CWRTDC'S AND LGDC'S JOINT MEETING
IN-PERSON AT "THE SQUARE" AND
VIA ZOOM
The CWRTDC and LGDC are delighted to again jointly host an in-person/hybrid meeting to celebrate Lincoln's Birthday week with the following activities scheduled for a meeting to be held the evening of February 11, 2025:
- An extended social period in the newly renovated "The Square;"
- A presentation by renowned historian and author Sidney Blumenthal about Lincoln;
- A celebration of the 90th anniversary of the founding of the LGDC;
- The presentation of the CWRTDC's Ed Bearss Awards; Additional information about the Awards is available by clicking HERE (https://cwrtdc-calendar.blogspot.com/);
- An expanded book raffle that practically guarantees you will be a winner!
A COPY OF THE PROGRAM FOR THE MEETING
WILL BE AVAILABLE BY CLICKING HERE
SIDNEY BLUMENTHAL
discusses
"The Better Angels:
Lincoln's First Inaugural"
Tuesday, February 11, 2025
5:00 pm ET
No-Host Food Court and Bar at "The Square"
1850 K Street, N.W. Washington, D.C 20006
Program Begins at 6:15 pm ET
About the Event:
The Civil War Round Table of the District of Columbia (CWRTDC) and the Lincoln Group of the District of Columbia (LGDC) are teaming up again to mark President Abraham Lincoln’s birthday with a special program on the evening of Tuesday, February 11, 2025, featuring a presentation by Lincoln biographer Sidney Blumenthal, a look back at the Lincoln Group’s 90-year history, and the announcement of the CWRTDC’s annual Ed Bearss awards.
The meeting will be held in a wonderful new, Tishman Speyer, Class A building: the Conference Center at International Square, 1850 K Street, N.W. in Washington, D.C., nicknamed “The Square” that is below a fabulously renovated gourmet food court and bar area. The Square is located at the corner of 18th and I and is easily accessible from four Metro lines (Red, Orange, Blue, and Silver) and has underground or nearby parking. This venue will be something new for both groups’ members, and it will give everyone a chance to socialize, eat and drink what they choose, and then move to the conference center for what we know will be an enjoyable program.
The event will start at 5 p.m., when members can gather in the food /bar area of the food court, which is in The Square’s spacious lobby atrium. We’ll then go downstairs to the conference center at around 6:15 p.m. ET for our program and discussion. We plan to wrap up by 8:30 p.m. ET.
Our costs involve the rental of the conference space (at a discount thanks to the CWRTDC) and the hiring of a professional videographer to help ensure the Zoom offering for members and guests around the country (and world) is flawless from our end. To recover those costs, we will be charging $20 per person to attend the program in person and $10 to watch via Zoom, including existing members of either the CWRTDC or LGDC. In-person attendees are responsible for the cost of their own food and drink.
Information about The Square’s food court is available at https://www.dcthesquare.com/. It offers a wide variety of delicious gourmet tastes from around the globe.
About the Speaker:
Sidney Blumenthal is the acclaimed author (by, among others, Jon Meacham, Harold Holzer, and James McPherson) of the first three volumes of a projected five-volume biography of Lincoln. Mr. Blumenthal's first volumes, listed below, have been resounding critical and popular successes.
- A Self-Made Man: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. I, 1809–1849
- Wrestling With His Angel: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. II, 1849-1856
- All the Powers of Earth: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. III, 1856-1860
Mr. Blumenthal is the former assistant and senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and senior adviser to Hillary Clinton. He has also been a national staff reporter for The Washington Post and Washington editor and writer for The New Yorker. His other books include the bestselling The Clinton Wars, The Rise of the Counter-Establishment, and The Permanent Campaign.
Born and raised in Illinois, Mr. Blumenthal lives in Washington, DC.
