Dr. Stewart Winger
Associate Professor
Office
SCH Schroeder Hall 307C
Office Hours
Office. Hours: TTH 11:30 am-12:30 pm and by appointment, including Zoom. 309-212-9724
Office Phone
Email
- About
- Education
- Awards & Honors
- Selected Research
Biography
Dr. Winger received his B.A. from the University of Chicago in 1985. After study at the Free University of Berlin, he received his M.A. in 1993 and his Ph.D. in 1998 from Chicago. Before coming to ISU in 2006, he taught at Purdue University Calumet, The American University in Cairo, and Lawrence Technological University.
Current Courses
HIS 135.001 History Of The United States To 1865
HIS 135.002 History Of The United States To 1865
HIS 299.002 Independent Honor Study
HIS 490.009 Readings -- Field Of Study
HIS 309.003 Selected Topics In United States History
HIS 409.003 Selected Topics In United States History
HIS 291.002 Undergraduate Teaching Experience In History
Teaching Interests & Areas
Dr. Winger offers courses in Civil War and Reconstruction, American Religious History, U.S. Legal and Constitutional History, Global Fundamentalisms, and U.S. Economic History. He has helped lead a multi-faculty Global Religions course that began in 2019.
Research Interests & Areas
Dr. Winger is currently co-editing a volume on ex parte Milligan, a landmark civil liberties case that arose out of the Civil War and that has recently assumed new importance in controversies surrounding the conduct of the "War on Terror."
He is also writing a book titled The Fostering Care of Government: Abraham Lincoln and Internal Improvements. By reworking Lincoln's legislative record especially, the book seeks to restore Lincoln's economic program to a central position in Lincoln interpretation neglected since Gabor Boritt's Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream.
Ph D
The University of Chicago
Chicago, IL
MA History of Culture
The University of Chicago
Chicago, IL
BA Fundamentals: Issues and Texts
The University of Chicago
Chicago, IL
Influential and Inspirational Faculty Member
History and Social Sciences education program
2024
Influential and Inspirational Faculty Member
ISU History-Social Science Education Program
2023
Influential and Inspirational Faculty Member
ISU History-Social Science Education Program
2020
Influential and Inspirational Faculty Member
ISU History-Social Sciences Education Program
2019
Influential and Inspirational History Faculty Member
History-Social Sciences Education Program
2018
Influential and Inspirational History Faculty Member
History-Social Sciences Education Program
2018
College Outstanding Teacher Award
College of Arts and Sciences
2015
Red Tassel Mortar Board Teaching Award
Illinois State University Red Tassel Chapter of Mortar Board.
2015
Influential and Inspirational History Faculty Member
History - Social Sciences Education Program
2014
Influential and Inspirational History Faculty Member
History - Social Sciences Education Program
2014
Influential & Inspirational History Faculty Member
History-Social Science Education Program
2013
Influential and Inspirational History Faculty Member
History-Social Sciences Education Program
2011
Influential and Inspirational History Faculty Member
History-Social Sciences Education Program
2011
College Teaching Award
ISU College of Arts and Sciences
2010
Barondess/Lincoln Award
Civil War Roundtable of New York City
2004
Hay-Nicolay Dissertation Award
Abraham Lincoln Association and the Lincoln Institute of the Mid-Atlantic
2001
Grants and Contracts
College of Arts and Sciences Interdisciplinary Initiative Grant -- World Religions
Stewart L Winger, Larissa Kennedy, Ryan A Davis.
ISU College of Arts and Sciences. July 1 2019 - June 30 2020
International Seminar Series: Fostering World Religious Literacy
Stewart L Winger, Larissa Kennedy, Daniel Breyer.
International Studies and Programs. January 1 2019 - May 15 2019
Pressing Questions in Religion
Stewart L. Winger, Daniel Breyer.
College of Arts and Sciences. 2017 - 2020
Ex Parte Milligan Conference Funding
Stewart L Winger.
David Davis Mansiion Foundatiion. June 2015 - September 2016
NEH Fellowhip
Stewart L Winger.
National Endowment for the Humanities. January 01 2013 - December 31 2013
Ex Parte Milligan Conference Fiunding
Stewart L Winger.
David Davis Family Trust. - September 2016
Ex Parte Milligan Conference Fiunding
Stewart L Winger, Meghan E Leonard.
Fell Trust. - September 2016
Ex Parte Milligan Conference Funding
Stewart L Winger.
Abraham Lincoln Association. - September 2016
Book, Chapter
Lincoln’s Political Economy and the Mysterious Disappearance of America’s Revolutionary Republican Tradition: Part One.(Part I)
Stewart L Winger.
The Blackwell Companion to Abraham Lincoln, Blackwell
Part Two: The Historiography of Lincoln’s Political Economy and the Myth of a Stateless American Past
Stewart L Winger.
The Blackwell Companion to Abraham Lincoln, Blackwell
Book, Edited
Ex Parte Milligan Reconsidered: Race and Civil Liberties from the Lincoln Administration to the War on Terror
Stewart L Winger, Jonathan White.
(2020), University Press of Kansas
Introduction: Ex Parte Milligan Reconsidered: Race and Civil Liberties from the Lincoln Administration to the War on Terror
Stewart L Winger.
(2020), Ex Parte Milligan Reconsidered: Race and Civil Liberties from the Lincoln Administration to the War on Terror, University Press of Kansas
The Least Naive Position: The Lincoln Administration and International Law in American Wars on Terror
Stewart L Winger.
(2020), Ex Parte Milligan Reconsidered: Race and Civil Liberties from the Lincoln Administration to the War on Terror, University Press of Kansas
Newspaper, Article
Abraham Lincoln supported a wealth tax. Here’s why. The principles behind the American Revolution justifed such a tax
Stewart L Winger.
