Ronald Rietveld, Ph.D.

Emeritus
Department of History

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Teaching interests: coming soon

Research interests: coming soon

Brief biography: RONALD RIETVELD, Fullerton, has been a Professor of History at California State University, Fullerton since 1969. He holds an A.B. from Wheaton College (Wheaton , Illinois, 1959), a B. D. magna cum laude from Bethel Theological Seminary (St. Paul, Minnesota, 1962), and an A.M. and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois (Champaign-Urbana, 1964, 1967). He was an assistant professor of History at Wheaton College, his alma Mater, before coming to Fullerton. He teaches 19th century American History (Civil War, Lincoln, Reconstruction), and courses on Church History and American Religious History at CSUF. He has been a student of Lincoln since the age of fourteen, when he discovered the last photograph of Lincoln in 1952 in the Nicolay papers of the Illinois State Historical Library. From 1981 to 1984, he served as an Academic Advisor to the White House Speech-writing Staff under President Ronald Reagan. He continues to lecture and write extensively on Lincoln and the American Civil War and is currently serving as a member of the Historical Advisory and Content Team for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, which was completed and dedicated in 2005 in Springfield, Illinois. In addition, Dr. Rietveld is also currently serving as an advisor to the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission which will establish the 200th celebration of Lincoln’s Birthday in 2009. Dr. Rietveld has been a member of the First Evangelical Free Church of Fullerton since 1969.