GettysBlog

2008 Reading Project Essay Contest Winners

Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, Michele Moody-Adams is pleased to announce the winners in this year's New Student Reading Project Essay Contest. Class of 2012 students were sent 10 study questions along with their copy of Lincoln at Gettysburg last summer and asked to complete a short essay based on one of these questions.

Each of the 10 contest winners will receive a $200 gift certificate from The Cornell Store. The 5 students who earned Honorable Mention will each receive a $50 gift certificate.

Read their winning essays.

Congratulations to all of our winning readers and writers.

Now to wait and see what next year's book will be.  Keep reading!

Lincoln and Ithaca

Students participating in the Ithaca High School Combined Class Read this year are reading Garry Wills' book, Lincoln at Gettysburg. They are studying the Greek roots of Lincoln's oration and the influence of the Ancient Greeks upon American culture (e.g. Greek Revival architecture). They are also examining presidential politics in this election year.

On Friday, October 17th they visit the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Goldwin Smith Hall, and the Division of Rare & Manuscript Collections in Kroch Library, where they will view and discuss a selection of Lincoln and Greek materials in the Cornell collections, including the Bancroft Copy of the Gettysburg Address and a newly acquired copy of the first English language edition of Thucydides published in 1550.

A digital Lincoln at Gettysburg: Ithaca High School guide of their Library tour will allow the IHS students to return to campus virtually and learn more about the books, documents, and art objects they saw during their visit.

Pictured here is a wooden parade ax used by supporters of Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 presidential campaign.

Below is an image of a 1913 postcard of Goldwin Smith Hall.

The Words That Remake America

We have read and discussed Lincoln's words at the various Reading Project events.  We have noted and appreciated his rhetoric and phrasing:  "all men are created equal," "new birth of freedom," and "government of the people, by the people, for the people."  But we have not mentioned the words that have the potential to truly remake America: apathy, indifference, ignorance, and intolerance.

As the old adage goes, actions speak louder than words.

Was it apathy then that kept more students from coming to hear Garry Wills' talk last night? Was it indifference that motivated so many students to leave Barton Hall before the group discussion was over a few weeks ago?  Yes, it was hot in there, but why were these students so uninterested in this discussion?  Especially in an historic election year when these topics and Lincoln's words have resonated in our daily news headlines.

Democracy is participatory. In order to function properly it requires an informed citizenry to educate itself about the issues and problems it faces, and to act on those issues.

Democracy is a privilege, just as a Cornell education is a privilege. Both require you to think.  Both require some effort and hard work.

As we finish with our daily postings to this blog, I hope that our readers will keep Lincoln in mind. Next year we will be celebrating the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth and Cornell will be celebrating his life and accomplishments with a major exhibition in Kroch Library.

I have enjoyed discussing Lincoln with you all. Keep reading. Stay curious. Know better.

[Flickr image of Mount Rushmore by lmbaker3.]

In the News

I wanted to share two recent news items with our Lincoln at Gettysburg readers.

Did you hear that President Bush visited Gettysburg last week? He and a small entourage that included former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former White House political adviser Karl Rove, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, and Karen Hughes, former undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs for the State Department were given a tour of the battlefield by Gabor Boritt, author of The Gettysburg Gospel and director of the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College. Their tour began at the Virginia Memorial, one of over 1,300 monuments at the Gettysburg National Military Park, and included a visit to the park's new Museum and Visitor Center.

Here in Ithaca, Cornell Professor Ross Brann, posted some comments about the New Student Reading Project in his Cornell Daily Sun blog, which were then reprinted in the Chronicle Online. He asks us: What are we doing here at Cornell? I don't believe that is a rhetorical question. Would any of you like to comment on his observations?

And there you have it. Presidents visiting battlefields. Professors setting challenges for their students. All of us settling into our fall semester schedules and routines.

[Image of the Virginia Memorial at Gettysburg is from adamr.stone's flickr site.]

Get Linc'ed at the Tatkon Center

President Skorton will kickoff Cornell's student voter registration drive tomorrow afternoon, September 6, at 4:30 p.m. at the Balch Courtyard Terrace (rain location Carol Tatkon Center Room 3330). He will read the Gettysburg Address and talk about the power of words to change our world.

Check out all of the events happening this month at the Tatkon Center.

Lincoln as a Cornell Student? by Ariela Rutkin-Becker

The past few weeks in exploring the New Student Reading Project with you I’ve tried to tie our 16th president in to modern times, to show how relevant Lincoln at Gettysburg really is.

This is the first blog I’m writing from Cornell itself and my message is directly to first-year students:  Cornell is now your body politik, a microcosm for the US at large.  And while you might feel that some political opinions are more prevalent than others here, I am confident that you can find a plethora of events and groups that share your political view.  Even if it’s not your view—explore a new one.  And as Lance wrote below, vote.

