David L. Lightner is professor emeritus of history at the University of Alberta. He is the author of Slavery and the Commerce Power: How the Struggle against the Interstate Slave Trade Led to the Civil War; Asylum, Prison, and Poorhouse: The Writings and Reform Work of Dorothea Dix in Illinois; and Labor on the Illinois Central Railroad, 1852-1900: The Evolution of an Industrial Environment. He became interested in Winnie Lightner because of their shared surname, but he is not related to her.
