By Jeffrey Boutwell Columbia, MD. Oct. 8, 2026         This summer, while visiting the Rhode Island seashore, I went into an upscale clothing store and saw this sign on the wall: My immediate gut reaction was, no; Abraham Lincoln could never have said that. This type of bland platitude is something you’d find in a fortune cookie or inside a Cracker Jack box. As in, It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.” I tracked down the quote on

By: Kelsey S. Johnston Baltimore, MD October 4, 2026 Professor Kenneth Noe spoke to the Lincoln Group recently about his new book, “Abraham Lincoln and the Heroic Legend.” During the discussion, Noe presented a detailed account of how Lincoln’s contemporaries and later historians helped create the idea that Lincoln, the untutored amateur, turned into a military genius far superior to even his best generals, and even George B. McClellan. Noe describes the processes by which h

By Ed Epstein Washington, D.C. Wednesday, October 1, 2026 Washington's newly renovated African American Civil War Museum, which honors President Abraham Lincoln as the man whose Emancipation Proclamation opened the door for 209, 145 former slaves to serve in the Civil War, reopened on Wednesday after a four-year hiatus. Cutting the ribbon to reopen the African American Civil War Museum after a four-year hiatus. The 16,000 square-foot-museum is on Vermont Avenue NW just south

By Ed Epstein Washington, D.C. Tuesday, September 22, 2026 Washington's African American Civil War Museum, renovated and expanded to 16,000 square feet, will reopen to visitors on Wednesday, September 30, after being closed for several years for reconstruction, updating of exhibits, and a painstaking effort at fundraising. Frank Smith with President Lincoln. "I'm ecstatic about opening," said Frank Smith, the museum's executive director and driving force. Smith had to cut sho

By Jeffery Boutwell Columbia, Md Friday, September 18, 2026 The Lincoln Group of DC is pleased to note that one of its fellowship award participants, graduate student Ebonee Davis-Hayes of Howard University, will be participating in the upcoming 2026 Universities Studying Slavery Conference being held October 22-25 at the University of Maryland in College Park. Open to the public, the theme of this year’s conference is “250 Years of Freedom and Unfreedom: Truth, Liberty, and

Washington, D.C. Monday, September 14, 2026 Thanks to our friends at the Abraham Lincoln Association for letting us share this fun little item. Did you know that in August 1955 Marilyn Monroe traveled to Bement, Illinois, a small town not far from Champaign-Urbana, to “commune with Lincoln,” the man she said she considered a father? “He was wise and kind and good. He is my ideal, Lincoln. I love him,” she once said. Marilyn, who owned (and read) a respectable collection of Li

By Jeffrey Boutwell Columbia, Md. Wednesday, September 9, 2026 Rachel Riley, longtime Lincoln Group friend and colleague, has a book being published in October that will be of interest to many. Rachel and her son, William B. Riley, have written a comprehensive account of Rachel’s uncle, the decorated fighter pilot William B. Overstreet Jr., and his exploits during World War II that included a dogfight with a German Messerschmitt Bf-109 around and under the Eiffel Tower in Par

By Ed Epstein Washington, D.C. Thursday, September 3, 2026 Most Lincoln-related activities take place along the East Coast or in the Midwest, so it's a real treat to tell you about a major two-day Lincoln-related symposium late this month in southern California focused on Abraham Lincoln and this year's 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the document that was his political lodestar. The Watchorn Lincoln Memorial Association, which supports the work of the L

By Jeffrey Boutwell Columbia, Maryland Saturday, August 29, 2026 The autumn monthly meetings of the LGDC will consist of two Zoom meetings, in September and December, and one in-person/Zoom meeting being held at The Lincoln Cottage in Washington in October. As usual, there will be no program in November because of the Lincoln Forum annual meeting in Gettysburg, PA, from November 15-17. Reminders with registration forms and Zoom links will be sent out to members prior to each

By David J. Kent Washington, DC Wednesday, August 12, 2026 Abraham Lincoln turns up in the most unexpected places. That said, most members of the Lincoln Group of DC are probably aware that there is a Lincoln nook in the Washington National Cathedral on Wisconsin Avenue. One of our members, Betsy Grim, recently participated in a once-in-a-lifetime and heartwarming event at the cathedral. And yes, Lincoln was involved. And Legos. Here's her report: In the very northwest corner

