Historian James McPherson to lecture at Lawrenceville

Lucy Harmon McPherson, donor of the Lincolnalia

Lucy Harmon McPherson, donor of the School’s Lincolnalia collection, in what is reputedly one of her mother’s Antebellum gowns.

The Lawrenceville School’s Bunn Library and Gruss Center of Visual Art have teamed to present a discussion of Abraham Lincoln, his legacy, and the 150th anniversary of the Civil War led by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James M. McPherson. The lecture, “Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation,” and a post-event reception, will take place on February 12 at 3:30 p.m. in the Gruss’ Hutchins Rotunda. All members of the public are invited to attend this free event. Guests are also encouraged to to view the School’s own collection of Lincoln memorabilia, selected from the Bunn Library’s Stephan Archives, on display in the Gruss Center of Visual Art.

McPherson is the George Henry Davis ’86 Professor of History Emeritus at Princeton University. He has published numerous volumes on the Civil War, including the 1989 Pulitzer Prize-winning “Battle Cry of Freedom,” “Crossroads of Freedom” (which was a New York Times bestseller), “Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution,” and “For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War,” which won the 1998 Lincoln Prize.

The lecture has been made possible by the sponsorship and grant from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

Memorial Hall, 1886

While looking for certain images this morning, archives staff came across this fabulous photo of what is now Woods Memorial Hall in the 1886 Olla Podrida, just after it was built.  There would have been four Circle houses with it (out of frame, to the left) at that time — Cleve, Griswold, Dickinson and Woodhull — but not Kennedy, which was not built until 1889.  Other buildings constructed that first year include Foundation House and the Bath House.  Missing, as you can see from the photo, were Upper (built 1892) and the Edith Memorial Chapel (built 1895). Memorial Hall, the main classroom building of the day, was designed by Peabody & Stearns, a leading Gilded Age architectural firm from Boston.

Memorial Hall, built in 1885, from the 1886 Olla Podrida yearbook.

Photos from the Coachman collection

While researching another topic, archives staff “discovered” the Coachman collection, a seris of candid travel photos taken by brothers Walter Fossin Coachman L 1913 and Charles Rogers Coachman L 1917.  The photos appear to have been taken on various summer trips between 1913 and 1920 and feature such locales as Glacier National Park, Atlantic City and Woodstown, New Jersey. A few of the most interesting photos have been scanned and uploaded here.