Gettysburg National Military Park Receives Lock of Lincoln's Hair

There is an interesting story in today's Washington Post about a donation to the museum at the Gettysburg National Military Park - a lock of Abraham Lincoln's hair cut after his assassination.

Several such clippings of the late president's hair were taken after he died, included one requested by his widow, Mary Lincoln.  

Book Review: Abraham Lincoln in the Post-Heroic Era

Abraham Lincoln in the Post Heroic Era: History and Memory in Late Twentieth-Century America by Barry Schwartz (University of Chicago Press, 2009), hardcover, 410 pages

More than 140 years since his death, Abraham Lincoln is enjoying a renaissance of sorts. Not only is the publishing industry producing several Lincoln-related titles each year, but recent ad campaigns have portrayed the 16th president in a completely new role: television salesman. This recent exposure, however, does not necessarily correspond to a heightened recognition or appreciation of Lincoln, as Barry Schwartz makes clear in "Abraham Lincoln In the Post-Heroic Era." This is the second volume examining the history of Lincoln's legacy, covering the period from the Great Depression to the present. (The previous volume, "Abraham Lincoln and the Forge Of National Memory," surveyed the years from Lincoln's death in 1865 until the 1920s.)

As might be expected, Schwartz studies the portrayal of Lincoln in artwork, editorial cartoons, statuary, and popular written materials, particularly newspaper and magazine articles. More than this, though, Schwartz uses the results of several surveys conducted over more than a half-century and consults dozens of school textbooks in an attempt to determine and trace Lincoln's prestige through this period. By several measures, Lincoln's reputation peaks during the World War II-era and declines thereafter, with a particularly steep drop during the 1960s and 1970s.

Schwartz's argument is compelling, if complex and sophisticated. Partially, he believes there is less need for Lincoln's unifying reputation in this post-modern age as compared with the World War II-era. Beyond that, he agrees with other scholars who see a post-heroic age which began some time between Kennedy's assassination and the Watergate break-in. Schwartz notes that this decline is not only in Lincoln's reputation, but in the reputations of other key historical figures as well. Whether due to postmodern ideas about equality, the probing for and uncovering of gritty details in the lives of historical figures, or a change in focus in the national narrative, the differences between the 1940s Lincoln in the 1980s Lincoln are radically different.

During this period, one particular aspect of Lincoln's legacy has come to the forefront, overshadowing many of the traits that previous generations had celebrated: Lincoln as precursor to racial equality. While this might be expected during the Civil Rights Era, it has developed in the decades since to the point where most of Lincoln's actions are seen through the lens of the Emancipation Proclamation and minority rights – even the Gettysburg Address, which Schwartz promises to discuss at length in a future volume.

In light of an overarching narrative that traces the rise and fall of Lincoln's prestige, the concluding chapter is unexpected and surprising. Having explored Lincoln within the sociological theory of collective memory, which suggests that each generation adapts beliefs and memories of previous generations to its own needs, Schwartz suggests that the person of Abraham Lincoln has developed its own inertia and stands outside of this adaptation process, at least in part. Perhaps only a self-perpetuating memory of Lincoln can withstand the winds that cut heroes down to size in the post-heroic era.

For the most devoted students of Lincoln, though, this may be more disheartening than hopeful. As Schwartz writes about Lincoln's present legacy in American cultural memory:

"As each generation modifies beliefs held by its forebears, an assemblage of old beliefs remains and coexists with the new, including old beliefs about the past itself. Lincoln therefore remains the man of the people and the man above the people, The Savior of the Union and emancipator of its slaves, the embodiment of rugged individualism and the welfare state, the personification of humor and sorrow, iron will and compassion. That is the man we knew yesterday; that is the man we know today.

"However, these continuities do not restore the Lincoln of the 1930s and 1940s, the man Americans looked up to and emulated. He is now less the Savior of the Union, less the rugged individualist, less the man of sorrow and humor, less the man of steel and velvet. He is now a smaller man, known by more, adored by fewer, emulated by fewer still." (263)

Such devoted students of Lincoln, however, will need to read Schwartz's book, a towering contribution to the nascent study of Lincoln's legacy. Mixing strong research, well-crafted prose, and a great amount of nuance, this volume describes the complex evolution of the memory of Abraham Lincoln, evident in popular culture and scholarship alike.