By Jeffrey Boutwell Columbia, MD Saturday, August 1, 2026 Union fortunes on August 6, 1862, were at a low ebb when the government held a Great War Rally with 10,000 people on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. It was the first mass public meeting held since the start of the war and was intended to raise Union morale and stimulate enlistments into the army. President Lincoln was on the speakers' platform and made some impromptu remarks, telling the crowd not to be concerned abou

By David J. Kent Washington, DC Sunday, July 26, 2026 Lincoln’s Whig Party passed on their traditional party leader Henry Clay to nominate General Zachary Taylor as their nominee for the 1848 presidential nomination. Taylor had been the hero of Buena Vista in the recently ended Mexican War, and the public was clamoring for the war hero to be the next commander-in-chief. Lincoln himself spoke out in Taylor’s favor at the Whig convention held in Philadelphia. To balance the tic

By David J. Kent Washington, DC Friday, July 17, 2026 Abraham Lincoln is everywhere, or so it seems. The Lincoln Sculpture Project Map created by David Wiegers and Scott Schoeder (an LGDC board member) has reached close to 700 sculptures around the world, with new ones being added as soon as they go up. During my recent travels in the Balkans, I went in search of one of the more elusive - and apparently cryptic - statues, in of all places, Skopje, North Macedonia. The map abo

By John A. O'Brien Sunday, July 12, 2026 Denver, Colorado A recent executive order challenged the principle that all people born in this country are citizens. On Wednesday, July 1, the Supreme Court affirmed that, yes, “children born in the United States to parents unlawfully or temporarily present are ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States and are citizens at birth under the 14th Amendment.'” The majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts and a conc

Ed Epstein Washington, D.C. Thursday, July 9, 2026 Tireless Washington photographer Bruce Guthrie, a great friend of the Lincoln Group, visited the new Lincoln Memorial Undercroft Museum on its recent opening day and produced images we want to share with you. Some of the workers' tools left underground after construction ended more than a century ago. The 15,000-square-foot museum run by the National Park Service is well worth a visit to see the massive concrete pillars pound

With the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence upon us, it's a perfect time to look at Abraham Lincoln, the fiercest advocate for the deep meaning of that document. Read on, and for lots more on Lincoln's ties to the Declaration, visit Lincoln250.org. By Mark B. Pohlad Chicago July 5, 2026 It might not be the most famous paintings in the U.S. Capitol. And because it hangs in a Senate stairwell, it’s easy to miss. Moreover, Frances Carpenter’s The First Reading

By Ed Epstein Washington D.C. Wednesday, July 1, 2026 A restored and rejuvenated statue -- Augustus Saint-Gaudens' famed bronze of a standing Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln Park on Chicago's North Side -- will be reborn this Saturday, the Fourth of July. The renovated Saint-Gaudens Lincoln statue will be unveiled in Chicago on the Fourth of July. The 12-foot-tall statue, originally dedicated in 1887, has undergone repairs and restoration, with the work paid for by the Chicago Par

By: Kelsey Johnston Baltimore, Maryland Sunday, June 28, 2026 Yale University professor of law and political science Akhil Reed Amar joined the regular meeting of the Lincoln Study Forum on June 13 as discussed his timely and engaging book, "Born Equal: Remaking America’s Constitution, 1840-1920." "Born Equal" recounts the dramatic events and constitutional debates that unfolded across eight decades and which reimagined the meaning of the Declaration of Independence's proposi

By Ed Epstein Washington, D.C. Friday, June 26, 2026 The new Lincoln Memorial Undercroft Museum is now open to the public--and the most impressive thing about the new venue isn't the exhibits. It's the eerie, awe-inspiring structure itself, featuring massive columns built more than a century ago to support the 38,000-ton monument above to the martyred 16th president. It's great to have them finally visible to the public. Artistically lit pillars in the undercroft. The undergr

By Ed Epstein Washington, D.C. Monday, June 22, 2026 American composer Philip Glass' Symphony No. 15, a 38-minute, eight-movement work featuring the words of Abraham Lincoln, will get its delayed world premiere next month and its Washington area debut in June 2027. Performs the Lincoln Symphony in June 2027. The work by the 89-year-old Glass, which draws mainly on the words of Lincoln's 1838 Lyceum Speech in Springfield, Ill., was commissioned by the National Symphony Orchest