Are you looking for some historical perspective as the election season heat up? Our Public Programs have you covered. Enjoy two recordings of past programs below. In the first, author David Levering Lewis and historian David Nasaw discuss Wendell Willkie, a Midwestern businessman–turned–Republican politician, who fought for desegregation, workers’ rights, and small government in his 1940 bid for president. In the second, Abraham Lincoln scholars Allen C. Guelzo and Harold Holzer take a closer look at the legendary debates between Lincoln and Stephen Douglas in the run-up to the 1860 presidential election and how they foreshadowed the brewing storm of the Civil War.
Wendell Willkie, the 1940 Election, and the Transformation of American Politics
May 21, 2019
Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates that Defined America
May 22, 2008
Top image: Lincoln and his contemporaries (detail). McCutcheon, John T. (John Tinney), 1870-1949, artist. Cabinet of American illustration (Library of Congress)