So what activities would Lincoln have been involved in here at Cornell?  Over the past few days I’ve asked this question to new students walking in to the Tatkon Center as well as some of my friends.  Everyone has chuckled at first, and then answered honestly.   I got answers such as:

• The debate team (Cornell has the Forensics Society and the Debate Club, and the honorary forensics society Delta Sigma Rho Tau Kappa Alpha)
• Student Assembly (whose president and executive vice president will be popularly elected for the first time in spring of this school year, after you vote in fall for your new student representatives)
• The Schwartz Center Theatre (as we all know, Lincoln was assassinated while enjoying a show)
• Maybe even the wrestling team (Lincoln’s six-foot-four frame might appear lanky, but wrestling was his favorite sport; check out the Friedman Wrestling Center near Bartels Hall)
• Last but not least, he could have been president of his namesake fraternity, Alpha Beta Epsilon (I’ve used this joke over the past few days to some blank stares…put the initials of the fictional fraternity together). 

Debate, Student Assembly, theatre, wrestling, Greek life… Honest Abe definitely would have a place here at modern-day Cornell.  Now, new students, you are charged with the task of defining your experience here over the next four years.  I wish you the best of luck and can’t wait to watch your class acclimate, unite and evolve.

Persuasive Power of Words

Anne Kenney, Cornell University's Carl A. Kroch University Librarian, sends library staff weekly messages about libraries, books, digital information, reading, and other topical issues. Like so many of us on campus, she read Lincoln at Gettysburg and joined a small group discussion on Monday. I wanted to share her message about our book with all of you:

"Last week during my annual cottage-at-the-lake vacation I thought a lot about words. Finishing up Lincoln at Gettysburg, the new student reading book by Garry Wills, and watching episodes of AMC's runaway show, Mad Men, provided grist for my thoughts. There is more similarity between these two than just my preoccupation of last week. Each focuses on the persuasive power of words. The former takes 317 pages to describe the impact of 272 words that constitute the Gettysburg Address; the latter is a series of hour-long episodes devoted to the advertising world of the late 1950s/early 1960s. Both trade in selling ideas. The subtitle to Wills' book is "The Words that Remade America" and his contention is that Lincoln wasn't in Gettysburg to commemorate a cemetery but to achieve a "revolution in thought." Similarly successful advertisers don't sell products but concepts, as exemplified in the Mad Men episode in which Don Draper, the Creative Director for Sterling Cooper Ad Agency, snags the Kodak account by describing its new carousel slide projector as a memory holder. Fourth, Lincoln's Address and advertisements alike achieve an economy of words. Lincoln broke with tradition by delivering a speech that lasted a little over 2 minutes; advertising depends on pithy slogans and 30 second pitches. Both invade our subconscious.  Many of us had to memorize the Gettysburg Address at some point in our education, and while you may not recall the full text, it's hard to forget the "Fourscore and seven years ago" bit. And advertising is meant to stick with you, as anyone who has had a jingle roll around in their head all day knows. Finally, both the Gettysburg Address and ads pack their greatest punch when they are heard, which is why the former figures prominently in solemn occasions and ad agencies spend a fortune on radio and television. Lincoln himself had a habit of reading everything aloud, including the newspaper. Consider, too, the 20th century equivalent to the Gettysburg Address: Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream" speech, delivered to over 200,000 people 100 years after Lincoln's from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington.  Its impact had as much to do with his delivery as it did with his words.

Don Draper was wrong. Kodak slide projectors aren't the real memory holders. Well-chosen, and well-spoken, words are.

Enjoy the week and the return of students to campus.
Anne"

We hope to see all of you in our libraries as the semester begins.  Good luck in your classes. Keep reading!

Lincoln and You

Now that we've read the book (or most of it), gathered as a large group in Barton Hall to hear our Cornell scholars' informed opinions, met in small groups to discuss Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address, and turned in our essays, what's left to do?

Several students in my discussion group mentioned that they would be giving their copies of Lincoln at Gettysburg to their fathers to read, noting their parent's interests in Lincoln and Civil War history. Sharing a good book is what the Reading Project is all about.

If you have not already done so, please treat yourself to a visit to Kroch Library this week to see Cornell's copy of the Gettysburg Address in Lincoln's handwriting, which will be on public display for the rest of this week.

And check out the Reading Project-related exhibits on campus this month.  Reaching For Equality is on display at the Tatkon Center. (It is also available online as an interactive digital guide. Send us your thoughts and comments.)  Downstairs in Olin Library you will find a display, Mapping the Many Paths to the Address, in the Media Center.

Don't forget that our author, Garry Wills, will be here on September 17th to give a talk on the Lincoln Douglas Debates.

Most importantly, on September 6, President Skorton will read the Gettysburg Address in the Balch Courtyard Terrace at 4:30 p.m. to kickoff our campus voter registration drive. If you are 18 and a United States citizen, you need to participate in the democratic process.  You ARE the people that Lincoln is speaking of at the end of his address: "government of the people, by the people, for the people." 

Register and Vote!

The power to "remake" the world?

The old adage that "the pen is mightier than the sword" may be difficult to accept as we observe all the armed conflicts around the globe at the moment.  But you don't need to believe in the superior power of the pen to consider the possibility, as Wills puts it, that words are sometimes necessary "to complete the work of the guns." Yet how is it that words get their power?  To answer this question, if Wills is right, we must delve into the origins of "linguistic might," and we should expect that the more powerful the words in question, the more complex their origins are likely to be.  Wills leads us on a dense and sometimes complicated exploration of the literary, religious, philosophical, and socio-political roots of the Gettysburg Address.  In addition, his own language occasionally requires us to pick up a dictionary.  But if we stick with him, we can come to a deeper understanding of how 272 words helped to bring to completion what the massive death and destruction of the battle of Gettysburg (and indeed the American Civil War as a whole) could not do alone.

Does the power of words have anything to do with the greatness of political leaders?  We may not think so, especially if we believe that the careers of great leaders are best defined by the decisions they make and by actions they take in light of those decisions.  But what if the full measure of some political greatness will escape us until we understand the role that language and rhetoric might play in decision and action?  Wills has been influential in making the case that this is a reasonable assumption to bring to reflection on Lincoln's career and legacy.  But over the course of his career, Wills has extended this approach to discussions of the broader importance of language and its uses in political contexts.  You may find it interesting to look at a May 2008 article entitled "Two Speeches on Race," in which Wills makes some provocative comparisons between presidential candidate Barack Obama's speech on race and one of Lincoln's speeches delivered in the months before he won the presidency.  Whatever you might make of these comparisons, it is important to ask whether Wills's views in Lincoln at Gettysburg might help us reflect on the sources, power, and value of contemporary political language in the broadest sense.

Finally, why should you be interested in Wills's discussion of the Gettysburg Address if you are either not a citizen (naturalized or native) of the United States, or if you are perhaps an American citizen who is impatient with those who fail to focus on questions of global importance?   Well, if Wills is right, the power of Lincoln's words was partly a function of his conviction that America's national purpose was rooted in ideals of equality and democracy that have value for all human beings.  Consider, too, that Lincoln's words influenced the labor movement in nineteenth century Germany and political movements in mid-twentieth century India, and they resonate in the language of twenty-first century defenders of human rights around the globe. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru kept a cast of Lincoln's hand on his desk, along with a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, to remind himself to combine Gandhi's compassion with Lincoln's capacity for strength and unity.  A 2007 conference on Lincoln focused on his relevance as "A Humanitarian as Broad as the World," and an international conference to celebrate the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth in 2009 will be entitled "Lincoln Without Borders."   Might this long-standing global interest in Lincoln suggest that his words have the power not only to remake America, but to help remake the world?

During New Student Orientation, on the day before the small group discussions, three distinguished Cornell faculty members will help us understand the power of Lincoln's words:  Professor Edward Baptist of the history department will deliver a talk entitled "A Nation Not Like Any Other Nations," Cornell President Emeritus and Professor of Classics Hunter Rawlings will talk to us about "Lincoln and the Athenian Tradition of State Funeral Orations," and Professor Tad Brennan of the philosophy department will deliver a talk entitled "Any Nation So Conceived."   

This faculty panel discussion will be held from 3:30 to 5:00 on Sunday August 24, 2008 in Barton Hall.  I look forward to seeing you there and then to learning more about your approach to Lincoln in the essays you will submit during the small group discussions on Monday August 25.

Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education,  Michele Moody-Adams

150th Anniversary of the Lincoln Douglas Debates

On August 21, 1858 a then relatively unknown Abraham Lincoln first debated Stephen A. Douglas in Ottawa, Illinois during their campaign to become a U.S. senator. Their seven debates that summer and fall have become the gold standard for political debates. See the multimedia slideshow Debating Douglas on the National Stage, 1857-1858 (Requires RealPlayer) to learn more about their historical context and significance. 

You may recall that earlier this year Hillary Clinton challenged Barack Obama to a Lincoln - Douglas style debate during the primary season. I wonder if the American public would have found this interesting or not, since the 1858 debates featured an hour-long presentation by the first speaker (Lincoln and Douglas alternated going first), an hour and a half response by the second candidate, and then a half hour rejoinder by the first speaker. Would you be willing and able to watch a three hour political debate? How would the second-by-second 24 hour news cycle handle this kind of marathon?

Lincoln lost this election, but gained valuable national exposure. Two years later he defeated Douglas and others to become our 16th president. It was during these debates that Lincoln started honing and perfecting the rhetorical skills that we have been reading about this summer.

Our author, Garry Wills, will be speaking about the Lincoln - Douglas Debates when he visits Cornell on September 17th. 

See you all in Barton Hall on Sunday afternoon.

Welcome to Cornell!

Image: Lincoln and Douglas, November 3, 1903. Creator: Jaspard, J. M. Image Source: Chicago Historical Society