Jonathan W. White, an undergraduate alumnus of the Penn State Department of History and one of the first participants in the Richards Center summer internship program, was named a joint recipient of the 2023 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize for his recently published book A House Built By Slaves: African American Visitors to the Lincoln White House (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers).
The Lincoln Prize is annually awarded to the “finest scholarly work in English on Abraham Lincoln, the American Civil War soldier, or the American Civil War era.” Of A House Built By Slaves, the prize jury wrote, “White captures the symbolic importance of social equality as an issue to be addressed during—and after—the restoration of the Union and eradication of slavery.” White shares the 2023 prize with Jon Meacham for his biography of Abraham Lincoln entitled And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle (Random House).
White is Professor of American Studies at Christopher Newport University. He is the author or editor of thirteen books, including Emancipation, the Union Army, and the Reelection of Abraham Lincoln (LSU Press), which was a finalist for the 2015 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize, a “best book” in the Civil War Monitor, and the winner of the Abraham Lincoln Institute’s 2015 book prize. He has published more than one hundred articles, essays, and reviews. He serves as vice chair of the Lincoln Forum and on the boards of the Abraham Lincoln Association and the Abraham Lincoln Institute, as well as on the Ford’s Theatre Advisory Council and the Gilder Lehrman Institute’s Scholarly Advisory Board.
Learn more about A House Built By Slaves: African American Visitors to the Lincoln White House
