Thank you, Eric Foner!

Eric Foner, the eminent historian of slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction, retires this year as DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History at Columbia University, a position he has held since 1988. Foner has taught at Columbia, Oxford, Cambridge, and Moscow State, has written more than 25 acclaimed books, and is the recipient of numerous awards for scholarship and excellent teaching. In 2011, he received the Pulitzer Prize, Bancroft Prize, and the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize for his book The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, which he discusses in this video interview with James Basker, president of the Gilder Lehrman Institute.

Professor Foner has participated in the Gilder Lehrman Institute’s programs in many vital ways. With historian Martha Jones, he has led seven summer Teacher Seminars on Reconstruction, taking teachers on weeklong explorations of the post–Civil War era through lectures and archival visits. He has contributed essays, interviews, and lectures to the Gilder Lehrman website, expanding the scope and deepening the impact of the Institute’s resources on the Civil War and Reconstruction. Below is a selection:

Lincoln’s Interpretation of the Civil War (from History Now 26: New Interpretations of the Civil War)
The Reconstruction Amendments: Official Documents as Social History (from History Now 2: Primary Sources on Slavery)
Roundtable discussion on American antislavery writings
"Lincoln and the Rights of Black Americans," a lecture at Columbia University
"1866: The Birth of Civil Rights," a lecture at the Museum of the City of New York

The Gilder Lehrman Institute thanks Professor Foner for all he has done to enrich and promote the study of American history, and congratulates him on his retirement.