2026 Lincoln Prize Lecture

This event is in partnership with Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History. Our partnership with Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History is reflective of our continuing commitment to engage in national conversations about the Civil War by presenting the most respected authorities in the field of research and scholarship. The Gilder Lehrman annual Lincoln Prize award is given to the finest scholarly work in English on Abraham Lincoln, the American Civil War soldier, or the American Civil War era. This year’s recipient is Dr. Richard Carwardine, Distinguished Fellow of the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford, for his book Righteous Strife: How Warring Religious Nationalists Forged Lincoln’s Union. A two-time recipient of the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize, Dr. Carwardine is a Welsh-born historian of the United States. He spent over thirty years in the Department of History at Sheffield University before taking up the Rhodes Professorship of American History at Oxford in 2002. He was elected President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford in 2009 and navigated the College towards the 500th anniversary of its founding. He received his first Lincoln Prize in 2004 for his book Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power. The ACWM Lincoln Prize Lecture includes a reception with Dr. Carwardine followed by the lecture and book signing in the Museum.