Lewis Lehrman
Encyclopedia
For the Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

 judge, see Debra Lehrmann
Debra Lehrmann
Debra Ann H. Lehrmann is one of the eight associate justices of the Texas Supreme Court, a civil and juvenile tribunal, and a former 360th Judicial District Court judge from Fort Worth, Texas....

.


Lewis E. "Lew" Lehrman (born August 15, 1938 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

) is an investment banker who actively supports the ongoing study of American history from a conservative perspective. He was presented the National Humanities Medal
National Humanities Medal
The National Humanities Medal honors individuals or groups whose work has deepened the nation’s understanding of the humanities, broadened citizens’ engagement with the humanities, or helped preserve and expand Americans’ access to important resources in the humanities.The award, given by the...

 at the White House in 2005 for his scholarly contributions. His philanthropic work specializes in American History and the study of President Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...

. He is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and the Lincoln Forum. In addition to co-authoring Money and the Coming World Order and The Case for Gold, Lehrman's latest book, Lincoln at Peoria: The Turning Point,http://www.lincolnatpeoria.com was published in July 2008. He has written for major news publications such as the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and has lectured widely on American history and economics. Lehrman also writes for the Lincoln Institutehttp://www.abrahamlincoln.org which has created award-winning websites on the 16th President. Lehrman achieved national political prominence in a 1982 campaign for Governor of New York
Governor of New York
The Governor of the State of New York is the chief executive of the State of New York. The governor is the head of the executive branch of New York's state government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military and naval forces. The officeholder is afforded the courtesy title of His/Her...

, in which he ran against Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

 candidate Mario Cuomo
Mario Cuomo
Mario Matthew Cuomo served as the 52nd Governor of New York from 1983 to 1994, and is the father of Andrew Cuomo, the current governor of New York.-Early life:...

, losing the election by only two percentage points. He is presently a senior partner at L. E. Lehrman & Co.http://www.lewiselehrman.com, an investment firm he established in 1981. He is also currently the chairman of The Lehrman Institute, a public policy research and grant making foundation founded in 1972.

Background

In 1972 Lehrman founded the Lehrman Institute, a public policy think tank in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 which focused on the study of economic and foreign policy from an historical perspective. Lehrman and investor-philanthropist Richard Gilder
Richard Gilder
Richard Gilder, co-founder of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, heads the brokerage firm Gilder, Gagnon, Howe & Co. The firm's specialty is trading leveraged stocks and shortselling. After working at the brokerage firm of A.G. Becker & Co., Gilder founded the firm now known as...

, both former students at Yale
YALE
RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...

 and members of Wolf's Head Society
Wolf's Head (secret society)
Wolf's Head Society is an undergraduate senior or secret society at Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA. Membership is recomposed annually of fifteen or sixteen Yale University students, typically juniors from the college...

, went on to found the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, founded in New York by Richard Gilder and Lewis E. Lehrman in 1994, was set up to promote the study and love of American history.The Institute serves teachers, students, scholars, and the general public...

 and the Gilder Lehrman Collection of American historical documents. They also founded the Lincoln and Soldiers Institute at Gettysburg College
Gettysburg College
Gettysburg College is a private four-year liberal arts college founded in 1832, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, United States, adjacent to the famous battlefield. Its athletic teams are nicknamed the Bullets. Gettysburg College has about 2,700 students, with roughly equal numbers of men and women...

, which awards the annual Lincoln Prize
Lincoln Prize
The Lincoln Prize, endowed by Richard Gilder and Lewis Lehrman and administered by the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College, has been awarded annually since 1991 for the best non-fiction historical work of the year on the American Civil War. It is named for U.S...

 for the best work of scholarship on President Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...

 and the Civil War period, as well as the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

, which awards the Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing...

 Prize for the best work in these fields. Washington political columnists Evans and Novak reported that Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

 considered naming him Secretary of the Treasury before selecting Donald T. Regan.

