2019 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize Recipient Honored the Day after Winning the Pulitzer Prize

NEW YORK CITY, April 17, 2019 – Gettysburg College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History honored 2019 Lincoln Prize recipient David Blight, author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom (Simon & Schuster), at an event on April 16 at the Union League Club in New York City.

The award includes a $50,000 prize and a bronze replica of Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ life-size bust “Lincoln the Man.”

The book won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in the category of history, the second time the Pulitzer has been given to a Lincoln Prize–winning book. Eric Foner’s The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery  (W.W. Norton & Company) was awarded the Pulitzer and Lincoln Prizes in 2011.

Several historians have won both awards for different books. Don E. Fehrenbacher was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1979 for The Dred Scott Case (Oxford University Press) and the Lincoln Prize in 1997 for Prelude to Greatness: Lincoln in the 1850s and The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics (Stanford University Press). James M. McPherson won the Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford University Press) and the Lincoln Prize in 1998 for For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (Oxford University Press) and then again in 2009 for Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief (Penguin). Doris Kearns Goodwin won the Pulitzer Prize in 1995 for No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II (Simon & Schuster) and the Lincoln Prize in 2006 for Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (Simon & Schuster), which was the basis for 2014 Lincoln Prize Special Achievement Award winner, Steven Spielberg's film Lincoln. 

A noted Civil War historian, Blight is Class of 1954 Professor of American History at Yale University and director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. His nearly 900-page book tackles Frederick Douglass’s complex history and his legacy as an abolitionist. The prizewinning historian’s research for the book spanned nine years.

“David Blight is the foremost expert on the life and legacy of Frederick Douglass,” said James G. Basker, president of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, “and this is a brilliant culmination of his life’s work. Every American who cares about the future of our country should read this book.”

Basker is one of the six Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize Board members who decided this year’s winner. In addition to Richard Gilder and Lewis Lehrman, principals of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History in New York and co-creators of the Gilder Lehrman Collection, other board members include Gettysburg College President Janet Morgan Riggs, Trustee Larry D. Walker, and Trustee Emeritus H. Scott Higgins.

“Each year, it is remarkable to see the creation of so many new and exceptional scholarly works that illuminate the Civil War era, a period that forever shaped Gettysburg College and our nation,” Riggs said. “In his enthralling biography of Frederick Douglass, Blight captures both the complexity and courageousness of one of the most important American voices of the nineteenth century.”

The laureate was one of those recommended to the board by a three-person jury: John Stauffer, Sumner R. and Marshall S. Kates Professor of English and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University; Barbara A. Gannon, Associate Professor of History at the University of Central Florida (UCF); and Elizabeth R. Varon, Associate Director of the John L. Nau III Center for Civil War History and Langbourne M. Williams Professor of American History at the University of Virginia.

“This is the most comprehensive and multi-dimensional biography of Frederick Douglass ever written,” wrote the jury in their report to the board. “Mr. Blight, a professor of history at Yale, recovers for the first time Douglass’s full significance to America’s historical experience. . . . It is an absorbing and moving book that speaks to our time as well as Douglass’s, with new insights on almost every page.”

The jury also selected four other finalists from 102 submissions: Richard J. M. Blackett, The Captive’s Quest for Freedom: Fugitive Slaves, the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, and the Politics of Slavery (Cambridge University Press); William W. Freehling, Becoming Lincoln (University of Virginia Press); Joanne B. Freeman, The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War (Farrar, Straus and Giroux); and Diane Miller Sommerville, Aberration of Mind: Suicide and Suffering in the Civil War–Era South (University of North Carolina Press).

The Prize has been awarded annually to a work that enhances the general public’s understanding of the Civil War era. It was co-founded in 1990 by businessmen and philanthropists Richard Gilder and Lewis Lehrman, co-chairmen of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History in New York and co-creators of the Gilder Lehrman Collection.

About the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize

The Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize is awarded annually for the finest scholarly work in English on Abraham Lincoln, the American Civil War soldier, or a subject relating to their era. The $50,000 prize was co-founded and endowed by businessmen and philanthropists Richard Gilder and Lewis Lehrman, principals of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History in New York and co-creators of the Gilder Lehrman Collection.

About the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

Now celebrating its 25th year, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History was founded in 1994 by Richard Gilder and Lewis E. Lehrman, visionaries and lifelong supporters of American history education. The Institute is the leading nonprofit organization dedicated to K–12 history education while also serving the general public. Its mission is to promote the knowledge and understanding of American history through educational programs and resources. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit public charity the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History is supported through the generosity of individuals, corporations, and foundations. The Institute’s programs have been recognized by awards from the White House, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Organization of American Historians, and the Council of Independent Colleges.

About Gettysburg College

Founded in 1832, Gettysburg College is a highly selective four-year residential college of liberal arts and sciences with a strong academic tradition. Alumni include Rhodes Scholars, a Nobel laureate, and other distinguished scholars. The college enrolls 2,600 undergraduate students and is located on a 200-acre campus adjacent to the Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania.