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!

What Are You Reading?

Since finishing Lincoln at Gettysburg, I have been reading the Geraldine Brooks novel, March, which the Tompkins Country Public Library has selected for their community read this year.  It was an imaginative and inventive story that blended fact and fiction. Real people like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau make cameo appearances and interact with fictional characters. A good read.

What are you reading now?  I have heard from my colleagues that many of you did not like reading Lincoln at Gettysburg, and I have even heard some complain that students just don't read anymore. Can this be true? In our digital age of instance information, do books still matter?

At my Reading Project small group discussion two weeks ago I asked my students what books they would like to see selected for future Reading Projects. Their suggestions included such classics as Brave New World, Catch 22, A Tale of Two Cities, One Hundred Years of Solitude, and 1984. (How many of these have you read?)

More recent books recommended were The Things They Carried and the current bestseller Three Cups of Tea. Three of the students suggested that we read The Kite Runner and another requested that we read the graphic novel, Persepolis. Hmm. Reading a graphic novel for the Project could be quite interesting.

Many of these students were biology majors and they had two non-fiction book recommendations as well: Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA and The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World. Seems to me that these students still read.

There are just so many good books out there. So let me ask all of you the same question:

What books would you recommend we read for next year's Reading Project?

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.

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!

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

Reading a Scholarly Book

You may have noticed by now that Lincoln at Gettysburg can be a challenging read at times. Challenging in that it is not easy to read, and challenging because it asks you, its readers, to think deeply and critically about what you are reading.

Garry Wills offers us many perspectives of Lincoln's speech with his insights and interpretations of the historical data that he has read and analyzed. He provides us with 60 pages of Notes so that we can track and trace the sources of his scholarship. But I am sure this can be overwhelming or a bit daunting to those of you not used to reading scholarly books.

Let me offer a few suggestions on ways to read this book:

Use the tools provided.  Look at the Table of Contents. Our chapter titles organize and arrange the author's arguments for us. Be sure to focus on the final pages and paragraphs of each chapter, as Wills often summarizes his main points there while adding a few rhetorical flourishes of his own.

You can also use the Indexes at the back of the book to identify and locate passages on key themes, ideas, and historical people.

Read the Appendices.  Especially Appendix II.  It gives you an idea of just how hard it is to read History--figuring out what happened and where it happened can be difficult to determine. Historical events can be ambiguous. Historians can make mistakes.

Question what you read. Just because our author won a Pulitzer Prize for this book doesn't mean you have to agree with or accept all of his conclusions. Did the Gettysburg Address really remake America? And what do you make of his assertion on p. 38? Referring to the crowd listening to Lincoln give this speech, Wills writes: "Everyone in that vast throng of thousands was having his or her intellectual pocket picked." Do you think Lincoln was a "thief?"

You may want to read reviews of this book or other essays by Garry Wills as a way of reviewing other readers' opinions and thoughts and see how they compare with your own reactions.

And you can always send us your comments and questions here.

A Face in the Crowd

Crunch time. In two very short weeks you--the members of the Cornell Class of 2012--will be arriving in Ithaca. Have you started packing yet? Have you read the book? And written your short essay? Do you have any questions about the book, the Reading Project, or Cornell? 

Ithaca is a small place, but Cornell is a big and busy place, especially during Student Orientation and the first weeks of classes. Please know that you do not have to be just another face in the crowd. Ask your questions. There are plenty of students, staff, faculty, administrators, and librarians here to connect you with the information you need.  All you have to do is ask.

With so much to do and so little time left to do it, who has time to even think about Abraham Lincoln? You do. Above is an image of President Lincoln at Gettysburg. He is lost in the mass of people swirling around him. This close up of the image locates a familar face. Well almost. No, he is not one of the men in top hats. Rather we see him without a hat (and probably seated) in the very center of this image--lost in the crowd. Now try to spot Lincoln in these newly discovered images from that day.

To learn more about what happened in Gettysburg, listen to the NPR audio file of a 1938 interview with a man who was there that day. You can also read how the event was reported in the Friday, November 20, 1863 edition of the New York Times. And there is the Lincoln at Gettysburg Photo Tour for those of you who want to see modern images of Gettysburg sites.

See you all in Barton Hall in a few weeks.

Book Review: Lincoln's Humor

In keeping with Lance's theme of humor, I thought it best to review a few books on the topic this week.  In Abe Lincoln's Legacy of Laughter: Humorous Stories by and About Abraham Lincoln, editor Paul M. Zall compiles stories by and about Lincoln before and after becoming president.  The book is arranged by credibility of sources (including a section on Lincoln's Writings and Speeches) and includes headnotes (providing context and source) for each story.  One of my favorite stories below illustrates Lincoln's wit and love of metaphor:

9 June 1864.  (Notified that the National Union League had nominated him for reelection, Lincoln replied in typically self-effacing fashion behind the wit and wisdom of common folk.)

I have not permitted myself, gentelman, to conclude that I am the best man in the country; but I am reminded, in the connection, of the story of an old Dutch farmer, who remarked to a companion once that "it was not best to swap horses when crossing streams." (page 19)

In a far less acadmic book, The Abraham Lincoln Joke Book written by Beatrice Schenk de Regniers with illustrations by William Lahey Cummings, you will find all you need to captivate your friends with Lincoln-related humor!  Dedicated "to everyone who loves Lincoln and especially to boys and girls in my home state, Indiana where Abraham Lincoln grew up," the book's audience is slanted more toward the young, but the stories are interesting nontheless.  My favorite is below:

"Lincoln himself once said of another lawyer who talked a lot and never said anything worth saysing: That man can pack the most words into the least ideas of any man I know." (page 31).

What is a good book?

Each of us will answer differently, but for me a good book is one that leads me to another book. Or better yet, other books: on the same topics, by the same author, or even something completely different.

Our reading of Lincoln at Gettysburg has left me curious to learn more about Lincoln, his speeches, the Battle of Gettysburg, the Civil War, etc. And so began my serendipitous summer reading saga.

As I was reading our book earlier this year, I began to search for some book reviews about it, and then looked up some Lincoln articles by Garry Wills. These led me to the texts of other Lincoln speeches, especially his Cooper Union speech and his Second Inaugural. (Treat yourself to more of Lincoln's writing. I think you will find yourself in awe of our most literate president.)

Then I picked up the 1974 Pulitzer Prize winning book about the Battle of Gettysburg, The Killer Angels. (Some fiction for Wendy!) You will not find a more compelling historical novel. But I also wanted to know more about the details of the battle, so I read James McPherson's Hallowed Ground: A Walk at Gettysburg,which left me wanting to return to Gettysburg and follow his tour word-by-word and step-by-step.

Presently I am reading Gabor Boritt's The Gettysburg Gospel: The Lincoln Speech That Nobody Knows. If by chance you want to learn even more about the Gettysburg Address--perhaps everything there is to learn about it--then this elaborately detailed study of the events surrounding Lincoln's speech is the book for you. For instance, in our book we are told that Lincoln wisely traveled by train to Gettysburg a day earlier than originally planned. Boritt puts us on that train and gives us details about this trip:  a description of the special, elegant train cars supplied by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, a listing of the important politicians and journalists on board, and the politics of this trip. Was this speech the first campaign event in Lincoln's run for re-election? I found it interesting to note that Edward Everett's daughter, Charlotte Wise, was likely the only woman on this train and that the President's valet, William H. Johnson, may have been the only African American traveling in this entourage.

And then there is the Lincoln poetry. Does anyone read poetry anymore? I'm not sure I will make it all the way through Stephen Vincent Benet's epic poem of the Civil War, John Brown's Body (another Pulitzer Prize winning work), but I will certainly be rereading Walt Whitman's homage to Lincoln: "Oh Captain, My Captain."

Will there be time to indulge in Doris Kearns Goodwin's mammoth group biography of Lincoln and his Cabinet members, A Team of Rivals?

Reading Lincoln at Gettysburg: Wendy's Approach

I have to be honest; I was less than enthusiastic when this year's book Lincoln at Gettysburg  was announced.  It was nothing against the author, the book, or Lincoln himself.  Rather, I was rooting for fiction.

I am in awe of fiction writers who can perfectly capture the human experience -- the relationships, the emotions, the brutal honesty -- in the weaving of a make-believe story.  My favorite novels -- Peace Like a River, The Secret Life of Bees, A Fine Balance, The Red Tent -- touch on heavy themes while drawing the reader into a beautiful tale.  I love getting lost in a book; being so completely engrossed in the story that I cannot bear to put the novel down, to the point of sneaking in reading at wildly inappropriate times (at work, while driving, during dinner, taking a bath).  And, unfortunately, I have never had this experience with a non-fiction book.

No, the punchline isn't "But I did with Lincoln at Gettysburg!" :)  However, one aspect of non-fiction writing that I enjoy is that you can jump around a lot while reading.  This approach allows me to read based on my whims (translate: if I get bored I can move on to something more interesting).  So, while I started Lincoln at Gettysburg by reading the prologue (like any good librarian would do), I started feeling lost in the chapter "Oratory of the Greek Revival".  So, I quit and moved on to the Appendices -- "What Lincoln Said: The Text" and "Where He Said It: The Site".  Then I started back on the chapters with Chapter Two, "Gettysburg and the Culture of Death" (a fascinating insight into the obsession with death).  This approach allowed me to fill in the gaps of my learning about the Battle of Gettysburg and Abraham Lincoln.  By reading in this manner, I feel I was better able to appreciate and understand the Willis' research and theories.

I have been hearing from many in the Cornell community that they are having a tough time with Lincoln at Gettysburg.  My advice is to hang in there and try my approach.  But if any of your future professors take issue with this approach...give them Lance's name not mine! :)

BTW -- Register at goodreads.com to track your current, past, and future reading list and check out more of my favorites books!