Lehrman is a former President of Rite Aid
Rite Aid
Rite Aid is a drugstore chain in the United States and a Fortune 500 company headquartered in East Pennsboro Township, Pennsylvania, near Camp Hill. Rite Aid is the largest drugstore chain on the East Coast and the third largest drugstore chain in the U.S....

 and conservative
American conservatism
Conservatism in the United States has played an important role in American politics since the 1950s. Historian Gregory Schneider identifies several constants in American conservatism: respect for tradition, support of republicanism, preservation of "the rule of law and the Christian religion", and...

 activist. He is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Project for the New American Century
Project for the New American Century
The Project for the New American Century was an American think tank based in Washington, D.C. that lasted from 1997 to 2006. It was co-founded as a non-profit educational organization by neoconservatives William Kristol and Robert Kagan...

, as well as a Trustee to the American Enterprise Institute
American Enterprise Institute
The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research is a conservative think tank founded in 1943. Its stated mission is "to defend the principles and improve the institutions of American freedom and democratic capitalism—limited government, private enterprise, individual liberty and...

 and the Heritage Foundation
Heritage Foundation
The Heritage Foundation is a conservative American think tank based in Washington, D.C. Heritage's stated mission is to "formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong...

. Lehrman was a managing director of Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley is a global financial services firm headquartered in New York City serving a diversified group of corporations, governments, financial institutions, and individuals. Morgan Stanley also operates in 36 countries around the world, with over 600 offices and a workforce of over 60,000....

 in the late 1980s. After Morgan Stanley, in 1991, he established an investment company, L.E. Lehrman & Co. He was also an investor in George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

's Arbusto Energy
Arbusto Energy
Arbusto Energy was a petroleum and energy company formed in Midland, Texas, in 1977, for former US President George W. Bush by a group of investors which included Dorothy Bush, Lewis Lehrman, William Henry Draper III, Bill Gammell, and James R. Bath. The company's chief financial officer was K...

. He and Gilder were awarded the National Humanities Medal
National Humanities Medal
The National Humanities Medal honors individuals or groups whose work has deepened the nation’s understanding of the humanities, broadened citizens’ engagement with the humanities, or helped preserve and expand Americans’ access to important resources in the humanities.The award, given by the...

 in an Oval Office ceremony on Thursday, November 10, 2005. The Medal was presented by President George W. Bush.

Gubernatorial campaign

Lehrman was the president of Rite Aid
Rite Aid
Rite Aid is a drugstore chain in the United States and a Fortune 500 company headquartered in East Pennsboro Township, Pennsylvania, near Camp Hill. Rite Aid is the largest drugstore chain on the East Coast and the third largest drugstore chain in the U.S....

 until 1977, and resigned all positions in 1981 to run for governor of New York the following year. He was well known for wearing red suspenders
Suspenders
Suspenders or braces are fabric or leather straps worn over the shoulders to hold up trousers. Straps may be elasticated, either entirely or only at attachment ends and most straps are of woven cloth forming an X or Y shape at the back. Braces are typically attached to trousers with buttons...

 in his campaign commercials. Running on the Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

 and Conservative
Conservative Party of New York
The Conservative Party of New York State is an American political party active in the state of New York. It is not part of any nationwide party, nor is it affiliated with the American Conservative Party, which it predates by over 40 years....

 Party lines, Lehrman was defeated by then-Lieutenant Governor
Lieutenant governor
A lieutenant governor or lieutenant-governor is a high officer of state, whose precise role and rank vary by jurisdiction, but is often the deputy or lieutenant to or ranking under a governor — a "second-in-command"...

 Mario Cuomo
Mario Cuomo
Mario Matthew Cuomo served as the 52nd Governor of New York from 1983 to 1994, and is the father of Andrew Cuomo, the current governor of New York.-Early life:...

, 51-48%. Cuomo ran on the Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

 and Liberal
Liberal Party of New York
The Liberal Party of New York is a minor American political party that has been active only in the state of New York. Its platform supports a standard set of social liberal policies: it supports right to abortion, increased spending on education, and universal health care.As of 2007, the Liberal...

