Abraham Lincoln and the forge of national memory

Abstract

Abraham and the Forge of National Memory. By Barry Schwartz. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Pp. xiii, 367. Ill., bib., index. Cloth, $27.50). As the title of this penetrating book suggests, it is not about Abraham the man and his times, but about his and how it was used in different ways by different generations. It is a book with two strong themes: the first, a chronicle and explanation of the rise of Lincoln's popularity during the progressive era, and the second, providing a different kind of filter for the viewing of Lincoln's memory, an exploration of the duality of Lincoln's image, the tension between a plain and familiar and a stately and dignified Lincoln. Barry Schwartz's study of builds on Merrill Peterson's Abraham in American Memory, but expands on it significantly by examining Lincoln's through a sociological lens. Schwartz is, after all, a professor of sociology and it was this distinctive approach the subject of memory studies that produced his George Washington: Making of an American Symbol (1987) and his first attempt explain the power and persistence of in popular in The Reconstruction of Abraham in Collective Remembering (Sage Publications, 1990). In an act designed destroy the Union, John Wilkes Booth, according Schwartz, affirmed its indestructibility. He writes that Lincoln could be universally mourned without being universally admired because the celebration of America's integrity was the ultimate object of his funeral. And as the country moved on through Reconstruction and into the waning years of the nineteenth century, was remembered in different ways by diff ferent groups. George Bancroft, perhaps the nation's leading historian (and a Northern Democrat), offered a funeral oration in New York City that was less than effusive. Too few days have passed away, he observed, to permit any attempt at an analysis of [Lincoln's] character or an exposition of his career. Bancroft presented similar remarks Congress the following year. Northerners pulled from s life those traits they admired as well as those that they despised. Southerners, likewise, remembered in different ways. One southern author compared the founding fathers, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Adams, and found him lacking. We look back at the men who once were chosen by their countrymen fill the places that this man [Lincoln] has occupied ... and we sicken with shame and disgust. Other southern writers were even less complimentary. Throughout the latter part of the nineteenth century was invariably linked with George Washington, but Washington was always the dominant figure. During the first decade of the new century, however, Lincoln's reputation began outpace Washington's. Schwartz compares references with those Washington in the Readers' Guide Periodical Literature, Congressional Record, and New York Times. All three reveal a lively expansion of interest in during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Additionally, entries the Bibliography catalog of the Illinois State Historical Library Collection and the number of newly unveiled outdoor sculptures boomed during this period. While the centennial of Lincoln's birth in 1909 contributed some of this interest, Schwartz ascribes the bulk of it the promotion of during the progressive movement. Stories of Lincoln's simplicity and his similarity ordinary people, his accessibility the masses, and his kindness and compassion were appropriated by progressives, especially Theodore Roosevelt, suit their needs. …