Book Review: Abraham Lincoln and the Forge of National Memory

Abraham Lincoln and the Forge of National Memory by Barry Schwartz (University of Chicago Press, 2000), hardcover, 382 pages

Over ten years ago, while visiting Washington DC, several people and I decided to walk down to the National Mall late at night.   Mostly, the streets were empty, until we arrived at the Lincoln Memorial after 11 pm.  More surprising than the number of people that early March night were the fact that there were two tour buses full of tourists visiting at that late hour.  Even then, I wondered what attracted so many people, at all hours, to climb the marble steps to stand at the foot of the seated, yet imposing, Lincoln.

In the vast amount of Lincoln-related literature, few people have attempted to answer the question of Lincoln's prominence in the almost 150 years after his death.  The most comprehensive attempt, as yet, is a two-volume work mapping Lincoln's legacy from his assassination to the present.  Written by sociologist Barry Schwartz, who previously researched George Washington's legacy, Abraham Lincoln and the Forge of National Memory is the first volume.

Focusing on the period between Lincoln's assassination in 1865 and the 1924 dedication of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, Schwartz details the increasing influence and prominence of Lincoln's legacy, particularly during the Progressive Era.  Unlike other assessments, including Merrill Peterson's argument in his 1994 book Lincoln in American Memory that Lincoln's prestige rose sharply in the wake of his assassination and continued upward, Schwartz has a more sophisticated argument.  While there was an initial surge of Lincoln-related material in the months following his assassination, Schwartz argues that Lincoln's legacy didn't really begin to rise until the 20th Century, about two generations after his death.

Schwartz's overall view of the rise, plateau, and the dramatic rise of Lincoln in national memory is persuasive, particularly in the final chapters of his book.  Unfortunately, the narrative is almost crippled by the insistence that Lincoln's prestige was virtually nil until the moment he was cut down by an assassin's bullet.  While it is true that Lincoln was a divisive figure during an highly divisive era, and as such rabidly opposed by legions of people, including many in the North, and only tolerated by others, including many leading Republicans, there were people who admired his leadership and recognized his influence.

Part of this analysis seems to be due to Schwartz working back from the 1920s to 1865 and struggling to comprehend the period from 1870 to 1900.  Citing the work of others, especially Michael Kammon, he argues that the late 19th Century seems an ideal time for Lincoln's prestige to rise dramatically.  Since it does not, he struggles to explain the delay, and implicitly suggests that it stems from greater antipathy toward Lincoln by those of his generation than usually recognized.

One of the prime pieces of evidence Schwartz cites to develop this argument is a comparison between Lincoln's legacy and that of George Washington during the late 1800s.  By most measures, including many quantitative ones like number of articles in newspapers and magazines, Washington is more influential than Lincoln during the last decades of the 19th century.  However, the amazing thing is the frequency with which Lincoln is mentioned compared to Washington.  Even before the Progressive Era, Lincoln's reputation is clearly on the rise in national memory because he stands outside of Washington's shadow in ways that other influential Americans of the period, even Andrew Jackson, do not.   (This is apparent even in 1865, if one compares the image of Washington in eulogies of Lincoln to that in eulogies preached following the deaths in office of William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor.)

Entering the 20th century, though, Schwartz's work is almost breath-taking.  After detailing how different parties and social movements tried to appropriate parts of Lincoln's biography to support their cause -- even the socialists -- Schwartz details how the prestige of Lincoln surpassed even Washington's reputation as a model for national unity, especially in the years of World War I and the years thereafter.   In particular, Schwartz takes great care to describe how Lincoln's unifying image was a composite of parts that were not entirely reconcilable, a point vividly displayed in the contrasting memorials to Lincoln in Washington DC and at the site of his Kentucky birthplace.

There is much to admire in this well-researched and well-written book, particularly in the final third of the text.   Using collective memory, a sociological concept that only occasionally appears in books outside that field, Schwartz gamely attempts to see the legacy of Lincoln both from the perspective of the use of the Lincoln image and reputation and from the evident reception of such usage -- the latter being much more challenging.  That he mostly succeeds is a testament to his precision of thought and scholarly craft that he brings to the project.

Many with long-standing assumptions about the rise of Lincoln's reputation in national memory will find their theories significantly challenged, if not contradicted.  And while there are some limitations, overall the book is an important account of the transformation of Lincoln from divisive wartime president to unifying icon.

2011 Lincoln Prize Announced

Gettysburg College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute have announced that the 2011 Lincoln Prize will be awarded to Eric Foner for his book, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. Foner, a named professor at Columbia University, has written several books on Lincoln and the Civil War era, including a couple of well-regarded volumes on Reconstruction.

