Personal Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln

Personal Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln PDF Author: Smith Stimmel
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 126

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Book Description

Personal Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln

