Rodney O. Davis, Szold Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of History, began teaching American history at Knox in 1963. He helped establish the American Studies program at Knox and for many years was its chairman. Professor Davis is a much-honored teacher, a specialist in 19th century American history, and a recognized authority on the history of Illinois. A prize-winning essayist, his scholarly publications include articles on Lincoln, early Illinois politics, and editions of Thomas Ford's A History of Illinois and Ward Hill Lamon's The Life of Abraham Lincoln.

Douglas L. Wilson, George A. Lawrence Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of English, came to Knox in 1961. He specialized in American literature and was director of the library for many years. Before becoming involved in Lincoln research, he published several books and articles on Thomas Jefferson. One of these, "Thomas Jefferson and the Character Issue," was featured as the cover story in The Atlantic Monthly. Among Professor Wilson's Lincoln-related publications are three books: Lincoln Before Washington: New Perspectives on the Illinois Years, a collection of his Lincoln articles and essays; Honor's Voice: The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln, which was awarded the Lincoln Prize in 1999; and Lincoln's Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words.

As a team, professors Davis and Wilson founded the American Studies program and have taught jointly a series of inter-disciplinary courses that included Tocqueville's America, Frontier in American Culture, The Great River, and Jefferson and Lincoln. A joint research project that occupied them for nine years was published in 1998 as Herndon's Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln, which was hailed in the New York Review of Books as "a monumental achievement of scholarship." (Herndon's Informants is now available online through University of Illinois Press.) In a collaborative project with the Library of Congress, they served as supervising editors for the transcription and annotation of the Abraham Lincoln Papers on the Library's web site.  In 2006, Davis and Wilson initiated the Knox College Lincoln Studies Center Publication Series with Herndon's Lincoln, a new edition of William H. Herndon's classic biography of his law partner authored jointly with Jesse W. Weik.

Special Projects Staff

Matthew Norman served as leader of the Lincoln Studies Center editorial team that produced annotated transcripts of more than 10,000 documents from the Library of Congress's Abraham Lincoln Papers, now accessible on the Library of Congress Web site. A prize-winning History major, Mr. Norman graduated from Knox College in 1993 and  completed his Ph.D. in History at the University of Illinois.

Joel A. Ward worked on the Lincoln Studies Center's Herndon project and subsequently served for two years as transcriber on the Library of Congress project. Another prize-winning history major, Mr. Ward graduated from Knox College in 1999.

Terry Wilson, another Knox History major who graduated in 1988, served as researcher/transcriber on the Library of Congress project. A published Civil War scholar, he also served as research associate on the Herndon's Informants project prior to the creation of the Lincoln Studies Center.