 Party lines, after defeating New York City Mayor Edward I. Koch in the Democratic Party primary election
Primary election
A primary election is an election in which party members or voters select candidates for a subsequent election. Primary elections are one means by which a political party nominates candidates for the next general election....

. Lehrman won the Republican nomination in a primary against attorney Paul J. Curran, after several other Republican candidates dropped out of the race. The day after the election, a Newsday columnist stated that he had voted not so much for Cuomo as "to send a Neanderthal back to his chain of drug stores."

1982 New York State Republican Ticket

  • Governor: Lewis Lehrman
  • Lieutenant Governor: James L. Emery
  • Comptroller: Edward Regan
  • Attorney General: Frances Sclafani
  • U.S. Senate: Florence Sullivan

Historical society

Lewis Lehrman attended The Hill School, a boarding school in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. Lehrman's involvement with the teaching of history began as a Carnegie Teaching Fellow at Yale University in 1960 and subsequently at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

, where he completed a master's degree
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...

 as a Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...

 Fellow. In the 1970s he returned to Yale to head up a review of the humanities curriculum for the Yale University Council. For the Gilder Lehrman Collection, Lewis Lehrman and Richard Gilder
Richard Gilder
Richard Gilder, co-founder of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, heads the brokerage firm Gilder, Gagnon, Howe & Co. The firm's specialty is trading leveraged stocks and shortselling. After working at the brokerage firm of A.G. Becker & Co., Gilder founded the firm now known as...

 collected historical documents in order to place them into a collection where they would be available to scholars and the public. First put on deposit at the Morgan Library
Morgan Library
The Morgan Library & Museum is a museum and research library in New York City, USA. It was founded to house the private library of J. P. Morgan in 1906, which included, besides the manuscripts and printed books, some of them in rare bindings, his collection of prints and drawings...

, the documents are now located at the New-York Historical Society
New-York Historical Society
The New-York Historical Society is an American history museum and library located in New York City at the corner of 77th Street and Central Park West in Manhattan. Founded in 1804 as New York's first museum, the New-York Historical Society presents exhibitions, public programs and research that...

. By 2006, the GLC had amassed more than 60,000 documents and other historical items, mostly on 18th and 19th Century America. Articles from those periods have been used in exhibits at the New-York Historical Society that have generated debate. Lehrman himself has written and lectured about Abraham Lincoln's legacy in the centrality of American history.

The Lincoln Institute

Lehrman founded The Lincoln Institute http://www.abrahamlincoln.org/ to provide support and assistance to scholars and groups involved in the study of the life of America's 16th President. The Lincoln Institute promotes the development and dissemination of printed materials, broadcast products, conferences and Internet resources on Mr. Lincoln. It encourages scholars to cooperate with one another and to contribute to the development of historical materials and the transcription of primary sources for both physical and virtual display.

The Lincoln Institute also produces and maintains six websites about Abraham Lincoln and the people with whom he lived and worked.

Mr. Lincoln's White House http://www.mrlincolnswhitehouse.org/ examines the events and people who worked with President Lincoln in Washington during the tumultuous years of the Civil War.

Mr. Lincoln and the Founders examines the impact of the Founders, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution on Mr. Lincoln's life, political thinking and political actions in the 1850s and 1860s.

Mr. Lincoln and Freedom details the progress of Mr. Lincoln's opposition to slavery from his years in the Illinois State Legislature to the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery.

Mr. Lincoln and Friends http://www.mrlincolnandfriends.org/ reviews the many men and a few women whose friendships helped determine Mr. Lincoln's political progress and success in the Springfield, Illinois state capital and in the nation's capital, Washington, D.C.

Mr. Lincoln and New York discusses the many ways in which the center of 19th century American political, media and economic power interacted with, supported and tormented Mr. Lincoln both before and during his Presidency.

Abraham Lincoln’s Classroom http://www.abrahamlincolnsclassroom.org/ is a resource for scholars and groups involved in the study of Abraham Lincoln’s life, the impact he had on the preservation of the Union and the emancipation of black slaves.

