence you came.’ Tonight we thank Ron Chernow for helping us remember where we came from—by enhancing our education as Americans.” Already the winner of many awards for literary excellence, Ron Chernow is one of America’s premier historians and biographers, the author of highly praised, best-selling works including The House of Morgan (which earned the National Book Award); The Warburgs, a portrait of one of New York’s preeminent Jewish families; Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.; Washington: A Life (Pulitzer Prize and American History Book Prize); and Alexander Hamilton (George Washington Book Prize. The Yale-educated Chernow, who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., previously earned a 2015 National Humanities Medal, awarded by President Obama.

Previous Winners Previous winners of the Richard Nelson Current Award of Achievement are: historian Gabor Boritt (1996); C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb (1997); “historian of the century” John Hope Franklin (1998); U.S. Senator Paul Simon of Illinois (1999); biographer David Herbert Donald (2000); historian Garry Wills (2001); historian James M. McPherson, with an honorary award to the dean of Lincoln scholars, Richard Nelson Current (2002); actor Sam Waterston (2003); Ulysses S. Grant authority John Y. Simon (2004); the award’s sculptor of record, John McClarey, together with an honorary award for founding chairman Williams (2005); historian Doris Kearns Goodwin (2006); novelist Jeff Shaara (2007); documentary filmmaker Ken Burns (2008); Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor (2009); historian Mark E. Neely Jr. (2010); battlefield guide extraordinaire (Henry Ballone)

Ed Bearss (2011); Reconstruction scholar Eric Foner (2012); playwright and scenarist Tony Kushner (2013); dean of Lincoln reenactors James Getty (2014); Lincoln assassination authority Edward Steers Jr. and prolific Civil War historian William C. “Jack” Davis (2015), with an honorary award to Forum founding vice chair Harold Holzer; and James I. “Bud” Robertson Jr. (2016). The annual Lincoln Forum Award of Achievement is named for the late, Bancroft Prize-winning scholar Richard Nelson Current (1912-2012), author of The Lincoln Nobody Knows, Lincoln and the Last Shot, and many other classics of Lincoln literature. The Current Award comes in the form of the impressionistic statuette, Freedom River, crafted by Decatur, Ill., sculptor John McClarey.

Wendy Allen Award to Friends of Lincoln Collection of Indiana The Lincoln Forum’s annual Wendy Allen Award for organizational achievements and excellence went to the Indiana group dedicated to preserving and expanding access to the great Lincoln collection amassed over nine decades by the Lincoln National Life insurance company, and donated by its successor organization, the Lincoln Financial Foundation, to two Indiana repositories in 2008. The Wendy Allen Award was accepted by Hon. Roger Cosbey, immediate past president of Friends of the Lincoln Collection of Indiana, who has attended the Lincoln Forum’s annual symposia for many years. In presenting the award, Chairman Williams cited the non-profit’s good work in publishing the bulletin Lincoln Lore, reaching out to schools through both onsite and off-site educational programs, sponsoring a Lincoln essay contest for high school students, offering Lincoln-themed public programs at both the Indiana State Museum and the Allen County Public Library, sponsoring the annual R. Gerald McMurtry Lectures in Fort Wayne, funding new acquisitions, and creating a new, stateof-the-art website. The organization’s latest project is the establishment of the Ian Rolland Center for Lincoln Research at the Allen County Library, which will feature permanent exhibition space for the two-dimensional relics residing in Fort Wayne. Judge Williams made special note during the ceremony of the longtime contributions of Sara Gabbard, editor of Lincoln Lore, calling her “one of the great ambassadors for Abraham Lincoln in the modern world.” The award is a framed color print of an original Lincoln portrait by Gettysburg’s most celebrated artist, Wendy Allen, who helped again this year to present it. Commented Ms. Allen: “I am proud to have my name and work associated with the esteemed organization, The Lincoln Forum, and with founders and living legends like Chief Justice Frank Williams, Harold Holzer, and the wonderful groups we recognize each November.” In previous years, the Forum’s award for institutional excellence has gone to such organizations as: the Friends of Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C.; President Lincoln’s Cottage at the Soldiers’ Home in Washington; the Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield, Ill.; The LincolnDouglas Society of Freeport, Ill.; the Ulysses S. Grant Association in Starkville, Miss.; the Lincoln Shrine in Redlands, Calif.; The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, New York City; the Lincoln Heritage Museum at Lincoln College in Lincoln, Ill., and last year’s winner, the Gettysburg Foundation.