Research and Publication

Lincoln Studies Center

The Lincoln Studies Center is actively involved in several Lincoln-related research and publication projects, all of which focus on making primary sources available for students, scholars and the general public. Two of the Lincoln Studies Center's endeavors, the Library of Congress Project and Herndon's Informants -- both comprising literally thousands of expertly transcribed and annotated primary source documents -- are now freely available on-line.

The Lincoln Studies Center Publication Series, detailed below, will continue to make invaluable contributions to Lincoln scholarship and public understanding alike.

Lincoln Studies Center Publication Series

The Lincoln Studies Center Publication Series will include books by the co-directors of the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College, as well as the work of other Lincoln scholars, particularly editorial projects involving Lincoln source material. Two of the works listed here are being edited by members of the LSC Board of Advisors and are planned for inclusion in the new publication series.

"The Diary of Gideon Welles" - In Process
Gideon Welles was Lincoln's Secretary of the Navy, and his personal diary is a prime source of information about the inner workings of the Lincoln administration. Professor William E. Gienapp's new edition of this invaluable diary was well along at the time of his untimely death in 2003. When completed by his successors, this edition will be submitted for inclusion in the Lincoln Studies Center's Publication Series.

"The Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft" - In Process
At the time of the Civil War, Horatio Nelson Taft was a Patent Office official in Washington whose daughter was a playmate of Lincoln's two younger sons. Taft's diary, which was unknown until it was recently acquired by the Library of Congress, is revealing both of the Tafts' famous neighbors and life in Washington during the war. Dr. John R. Sellers, curator of the Lincoln and Civil War materials at the Library of Congress and a member of the Lincoln Studies Center's Board of Advisors, is editing this important discovery for the publication series. Dr. Sellers' transcription of the diary is available online at the Library of Congress Web site.

William H. Herndon's Writings About Lincoln - In Process
William H. Herndon was Lincoln's longtime friend, law partner, and biographer. The Lincoln Studies Center is collecting and editing for publication the extensive body of written material—letters, lectures, articles, and interviews—in which Herndon detailed his intimate personal knowledge of Lincoln. This volume will thus be a companion to Herndon's Informants, the indispensable biographical materials about Lincoln collected by Herndon, and to Herndon's Lincoln, the classic 1889 biography.

Herndon's Lincoln - Published 2006, University of Illinois Press
The first volume in the Lincoln Studies Center Publication Series, Herndon's Lincolnis the classic biography of Abraham Lincoln written by his law partner, William H. Herndon, in collaboration with Jesse W. Weik. Published in 1889, is arguably the most influential life of Lincoln ever written. Its principal sources were drawn from the archive of letters and interviews collected by Herndon and published in their entirety for the first time in Herndon's Informants (see below), edited by co-directors Davis and Wilson.

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates: The Lincoln Studies Center Edition - Published 2008, University of Illinois Press
To commemorate in 2008 the 150th anniversary of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, one of which took place on the Knox College campus, the Lincoln Studies Center has prepared a new edition of the debates, which is the second publication in the Lincoln Studies Center Publication Series. In spite of the importance of these debates in American history, this will be the first critical edition of the famous 1858 debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas. As such, its text is the most complete and most accurate available. One of the principal aims of this edition is to make the debates more accessible to students and general readers.

Completed Projects

Library of Congress Project
As part of a plan to make Abraham Lincoln's personal papers available on the World Wide Web, the Library of Congress contracted with the Lincoln Studies Center to transcribe and annotate all of its Lincoln manuscripts and a substantial portion of Lincoln's incoming correspondence. That collaborative project was completed in December of 2002, and the resulting transcriptions and annotation, along with images of the documents themselves, are now freely accessible for the use of scholars and other interested readers. They may be seen on the Library of Congress Web site.

Testimonials from Lincoln Scholars:

"I have come increasingly to rely on the ease of access, speed, and comprehensiveness of the Library of Congress's Abraham Lincoln Papers web site."

"The online version of the Abraham Lincoln Papers is changing the way I write and teach."

"This has become an indispensable tool for everyone in researching Abraham Lincoln and the American Civil War."

Herndon's Informants - Published 1998, University of Illinois Press
Herndon's Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln, co-edited by Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis, is an indispensable archive of primary source material. Nearly a decade in the making, it has been called by James M. McPherson in the New York Review of Books "a monumental achievement of scholarship." It is listed in 100 Essential Lincoln Books, which describes it as "an essential tool for any Lincoln biography." The full text of Herndon's Informants is now freely accessible online through University of Illinois Press.