Sources: https://www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Sidney-Blumenthal/453035597 and
https://www.hnn.us/article/sidney-blumenthal----yes-that-sidney-blumenthal---
MAKE YOUR RESERVATION NOW:
As noted above, to cover our venue and videographer costs, we must charge $20 per person to attend the program in person and $10 to watch via Zoom, even if you are an existing member to either group. We also encourage you to become a member of either our organizations, or both!
To make a reservation, please use the module available on the right of our website page at https://cwrtdc-meetings.blogspot.com/ or click HERE (https://cwrtdc-meetings.blogspot.com/p/cwrtdc-lgdc-joint-meeting-2025.html). BUT SPACE IS LIMITED FOR BOTH
IN-PERSON AND ZOOM ATTENDANCE, SO PLEASE MAKE A RESERVATION RIGHT AWAY TO
ENSURE WE HAVE A SPOT FOR YOU. And
please indicate your group affiliation, the full name of each in-person attendee (for the roster the
security folks need to grant you access to the conference center), or the name
you will use to attend via Zoom so that we can admit you to the Zoom meeting. Because of the Security/access requirements,
there can be no same-day registration.
Also, cancellations after February 1 are non-refundable, as we must pay for the venue and videographer regardless of the actual attendance. If you cannot come after all, please consider your registration fee as a donation. Thank you.
If you have any problems making reservations online or would like to know about alternatives to making reservations or payments online, please email admin@cwrtdc.org
Schedule for Zoom/Remote Attendees:5:45 pm ET: Zoom Platform Opens for Remote Social Period (Optional)6:15 pm ET: Celebration of LGDC's 90th Anniversary6:45 pm ET: Presentation of the CWRTDC's Ed Bearss Awards7:15 pm ET: Start of Speaker Presentation and Q&A
As noted above, to cover our costs, we must charge $10 per person to watch via Zoom. And when you register, don't forget to indicate the name you will use to attend via Zoom so that we can grant you access.
Phone Passcode: 915536
One tap mobile:
+13052241968,,87443318495#,,,,*915536# US
+13092053325,,87443318495#,,,,*915536# US
Or dial in by your location:+1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)+1 669 900 9128 US (San Jose)
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kcZG7EOkvVFor a cheat sheet on how to use Zoom's control features click HERE
MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE JOINT MEETING
LGDC's 90TH ANNIVERSARY
The Lincoln Group of the District of Columbia is turning 90 years young in 2025, quite an accomplishment for a small non-profit. To mark the anniversary, the LGDC will include vignettes from its long, notable history in its monthly programs. For more information, visit The Lincoln Group Is an Oldie but a Goodie.
PRESENTATION OF THE EDWIN C. BEARSS
AWARDS
The CWRTDC will also present the awards
to honor the extraordinary life and legacy of Civil War historian Edwin Cole
Bearss. The recipients of the 2024 CWRTDC Edwin C. Bearss Awards are: [TBD]. For more information, visit:
https://cwrtdc-calendar.blogspot.com/
For additional information about Ed and the awards, see CWRTDC's News Release which will be available HERE or visit its website at www.cwrtdc.org.
SPECIAL RAFFLE/GIVEAWAY (corrected)
If you did not get that Civil War history book you wanted this holiday season, this is your chance to make up for lost time. We will be holding a raffle at the meeting for in-person attendees only (hopefully like the ones our raffle host extraordinaire Gordon Berg used to run). A $5.00 raffle ticket may win you not just one book, but also a second book (while supplies last)! The collection of books Gordon has brought to our past meetings has been expansive, and at this meeting we plan on bringing some Lincoln-related books that are signed by their authors. Come early to socialize and check out the selection! The money collected supports our speaker program!
