He is one of only two persons to serve as President of the Organization of American Historians, American Historical Association, and Society of American Historians. Įric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University, specializes in the Civil War and Reconstruction, slavery, and 19th-century America. Doors open at 5:00 come early to view our exhibits!Ĭontact Adult Programs Manager Natalie Belanger with any questions at (860) 236-5621 x289, or email. Please tell us you’re coming by emailing or calling 86 ex.

This event is free and open to the public. Today, issues of birthright citizenship, voting rights, due process, and equal protection are still in dispute, the ideal of equality yet to be achieved. By grafting the principle of equality onto the Constitution, the amendments marked the second founding of the United States.įoner will relate the dramatic origins of these revolutionary amendments in citizen meetings and political negotiations, explore the momentous court decisions that then narrowed and even nullified the rights guaranteed in these amendments. The federal government, not the states, was put in charge of enforcement. The Reconstruction amendments abolished slavery, guaranteed due process and the equal protection of the law, and equipped black men with the right to vote. The Declaration of Independence announced equality as an American ideal, but it took the Civil War and the subsequent adoption of three constitutional amendments to establish that ideal as American law. The Second Founding is an authoritative story of the constitutional changes that built equality into the nation’s foundation.

Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event. He will speak about his new book, The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution. Foner was a historical consultant for the exhibition Black Citizenship in the Age of Jim Crow.

Southern New England Apprenticeship ProgramĬHS is pleased to welcome Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Eric Foner to deliver the first Woodward Lecture, a new lecture series named after Charles Woodward, a significant benefactor of the CHS.ĭr.

We Belong: Youth Leadership and Community Cultures of Care.

A Brief History of Connecticut’s LGBTQ Community.

Second founding eric foner