Perhaps just as interesting as this award was the committee's decision to class all of the six other finalists with Honorable Mention status.

Though I have not yet read Foner's book, I imagine that it offers something recently lacking in books about Lincoln's views on race and slavery: a sophisticated consideration of a very complicated subject. Too often, Lincoln's words are judged by today's standards and understandings of race, which usually lead to unnecessarily harsh condemnation or a complete misunderstanding of the context in which they were made.

The Lincoln Prize will be awarded to Foner on May 11.

Alfred Whital Stern Collection of Lincolniana

Earlier this week, the Jewish Journal published an article about noted Lincoln collector Alfred Whital Stern, whose 11,000 item collection was donated to the Library of Congress in 1950. It is difficult to overestimate the significance of this part of the collection, which alongside the presidential papers given by Abraham Lincoln's son Robert, forms the heart of the extensive catalog of Lincoln-related in the Library of Congress.

Perhaps the most interesting discovery in this article, for me, was the fact that Stern donated over 1400 books to Hebrew University in Jerusalem a few years before he donated the majority of the collection to the Library of Congress.

As Daniel Weinberg of the Abraham Lincoln Book Shop says in the article, "Stern was a monumental figure, his name is writ large in my mind of the Lincoln collectors."

National Archives Reveals Altered Lincoln Document

Today, the National Archives announced that it had determined one of the signed Abraham Lincoln items in its collection, a pardon for Private Patrick Murphy (which appears above), had been physically altered. One digit in the original written date was altered, so that Lincoln's endorsement of April 14, 1864 appeared to be signed on April 14, 1865 (closeup below). This implied that the pardon was granted on the day Lincoln was shot, making it one of his final acts in office.

While Lincoln's frequent use of pardons and amnesty to prevent many soldiers from being executed is well documented, the image of Lincoln sparing the life of a poor soldier -- who likely would have been executed by firing squad -- on the very day that Lincoln himself would fall victim to an assassin's bullet is filled with irony and pathos.

The storytelling potential -- and the economic benefit of publishing the story -- appear to be the motive for the alteration. The National Archives announced that Thomas Lowry, who authored a book on Lincoln and cases of military justice featuring this story of an April 14, 1865 pardon of Murphy, has confessed to altering the document with a pen he smuggled into the National Archives during his research. (Lowry is evidently claiming, through newspaper reports, that the confession was given under duress, though the image of National Archives investigators using oppressive techniques to obtain a confession for a crime which cannot be charged seems rather incredible -- the statute of limitations has expired on this crime.)

The news seems to be prompting national attention, with full stories already by The New York Times and The Washington Post (and probably others). It also has been appearing on other blogs, including Kevin Levin's popular Civil War History and The Abraham Lincoln Blog. Across all of them, the tone is one of outrage -- on a spectrum from veiled to blatant -- at Lowry's alleged act. In addition, there is a sense that a false history has been corrected, with a "too good to be true" tale of one final pardon being disproved after over a decade.

Craig Symonds, who won the Lincoln Prize for his book Lincoln and His Admirals, rightly implies in The New York Times that this change is unimportant, given the overwhelming evidence of Lincoln's involvement in granting such pardons. One could go further and state the obvious -- Lincoln still issued this pardon while President, meaning that the only value that has been changed is not historical, but emotional. Lincoln's final day is still filled with plenty of emotional moments -- breakfast with his full family, interactions with many of his favorite staff, a carriage ride with his wife. It also has the issue of pardon and amnesty, given that reconstruction was almost certainly discussed at that day's meeting of the Cabinet.

I find the story unsettling, though in different ways than the initial reports. In a country where many primary source documents are available for viewing by anyone who requests such a privilege, it seems likely that this breach of trust occurs more than we'd like to imagine. If a crude alteration can escape notice for a period of years, what if a skillful forger were involved? Should most of our primary source documents be more suspect?

This signature could have been discovered much sooner if anyone had thought to consult The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, which has annotated transcriptions of most of Lincoln's writings, including almost all of it in the National Archives and Library of Congress. All of the documents are listed chronologically in the Collected Works, so it would have taken a sharp eye to find this specific endorsement, dated April 14, 1864 "To Joseph Holt." Still, someone should have asked the obvious question -- how was this document missed by editor Roy Basler and his team? This question should have raised a red flag, which would have brought closer physical inspection of the document itself. (In recent years, the Collected Works have been fully searchable online, which would have made such cross-checking even quicker, especially given that Pvt. Murphy's name is mentioned in the annotation.)

