From the Library of Congress website:
"Alexander von Humboldt achieved cultural hero status in the United States in the second half of the 19th century. His travels, experiments and knowledge transformed Western science. A lecture at the Library of Congress examined the influence and legacy of the German naturalist and explorer."
From the Civil War Traveler website:
"Late in the evening on Oct. 16, 1859, John Brown and a small band of insurgents entered Harpers Ferry (then Virginia), planning to ignite and arm a slave insurrection. This tour covers raid-related sites in the national park at Harpers Ferry (now West Virginia)."
From the Library of Congress website:
"In this interview from 1940, Mr. George Johnson of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, shares memories of slavery times, including his relationship with Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy."
From the National Constitution Center website:
"With the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, an old-fashioned southern Jacksonian Democrat of pronounced states' rights views became the seventeenth president of the United States. In a surprising turn of events, Andrew Johnson was charged with the reconstruction of the defeated South, including the extension of civil rights and suffrage to African American Southerners. It quickly became clear that the president supported the enactment of 'black codes' and would block efforts to force Southern states to guarantee full equality for African Americans, igniting a fierce battle with congressional Republicans. Acclaimed author David O. Stewart returns to the Constitution Center to discuss the impeachment trial of President Johnson, which became the central battle of the struggle over how to reunite a nation after four years of war."
To listen to this lecture, scroll to "Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson," which is the June 26, 2009 post.
From the Maine Humanities Council website:
"Thomas J. Brown is Associate Professor of History at the University of South Carolina, where he also serves as Associate Director of the Institute for Southern Studies. He is a Distinguished Lecturer with the Organization of American Historians. In this lecture, Brown examined the ways in which debates over regionalism, race relations and governmental power have influenced how America has remembered Abraham Lincoln, particularly in public monuments."
From the Maine Humanities Council website:
"Elizabeth D. Leonard is the John J. and Cornelia V. Gibson Professor of History at Colby College, where she has taught since 1992. Leonard is the author of three books on the Civil War era, and she is under contract to write the biography of Joseph Holt, Lincoln's judge advocate general. In this talk, she explores Holt's role in the manhunt that followed the assassination. She also delineates the arguments that took place between those who were determined to avenge Lincoln's death (and the war itself) and those who aimed to forgive the rebel South and forget the plight of the recently freed slaves."
From the Maine Humanities Council website:
"Before he was the leader of a nation torn apart by a Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was a young man growing up during tumultuous times in Illinois. In the first presentation of the [Maine Humanities Council's] Lincoln Bicentennial Symposium, historian Bruce Chadwick explained Lincoln's rise to power from his first unsuccessful race for the state legislature to his election as President."
From the Lincoln Online Conference website:
"During this session, Smithsonian Teacher Ambassador and Maryland Teacher of the Year (2007) Michelle Hammond facilitate[d] a discussion among participants of lesson ideas involving Lincoln, and shares a few ideas of her own.
. . . This session foster[ed] dialogue among those attending about how best to integrate the lessons of Lincoln, his life and times into the classroom."
Free registration is required to access the webcast.
From the Lincoln Online Conference website:
"For a nation at war over slavery, President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was inevitable. Its timing and content, however, were not without great struggle. The 'how' of the proclamation was just as critical as the 'when,' but it began a chain of events that changed not just our Constitution but the face of the nation. Lonnie Bunch, Founding Director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, will examine Lincoln's challenges to introduce a document that became a cornerstone event for communities of all races for generations to come."
Free registration is required to access the webcast.
From the Lincoln Online Conference website:
"Abraham Lincoln nursed a life-long fascination with technology. William Herndon, his friend and law partner, called attention to his 'decided bent toward machinery or mechanical appliances.' Lincoln is the only President to have been awarded a patent; handled several patent cases during his years as an attorney; and offered public lectures on invention and innovation. During the American Civil War President Lincoln seldom missed an opportunity to investigate new weapons, or to sponsor what seemed to him to be a useful innovation. In the summer of 1861, at the urging of Smithsonian Secretary Joseph Henry, Lincoln made the acquaintance of balloonist T.S.C. Lowe, and witnessed demonstrations of the role that observation balloons might play in providing improved reconnaissance for the Union Army. The President not only encouraged Lowe's plan to form a Balloon Corps to serve with the Army of the Potomac, but intervened on his behalf when military officials proved less than enthusiastic about the experiment. With the help of the President, Lowe was able to create and equip the Balloon Corps, which saw extensive service from 1861 to 1863. Students and teachers at a variety of levels will find something of interest and value in this session, which will explore the problems encountered in introducing a conservative military establishment to a new technology. In the process, we will shed new light on an unfamiliar side of Abraham Lincoln. The session will be led by Tom Crouch, Senior Curator, Aeronautics Division, National Air and Space Museum."
Free registration is required to access the webcast.