Mark E. Neely Jr. (born November 10, 1944 in
Amarillo, Texas
Amarillo ( ; Spanish for "yellow") is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the seat of Potter County. It is the 14th-most populous city in Texas and the largest city in the Texas Panhandle. A portion of the city extends into Randall County ...
) is an American historian best known as an authority on the
U.S. Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states t ...
in general and
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
in particular.
Biography
Neely was born in Texas. He earned his BA in American Studies and PhD in history at
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...
in 1966 and 1973. Yale's Graduate School awarded him a
Wilbur Cross Medal
The Wilbur Cross Medal, or Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal for Alumni Achievement, is an award by the Yale University Graduate School Alumni Association to recognize "...distinguished achievements in scholarship, teaching, academic administration, and p ...
in 1995.
In 1971–1972 Neely was a visiting instructor at
Iowa State University
Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State became one of the ...
. In 1972 he was named director of the Lincoln Museum in
Fort Wayne, Indiana
Fort Wayne is a city in and the county seat of Allen County, Indiana, United States. Located in northeastern Indiana, the city is west of the Ohio border and south of the Michigan border. The city's population was 263,886 as of the 2020 Censu ...
, a position he held for 20 years.
In 1992 Dr. Neely was named the
John Francis Bannon
John Francis Bannon (1905 – June 5, 1986) was a Jesuit and a historian of the American West, especially of matters related to the Spanish borderlands.
Bannon received his bachelor's and master's degrees from Saint Louis University. He the ...
Professor of History and American Studies at
Saint Louis University. In 1998 he was named the McCabe Greer Professor of Civil War History at
Pennsylvania State University.
Neely is best known for his 1991 book ''
The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties'', which won both the 1992
Pulitzer Prize for History
The Pulitzer Prize for History, administered by Columbia University, is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It has been presented since 1917 for a distinguished book about the history ...
[ and the 1992 Bell I. Wiley Award. In March 1991 he published an article in the magazine ''Civil War History'' entitled "Was the Civil War a Total War?," which is considered one of the three most influential articles on the war written in the last half of the 20th century.
According to the review in the ''Journal of American History,'' his 2011 book ''Lincoln and the Triumph of the Nation'' "is a meticulous study of Civil War-era constitutionalism, a complex and multifaceted book.... Neely has written what is perhaps the most important study of its kind to appear in the last 20 years."
In 2010, Neely received The Lincoln Forum's ]Richard Nelson Current
Richard Nelson Current (October 5, 1912 – October 26, 2012) was an American historian, called "the Dean of Lincoln Scholars", best known for ''The Lincoln Nobody Knows'' (1958), and ''Lincoln and the First Shot'' (1963).
Life
Born in Colorado ...
Award of Achievement.The Lincoln Forum
/ref>
Works
* 1981 – ''The Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia''
* 1984 – (with Gabor S. Boritt and Harold Holzer
Harold Holzer (born February 5, 1949) is a scholar of Abraham Lincoln and the political culture of the American Civil War Era. He serves as director of Hunter College's Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute. Holzer previously spent twenty-thr ...
) ''The Lincoln Image: Abraham Lincoln and the Popular Print''
* 1985 – (with Gabor S. Boritt and Harold Holzer) ''Changing The Lincoln Image''
* 1986 – (with R. Gerald McMurtry) ''The Insanity File: The Case of Mary Todd Lincoln''
* 1987 – (with Boritt and Holzer) ''The Confederate Image: Prints of the Lost Cause''
* 1990 – (with Holzer) ''The Lincoln Family Album''
* 1991 – ''The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties'' (winner of the Pulitzer and Wiley prizes mentioned above)
* 1993 – (with Holzer) ''Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: The Civil War in America''
* 1993 – ''The Last Best Hope of Earth: Abraham Lincoln and the Promise of American'' (for which he received the Alpha Sigma Nu
Alpha Sigma Nu () is the honor society of Jesuit colleges and universities. ΑΣΝ is a member of the Association of College Honor Societies. Founded in 1915 at Marquette University as Alpha Sigma Tau, it adopted the current name in 1930. The s ...
Book Award from the National Jesuit Honor Society)
* 1999 – ''Southern Rights: Political Prisoners and the Myth of Confederate Constitutionalism''
* 2000 – (with Holzer) ''The Union Image: Popular Prints in the Civil War North''
* 2002 – ''The Union Divided: Party Conflict in the Civil War North''
* 2005 – ''The Boundaries of American Political Culture in the Civil War Era'
online
* 2007 – ''The Civil War and the Limits of Destruction''
* 2011 – ''Lincoln and the Triumph of the Nation: Constitutional Conflict in the American Civil War'' (U of North Carolina Press); covers the U.S. and the Confederate constitutions and their role in the conflict.
* 2017 – ''Lincoln and the Democrats: The Politics of Opposition in the Civil War''
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Neely, Mark E. Jr.
1944 births
21st-century American historians
21st-century American male writers
Historians of the American Civil War
Pulitzer Prize for History winners
Yale University alumni
Iowa State University faculty
Pennsylvania State University faculty
Saint Louis University faculty
Living people
American male non-fiction writers