More troubling is the implicit slur against Lowry's professional standing, or lack thereof, perhaps as a means to explain how this action could occur. Lowry is referred to as an "amateur historian" in both the Post and the Times -- the National Archives refers to him as "a long-time Lincoln researcher." An "amateur historian" is suspect, given that they do not have the academic credentials, or reputation, to back up their research.

In the video embedded in the National Archives' press release, there is a more subtle indictment of Lowry. Trevor Plante, the Acting Chief of Reference at the National Archives, who is credited with raising questions about the pronounced "5" in the document's date, says in an interview, "It's very galling and upsetting to me, as a trained historian, that someone would change a document..." [emphasis mine].

Is it too flippant to admit that I find that comment galling, along with the innuendo in the news articles? Given that the history of the field of history is heavily reliant on non-academically trained historians, the implication that the actions and findings of such "amateur historians" are suspect is ridiculous. (As is the term "amateur historians," given that large numbers of such authors were paid for their writing.) Academic training has little bearing on whether someone is willing to commit forgery or to desecrate an historical artifact -- though one could argue that such training may influence whether the perpetrator of fraud will be caught.

There is no plausible defense for the likely partial destruction of this document (the National Archives says it will attempt to restore the original "4" of the date). But I find it more troubling that trained historians failed to identify the forgery sooner, given their presumed expertise in dealing with primary documents (still as much art as science) and the professional encouragement for peer review and cross referencing. (A questioning of the guild of historians, especially Lincoln historians, will have to wait for another day, except to note that there is occasional evidence that even "trained historians" take shortcuts in completing their work.)

This critique of the professional historical community is not merely an idle act of poking fun -- after all, I could likely be included in such a community given my collegiate and graduate education. This incident -- and others like it -- reminds us of the need for all historians to be critical, even when dealing with documents that are presumed to be authentic originals. As another Lincoln Prize winner, Elizabeth Brown Pryor, proved in her book Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters, the wealth of information in primary documents must be contextualized to be understood and appreciated. The context for the pardon, such as the fact that army records should have indicated Lincoln's decision, or even the general observation that Lincoln usually went through several military capital cases at a time, meaning that there should be decisions in multiple such cases on the date of any granted pardon, seems to have been overlooked, or even ignored.

Ignoring context, skipping over cross-referencing, forgetting to be curious whenever a story seems too good to be true -- these are greater threats to historical accuracy than someone sneaking an ink pen into a repository of documents. Bad history began with an unfortunate hoax and a forgery, but it was perpetuated by others who failed to ask the right questions -- and it was unchecked until someone asked the right question.

Spielberg's Lincoln Movie May Shoot in Fall 2011

The long-gestating Steven Spielberg movie about Abraham Lincoln, based on Doris Kearns Goodwin's acclaimed Team of Rivals, has lost one Lincoln (Liam Neeson) and hired another (Daniel Day-Lewis).

There are rumors that Spielberg plans to begin shooting in the fall of 2011. Toward this end, a production team including "the man who would be Lincoln" recently met with a representative of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency doing research. Evidently they toured Lincoln sites and viewed some Lincoln artifacts.

Neeson was reported to have done such research during his several years of association with the project, so development scouting does not mean that the film will definitely be shot. However, there are some indications that this effort may finally come to fruition. Spielberg's calendar is open for shooting this fall -- before beginning his anticipated sci-fi Robopocalypse in early 2012; Tony Kushner, the Pulitzer Prize-winning screenwriter, has been publicly touting his screenplay in recent months; Day-Lewis is the sort of actor whose prestige projects are always taken seriously (this will only be his fifth film in the past decade). More important than all of these, though, is the slate of other Lincoln films in production, especially Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which means that several studios believe there is a market for Lincoln right now.

I hope the film will one day be shot, as a new Lincoln-related movie is long overdue. However, I am sad that Neeson withdrew from the project. Unlike others who believe the project has awards written all over it, I think that Neeson (even at age 59) would be a better fit for Lincoln than Day-Lewis. Some point to Day-Lewis' obvious -- even extraordinary -- talents, and his performance may be compelling, but after seeing Neeson in Kinsey, I became convinced that he could offer a definitive Lincoln.