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CWRTDC'S PREVIOUS MEETING
Date changed to Tuesday, January 7, 2025,
due to speaker's unexpected conflict
VIA ZOOM ONLY
with a presentation by
DOUGLAS R. EGERTON
about
Thomas Wentworth Higginson:
Abolitionist, Soldier, and Poet-Minister
Tuesday, January 7, 2025
(Changed from Wed., Jan. 8 due to speaker's unexpected conflict)
JOIN US VIA ZOOM
Schedule for Zoom/Remote Attendees:
About the Topic:
Few Americans covered as much ground as Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Born in 1823 to a family descended from Boston's Puritan founders, he attended Harvard, like all the men in his family, and prepared for the settled life of a minister. Instead, he rejected both privilege and convention, and embraced radical causes, attaching himself to nearly every major reform movement of the day, from women's rights to abolitionism.
More than merely a fellow traveler, Higginson became a proponent of direct action. Wounded during an altercation with the police over an enslaved man who--in defiance of the Fugitive Slave Act--was fighting extradition to the South, Higginson wore the scar with pride. He became a member of Boston's Secret Six, supporting John Brown's raid and going to Bleeding Kansas with his rifle, prepared to put his life on the line. During the Civil War Higginson went to South Carolina and led one of the first Black regiments, the 1st Carolina Volunteers, into battle.
Man of action though he was, "Colonel" Higginson was also a writer and journalist, friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, and one of the founding editors of the Atlantic Magazine. Emily Dickinson sought out his advice and their correspondence attests both to Dickinson's genius and Higginson's attempt to help it reach a larger audience.
Until his death in 1911, Higginson played a role (often a leading and vocal part) in nearly every progressive movement of the 19th century, earning a place in studies of abolitionism, feminism, education, temperance, Victorian fiction, as well as films, novels, and books featuring Dickinson and Harriet Tubman (whom he met in South Carolina during the Civil War). These reveal only aspects of Higginson's storied life.
Douglas Egerton will discuss his latest biography, to be released the day before his presentation -- Man on Fire; The Worlds of Thomas Wentworth Higginson -- which embraces all the facets of this American whirlwind, illuminating the ways in which Higginson's lifelong crusade for a more just world resonates today.
Source: Amazon.com
About the Speaker:
Douglas R. Egerton became interested in history through his family and its troubled past. His paternal grandmother was born in Tennessee in 1885, the daughter of an elderly Confederate officer and slaveholder (and his second, much younger, wife). When in high school, the series “Roots” was shown on television, and his normally softspoken grandmother became furious about the way in which the Old South was depicted. She assured her grandson the planter class “was always kind to our people,” an inadvertent admission that African American enslaved persons were indeed human property.
Dr. Egerton says that’s when he decided to write and teach about race relations in the early American South. He moved east from Arizona and received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Georgetown University. He never lost his interest in the South, which he reports was far more complex and complicated than he ever imagined. His work now deals with the intersections between race and politics in early America.
Dr. Egerton's books include Thunder At the Gates: The Black Civil War Regiments That Redeemed America (2016), The Wars of Reconstruction: The Brief, Violent History of America’s Most Progressive Era (2014), Year of Meteors: Stephen Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, and the Election That Brought on the Civil War (2010) and Death or Liberty: African Americans and Revolutionary America (2009).
His first book, Charles Fenton Mercer and the Trial of National Conservatism (1989), examined the career of the founder of the American Colonization Society, a group of conservative white antislavery politicians who wished to send freed slaves to Liberia. His other books, Gabriel’s Rebellion (1993), He Shall Go Out Free: The Lives of Denmark Vesey (1999), and Rebels, Reformers and Revolutionaries (2002) explore slave rebelliousness.
Dr. Egerton has also written numerous essays and reviews regarding race in early America; some of the latter have appeared in the Sunday Boston Globe and The Nation. He has appeared on the PBS series “The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross” (2013), “Africans in America” (1998) and “This Far by Faith” (2002).
During the 2011-12 academic year, Dr. Egerton held the Mary Ball Washington Chair (Fulbright) at the University College Dublin. In spring 2015, he was the Merrill Family Visiting Professor of History at Cornell University. In 2017, Dr. Egerton won the Gilder-Lehrman Lincoln Prize for Thunder at the Gates.
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