64th Annual Robert Fortenbaugh Memorial Leture Featuring Matthew Pinsker
The 64th annual Robert Fortenbaugh Memorial Lecture will be held on November 19, 2026, featuring Matt Pinsker speaking on: Twelve Score and Ten: Lincoln, Gettysburg, and America 250.
The lecture will begin at 7 PM, followed by a narrated performance of Aaron Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait.” This event is part of the official America 250-Pennsylvania & Adams County’s “Lincoln at Gettysburg: Shall Not Perish” programming (November 14-21).
Matthew Pinsker holds the Brian Pohanka Chair of Civil War History at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and serves as Director of the House Divided Project, one of the nation’s more popular educational initiatives on nineteenth-century US history. Matt has held visiting fellowships at the New America Foundation, U.S. Army War College, and the National Constitution Center. He graduated from Harvard College and received a doctorate from the University of Oxford. He is the author of three books, including most recently, Boss Lincoln: The Partisan Life of Abraham Lincoln (W.W. Norton, 2026), which the Wall Street Journal has labeled a “landmark book” and “Team of Rivals on steroids.” He also produces a popular Substack series called What Would Lincoln Do? Matt appears regularly on TV channels such as C-SPAN, PBS, and A&E History. His online series for the History Channel, called “Sound Smart”, has become a mainstay in social studies classrooms. Matt has been recognized by the Organization of American Historians (OAH) as a “Distinguished Lecturer”. And finally, he serves on the advisory boards of several historic organizations, such as Ford’s Theatre Society, Gettysburg Foundation, National Civil War Museum, President Lincoln’s Cottage at the Soldier’s Home, and the Thaddeus Stevens & Lydia Hamilton Smith Center for History and Democracy.
The lecture will begin at 7 PM, followed by a narrated performance of Aaron Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait.” This event is part of the official America 250-Pennsylvania & Adams County’s “Lincoln at Gettysburg: Shall Not Perish” programming (November 14-21).
Matthew Pinsker holds the Brian Pohanka Chair of Civil War History at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and serves as Director of the House Divided Project, one of the nation’s more popular educational initiatives on nineteenth-century US history. Matt has held visiting fellowships at the New America Foundation, U.S. Army War College, and the National Constitution Center. He graduated from Harvard College and received a doctorate from the University of Oxford. He is the author of three books, including most recently, Boss Lincoln: The Partisan Life of Abraham Lincoln (W.W. Norton, 2026), which the Wall Street Journal has labeled a “landmark book” and “Team of Rivals on steroids.” He also produces a popular Substack series called What Would Lincoln Do? Matt appears regularly on TV channels such as C-SPAN, PBS, and A&E History. His online series for the History Channel, called “Sound Smart”, has become a mainstay in social studies classrooms. Matt has been recognized by the Organization of American Historians (OAH) as a “Distinguished Lecturer”. And finally, he serves on the advisory boards of several historic organizations, such as Ford’s Theatre Society, Gettysburg Foundation, National Civil War Museum, President Lincoln’s Cottage at the Soldier’s Home, and the Thaddeus Stevens & Lydia Hamilton Smith Center for History and Democracy.