Conservative causes

In addition to his historical scholarship work, Lehrman is also active in civic and conservative causes. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the Project for the New American Century
Project for the New American Century
The Project for the New American Century was an American think tank based in Washington, D.C. that lasted from 1997 to 2006. It was co-founded as a non-profit educational organization by neoconservatives William Kristol and Robert Kagan...

 for one year. In the late 1970s he was a Trustee to the American Enterprise Institute
American Enterprise Institute
The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research is a conservative think tank founded in 1943. Its stated mission is "to defend the principles and improve the institutions of American freedom and democratic capitalism—limited government, private enterprise, individual liberty and...

 and was a member of the Heritage Foundation
Heritage Foundation
The Heritage Foundation is a conservative American think tank based in Washington, D.C. Heritage's stated mission is to "formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong...

 until the 1990s. In addition, Lehrman was an early of the Manhattan Institute and a trustee of the Pierpont Morgan Library.

In 1983 he helped to found Citizens for America
Citizens for America
Citizens for America was a United States conservative grass-roots organization founded by President Ronald Reagan's "Kitchen Cabinet" to support President Reagan's national defense and economic initiatives...

, an organization which aided Oliver North
Oliver North
Oliver Laurence North is a retired U.S. Marine Corps officer, political commentator, host of War Stories with Oliver North on Fox News Channel, a military historian, and a New York Times best-selling author....

's campaign to supply the anti-communist Contra guerrillas in Nicaragua
Nicaragua
Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...

. In 1985, the organization was run for a short time by future lobbyist and convict Jack Abramoff
Jack Abramoff
Jack Abramoff is an American former lobbyist and businessman. Convicted in 2006 of mail fraud and conspiracy, he was at the heart of an extensive corruption investigation that led to the conviction of White House officials J. Steven Griles and David Safavian, U.S. Representative Bob Ney, and nine...

. Abramoff was later fired for mismanaging the organization's funds. During that year, Citizens for America sponsored a meeting in Angola
Angola
Angola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city...

 between Angolan, Nicaraguan, Afghan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

, and Laotian
Laos
Laos Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west...

 anti-communist rebels. Lehrman personally attended the event, called the "Democratic International
Democratic International
The Democratic International, also known as the Jamboree in Jamba, was a 1985 meeting of anti-Communist militants held at the headquarters of UNITA in Jamba, Angola....

".

Position on the Gold Standard

Lewis E. Lehrman was a member of the U.S. Gold Commission in 1981 with Congressman Ron Paul
Ron Paul
Ronald Ernest "Ron" Paul is an American physician, author and United States Congressman who is seeking to be the Republican Party candidate in the 2012 presidential election. Paul represents Texas's 14th congressional district, which covers an area south and southwest of Houston that includes...

. In 1982, they co-authored the book The Case for Gold with a team of economists that included Murray Rothbard
Murray Rothbard
Murray Newton Rothbard was an American author and economist of the Austrian School who helped define capitalist libertarianism and popularized a form of free-market anarchism he termed "anarcho-capitalism." Rothbard wrote over twenty books and is considered a centrally important figure in the...

. Lehrman's singular point of view appears in many periodicals including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, National Review and Money and the Coming World Order (1976) originally published by the New York University Press.

The Lehrman American Studies Center

In 2005, with Lehrman's funding, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute
Intercollegiate Studies Institute
The Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Inc., or ', is a non-profit educational organization founded in 1953 as the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists...

 established the Lehrman American Studies Center. This center, as stated on its website, works to "enrich higher education by creating the right conditions for vigorous discussion and contemplative scholarship - particularly within the scope of American Studies." The center provides a variety of programming, including an annual two week summer institute at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

 for young academics, and maintains an online library of teaching resources.

Author of Lincoln at Peoria: The Turning Point

Lincoln at Peoria: The Turning Point http://www.lincolnatpeoria.com/ addresses two speeches given by Abraham Lincoln at Springfield and Peoria, Illinois, in October 1854. These addresses catapulted Lincoln into the debates over slavery that dominated Illinois and national politics for the rest of the decade. They also formed the foundation of his politics, principles and the themes of his Presidency. The book was published in July 2008.

External links

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