“A New Birth of Freedom”: Lincoln’s Oratory and the Civil War
The Not Old Better Show, Smithsonian Associates Interview Series
Welcome to The Not Old Better Show on radio and podcast. I’m Paul Vogelzang and as part of our Smithsonian Associates interview series, we have a wonderful show today.
Our guest today is Smithsonian Associate and author and professor of history Christopher Hamner. Dr. Christopher Hamner teaches and writes about U.S. History: War and American society, the individual experience of combat, technological change and warfare. The title of Dr. Hamner’s upcoming presentation at Smithsonian Associates is “A New Birth of Freedom”: Lincoln’s Oratory and the Civil War. More details are available on our website, but we have Dr. Christopher Hamner today.
More than 150 years after his death, our 16th president maintains his reputation as one of the most gifted orators to hold the nation’s highest office. Abraham Lincoln used his facility with language to help guide the country through the Civil War—the most destructive in its history—and through the massive social and political disruption that accompanied four years of fighting.
Christopher Hamner, professor of history at George Mason University, focuses on how three of Lincoln’s best-known speeches—his First Inaugural (1861), his Gettysburg Address (1863), and his Second Inaugural (1865)—helped to move a war-weary citizenry toward a radical new understanding of the country’s own values and of the meaning of the war and of emancipation.
My thanks to Smithsonian Associates author, historian Christopher Hamner. The title of Dr. Hamner’s upcoming presentation at Smithsonian Associates is “A New Birth of Freedom”: Lincoln’s Oratory and the Civil War. More details are available on our website, but we have Dr. Christopher Hamner today. My thanks always to the Smithsonian team for all they do to support the show. My thanks, as well, to you my wonderful Not Old Better Show audience. Please be well, be safe and remember…let’s talk about Better. The Not Old Better Show. Thanks, everybody and I’ll see you next week.
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