Uploaded February 2024 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Americans will go to the polls in a few months to vote in what innumerable commentators are calling a pivotal presidential election, even one of the most consequential in American history. But it’s hardly the first time such claims have been made. Across the last 250 years, many presidential races have featured sharply contrasting agendas, political outlooks, and personal styles, with dire predictions about the nation’s future if one candidate or the other prevailed. How did these races unfold? How did presidential races encapsulate profound cleavages running through the nation? How did the outcomes shape the nation’s future? Looking back at elections from the nation’s past may provide perspective on our own moment.
This six-part virtual series explores these and other questions through lively conversations with eminent historians of American politics and the presidency. Each session will begin with a moderated discussion led by LBJ Library Director Mark Lawrence but will allow ample time for questions from the audience. Over six weeks leading up to President’s Day, we will sweep across American political history by delving into the elections of 1860, 1896, 1948, 1964, 1968, and 1980. We will examine presidents from Abraham Lincoln to Ronald Reagan, exploring the races that elevated them to the Oval Office and the implications of the races they won.
About the speaker:
On January 25, 2025, Edward Achorn will join us to talk about the election of 1860.
Edward Achorn is the award-winning author of four critically acclaimed books about American history. His latest book, The Lincoln Miracle: Inside the Republican Convention That Changed History, won the Lincoln Forum Book Prize for the year’s best book about Abraham Lincoln and was named one of the best political books of 2023 by The Guardian. His previous book, Every Drop of Blood: The Momentous Second Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, was named one of the Best Books of 2020 by The Economist. He is also the author of the classic baseball history books The Summer of Beer and Whiskey and Fifty-nine in ’84.
A journalist for 41 years, he is the former Vice President and Editorial Pages Editor of The Providence Journal. He is a Pulitzer Prize finalist for Commentary and won the Yankee Quill Award for distinguished lifetime service to journalism.
Americans will go to the polls in a few months to vote in what innumerable commentators are calling a pivotal presidential election, even one of the most consequential in American history. But it’s hardly the first time such claims have been made. Across the last 250 years, many presidential races have featured sharply contrasting agendas, political outlooks, and personal styles, with dire predictions about the nation’s future if one candidate or the other prevailed. How did these races unfold? How did presidential races encapsulate profound cleavages running through the nation? How did the outcomes shape the nation’s future? Looking back at elections from the nation’s past may provide perspective on our own moment.
This six-part virtual series explores these and other questions through lively conversations with eminent historians of American politics and the presidency. Each session will begin with a moderated discussion led by LBJ Library Director Mark Lawrence but will allow ample time for questions from the audience. Over six weeks leading up to President’s Day, we will sweep across American political history by delving into the elections of 1860, 1896, 1948, 1964, 1968, and 1980. We will examine presidents from Abraham Lincoln to Ronald Reagan, exploring the races that elevated them to the Oval Office and the implications of the races they won.
About the speaker:
On January 25, 2025, Edward Achorn will join us to talk about the election of 1860.
Edward Achorn is the award-winning author of four critically acclaimed books about American history. His latest book, The Lincoln Miracle: Inside the Republican Convention That Changed History, won the Lincoln Forum Book Prize for the year’s best book about Abraham Lincoln and was named one of the best political books of 2023 by The Guardian. His previous book, Every Drop of Blood: The Momentous Second Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, was named one of the Best Books of 2020 by The Economist. He is also the author of the classic baseball history books The Summer of Beer and Whiskey and Fifty-nine in ’84.
A journalist for 41 years, he is the former Vice President and Editorial Pages Editor of The Providence Journal. He is a Pulitzer Prize finalist for Commentary and won the Yankee Quill Award for distinguished lifetime service to journalism.
![[LBJ Future Forum] Building a Movement: Gun Control in America](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/s7vkIPoetiM/mqdefault.jpg "[LBJ Future Forum] Building a Movement: Gun Control in America
On October 22, 1968, President Johnson signed the Gun Control Act into law— banning mail order sales of rifles and shotguns and prohibiting most felons, drug users, and people found mentally incompetent from buying guns. At the signing President Johnson stated:
“Congress adopted most of our recommendations. But this bill—as big as this bill is—still falls short, because we just could not get the Congress to carry out the requests we made of them. I asked for the national registration of all guns and the licensing of those who carry those guns. For the fact of life is that there are over 160 million guns in this country—more firearms than families.
If guns are to be kept out of the hands of the criminal, out of the hands of the insane, and out of the hands of the irresponsible, then we just must have licensing. If the criminal with a gun is to be tracked down quickly, then we must have registration in this country. The voices that blocked these safeguards were not the voices of an aroused nation. They were the voices of a powerful lobby, a gun lobby, that has prevailed for the moment in an election year.”
Fifty-six years later, President Johnson’s words still ring true.
On October 22, 2024, LBJ Future Forum hosted a conversation about social activism, democracy, and movement building, focusing on the work that is being done now by younger generations on the issue of gun violence prevention. Topics of discussion included the changes we have seen in America since Lyndon Johnson signed the Gun Control Act, how we embrace diversity of thought and find common goals, and how we engage younger voters in the political process.
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson offered welcome remarks.
Speakers:
Amber Goodwin, Founder of Community Justice and Travis County Assistant District Attorney
David Hogg, Co-founder of March for Our Lives
Kimberly Mata-Rubio, Mother of Lexi Rubio, killed in the Robb Elementary shooting
Moderator: Alexandra Samuels, Senior Editor at Texas Monthly")
![[LBJ Future Forum] Missions to Moon & Mars: A Conversation with Director Wyche, Johnson Space Center](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/sczsgLJsECY/mqdefault.jpg "[LBJ Future Forum] Missions to Moon & Mars: A Conversation with Director Wyche, Johnson Space Center
Join us for a special opportunity to hear from Johnson Space Center Director Vanessa Wyche. Johnson Space Center, which opened 60 years ago as the Manned Spacecraft Center and later renamed for Lyndon Johnson, is NASA’s center for human space flight and home to the U.S. astronaut corps and Mission Control. Gwen Griffin, CEO of the Griffin Communications Group and Chair of the Texas Space Commission Board of Directors, moderated the conversation.
About the Speakers:
Vanessa E. Wyche is the director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, home to America’s astronaut corps, Mission Control Center, International Space Station, Orion, and Gateway programs and its more than 11,000 employees. She is responsible for overseeing a broad range of human spaceflight activities, including development and operation of human spacecraft, commercialization of low-Earth orbit and Johnson’s role in exploring the Moon and Mars.
Wyche previously served as deputy director at Johnson and has held numerous program and institutional leadership positions, including flight manager of several missions of the retired Space Shuttle Program. A strong supporter of diversity and inclusion, Wyche advocates mentoring at all levels and is a passionate promoter of science, technology, engineering, and math. She’s received numerous awards and honors, including the Presidential Rank Award and an honorary doctoral degree from Coastal Carolina University. She is an AIAA Associate Fellow and International Women’s Forum Fellow. Wyche was recently elected to the National Academy of Engineering, one of the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. A native of South Carolina, Wyche earned a Bachelor of Science in Engineering and Master of Science in Bioengineering from Clemson University.
Gwen Griffin is the chief executive officer of the Griffin Communications Group. She is the executive director of Club for the Future, 2024 chair of the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership, and chair of the Dean’s Advisory Council for the College of Sciences at the University of Central Florida. Additionally, she is a member of the Space Center Houston Board of Directors, Conrad Foundation Advisory Board, and trustee of the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation. Griffin received a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from the University of Central Florida.")
