Krowl Scores a First for Women at Gettysburg

By Ed Epstein

Washington, D.C.

Thursday, November 20, 2025

Lincoln Group member Michelle A. Krowl became the first woman to read out Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address yesterday at the annual Dedication Day ceremony in the Gettysburg National Cemetery.

Holding American flags presented to them on Wednesday are Jonathan W. White and Michelle A. Krowl.

The reading of the address, first delivered on November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the new cemetery where Union soldiers killed that July in the epic battle of Gettysburg were buried, is a highlight of Dedication Day. The annual event is sponsored by the Lincoln Fellowship of Pennsylvania.

"Thankfully, I didn't flub any of Lincoln's words or botch the presentation, particularly since it turned out that I was the first woman to recite the Address at one of the Lincoln Fellowship of Pennsylvania's Dedication Day ceremonies!" Krowl wrote on her Facebook page. "My baseline for success yesterday was to not screw up the delivery or fall off the stage, so mission accomplished."

Krowl is a well-known, respected figure in the Lincoln community. She is the Civil War and Reconstruction specialist in the manuscript division of the Library of Congress and secretary of the Lincoln Forum.

The day's main address was delivered by Jonathan W. White, a friend of the Lincoln Group. He is a professor of American Studies at Christopher Newport University in Virginia. A prolific author, he is also vice-chair of the Lincoln Forum and serves on the boards of several other Lincoln-related groups. His latest book is Measuring the Man--The Writings of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, co-authored with Lucas E. Morel, a professor of history at Washington and Lee University in Virginia.

Photo by Karen Hawbecker