Washington Post, (May 11, 2022), (2022)
Other
The Adventures of Porte Crayon
Stewart L Winger, Tyler Palak.
ISU History Department, (2018)
Abraham Lincoln and Horace Greeley/Lincoln and the Civil War/Lincoln and the Election of 1860
Stewart L Winger.
Journal of Southern History, 79 (4), 958-961, (2013)
“State Power in Civil War Constitutionalism"
Stewart L Winger.
Review of Politics, 75 (1), 123-128, (2013)
A New Lincoln Legal History: The First Generation
Stewart L Winger.
Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, 32 (2), 63-83, (2011)
Prologue to the Presidency: Abraham Lincoln on the Eighth Judicial Circuit as the David Davis Mansion State Historic Site
Stewart L Winger, Guy Fraker.
(2011)
Phillip Bloomquist’s Statue ‘Lincoln'
Stewart L Winger.
Abraham Lincoln Association, 12-13, (2009)
Lincoln and the Founders: Correction, Continuation, or Completion?
Stewart L Winger.
Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, (2007)
Presentations
Republicanism Revisited: State-level Policymaking in Nineteenth Century Economic and Intellectual History
Stewart L Winger.
Society for U.S. Intellectual History 2025 Conference, Detroit, MI, November 8, 2025
Lincoln and the Wealth Tax
Stewart L Winger.
2025 Conference on Illinois History, Springfield, IL, October 3, 2025
Panel Moderator, Spurring the Freedom Movement: A Transatlantic Radical and Abolitionists in 19th Century IL
Stewart L Winger.
Conference on Illinois History, Springfield, IL, October 2, 2025
Did Slavery Cause Racism or Did Racism Cause Slavery.
Stewart L Winger, Mason McClure.
ISU History Department Faculty Research Seminar, Normal, October 4, 2024
“‘Stopping a Skift in the Middle of a River’: Abraham Lincoln, I&M Canal Scrip, and Monetary Policy in a Nineteenth-Century Economic Crisis,”
Stewart L Winger.
Conference on Illinois History, Springfield, October 3, 2024
Declaring the Revolutionary Republic
Stewart L Winger.
U.S. Intellectual History Conference 2023, Denver, CO, November 11, 2023
Presidential Power in Wartime: the Lincoln Administration View
Stewart L Winger.
The Constitution in Wartime VMI Constitution Day Discussion, Lexington, VA, September 18, 2023
Lincoln, the Wealth Tax, and American Revolutionary Republicanism
Stewart L Winger.
Midwest Civil War Study Group Symposium, Indianapolis, IN, September 16, 2023
The Problem with Textbooks
Stewart L Winger.
2023 History and Social Science Symposium: Conflict and Harmony: Toward a Global Future, Bloomington, IL, February 10, 2023
Of Internal Improvements, Monetary Expansion, Wealth Taxes, and other Tools of Class Warfare in Lincoln's Illinois
Stewart L Winger.
Midwestern History Conference 2021, Online, May 26, 2021
Slavery, Race, and Democratic Activism in Antebellum Illinois
Stewart L Winger.
2021 OAH Annual Meeting, Online, April 17, 2021
What I Learned about the Modern World from Teaching Comparative Global Fundamentalisms, or . . . Leonardo on a Notebook
Stewart L Winger.
International Studies Seminar, Normal, Il, April 24, 2019
The Role of Government in Lincoln's America: Lincoln's Internal Improvement Politics Reconsidered
Stewart L Winger.
2018 Conference on Illinois History, Springfield, IL, October 5, 2018
"The Fostering Hand of Government: the startling absence of limited government thinking in Lincoln's world
Stewart L Winger.
ISU History Department Faculty Research Seminar, Normal, IL, November 17, 2017
Roundtable: Christopher Phillip's The Rivers Ran Backward: The Civil War and the Remaking of the American Middle Border
Stewart L Winger.
2017 Ohio Academy of History Annual Meeting and Conference, Columbus Ohio, April 1, 2017
Conference on Ex parte Milligan
Stewart L Winger, Meghan E Leonard.
University Club Discussion Hour, Normal, IL, September 9, 2016
Testing our Standards – Testing our Teaching: Illinois State University’s General Education vs. the Advanced Placement (AP) Examinations
Stewart L Winger.
History and Political Science Focus Group, Online, September 26, 2014
The Common Good in Lincoln's Thought
Stewart L Winger.
Lutheran Day for the State Legislature, Springfield, May 13, 2014
Testing our Standards- Testing out Teaching: Our General Education vs. the A.P. Exams
Stewart L Winger.
The Center for Teaching, Learning & Technology’s 2009 Teaching & Learning Symposium, Online, January 9, 2013
Abraham Lincoln's Confession
Stewart L Winger.
Mahomet, IL, November 4, 2012
Lincoln and the 8th Judicial Circuit
Stewart L Winger.
David Davis Mansion, Online, April 29, 2011
The Bible and Antislavery
Stewart L Winger.
Illinois History Symposium, Online, April 29, 2011
What's in a Name?: Lincoln and Douglas Halls at Eastern Illinois University and Historical Revisionism
Stewart L Winger.
OnlineDecember 1, 2010
From Niagara to Gettysburg and Beyond: Tracing the Footprints of a Romantic Religious Poet.
Stewart L Winger.
Lincoln Symposium, Freeport Illinois, September 26, 2009
Creating the ‘International Classroom’ and ‘International Seminar’
Stewart L Winger.
The Center for Teaching, Learning & Technology’s 2009 Teaching & Learning Symposium, Online, January 7, 2009