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Holzer’s 2012 Lincoln: How Abraham Lincoln Ended Slavery in America was the official young-adult companion book for the Steven Spielberg film Lincoln, for which Holzer served as script consultant. He also served three years as the Roger Hertog Fellow at the New-York Historical Society. He was awarded the NY State Archives & History Award in 2017, served that year as Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Yeshiva University, and in 2020 taught at Cardozo Law School in New York. He has also taught at his home base, Hunter College, where he edited the school’s sesquicentennial book: Hunter150.

In 2021, Holzer was principal consultant and on-air commentator for the six-part CNN documentary series, Lincoln: Divided We Stand, which attracted an average of 1.3 million visitors per episode. He also appeared in the 2022 History Channel documentary, Abraham Lincoln.

Holzer has written more than 630 articles in scholarly journals and popular magazines, published 17 monographs, and contributed chapters or prefaces to 67 additional volumes. Among his other awards are a second-place Lincoln Prize in 2005 for Lincoln at Cooper Union, and book prizes from the New England Society, Freedom Foundation, Manuscript Society of America, Civil War Round Table of New York, and Illinois State Historical Society, along with lifetime achievement awards from the Lincoln Groups of New York, Washington, Peekskill, Kansas City, and Detroit, as well as honorary degrees from nine colleges and universities. Holzer is a member of many history boards and advisory committees and serves as Chairman and co-founder of The Lincoln Forum. He served from 2015-22 as a Trustee of The Metropolitan Museum.

Holzer lectures throughout the nation. One of his programs, “Lincoln Seen and Heard,” with actor Sam Waterston, was telecast from the White House, the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library, the Clinton Presidential Library, the Library of Congress, and Ford’s Theatre. Holzer appears often on C-SPAN, and has been an on-air commentator for CBS, PBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, Fox, and the BBC. He has created and performed on-stage Lincoln programs with Waterston, Liam Neeson, Richard Dreyfuss, Stephen Lang, Norm Lewis, F. Murray Abraham, Alec Baldwin, Annette Benning, Holly Hunter, Kathleen Chalfant, Chris Noth, Rufus Collins, Dianne Wiest, and the late Fritz Weaver and Philip Bosco. One of his Waterston programs was broadcast on Bill Moyers’ Journal on PBS.

Before joining the Metropolitan in 1992, Holzer spent his early career as a journalist; a campaign and Congressional press secretary for Rep. Bella S. Abzug; an aide to New York Governor Mario Cuomo (with whom he co-authored two Lincoln books); and as spokesman for New York’s PBS station, WNET.  He and his wife Edith live in New York City, and have two daughters and two grandsons.

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