By David J. Kent
Washington, D.C.
Sunday, March 27, 2022
ALI, the Abraham Lincoln Institute, has initiated a new program to offer grants to students working on Abraham Lincoln-related dissertations. The Lincoln Group of DC has long supported ALI’s Annual Symposium at Ford’s Theatre, and we are all in favor of supporting the study of Lincoln. The goal is to encourage students while they are doing research.
This will be the first year for what ALI hopes to be an annual grant to graduate students working on Lincoln-centered topics in American history. These topics could include any aspect of his life including his family, his legal career, his political career, his political career, and how he is remembered. Applicants must be full-time Ph.D. candidates in good standing at accredited institutions. The deadline for submissions this year is October 1, 2022. Applicants must provide a three-to-five page letter describing their project, a vita, a proposed budget for use of the funds, and a letter of support from a member of their dissertation committee. The winner will receive a grant of five hundred dollars and must provide a written report within one year of receipt of the grant describing what they did with the grant.
More information on the grant and where to apply can be found on the ALI website at https://lincoln-institute.org/scholarship-award/
This new grant joins ALI’s long-standing contributions to Lincoln research through awards for excellent work. Students who complete their dissertations on Lincoln-related topics are eligible for the annual dissertation award of $1000. The 2022 award went to Scott Ackerman at City University of New York for his dissertation: We are Abolitionizing the West: The Union Army and the Implementation of Federal Emancipation Policy, 1861-1865.
ALI, in conjunction with the Abraham Lincoln Association in Springfield, IL, also funds an annual book award. The 2022 award went to Michael Burlingame for The Black Man’s President: Abraham Lincoln, African Americans, and the Pursuit of Racial Equality.
Finally, ALI issues a Legacy Award to recognize extraordinary contributions to the field of Lincoln studies. The 2022 award went to the Kunhardt Family for their long history of collecting, documenting, and publishing Abraham Lincoln photographs.
For more information about these grants and awards, and about the Abraham Lincoln Institute itself, check out the ALI website: https://lincoln-institute.org/
And don’t forget to tune in for the ALI Symposium being offered virtually this year on April 12th and 13th: https://lincoln-institute.org/abraham-lincoln-institute-symposium-2022/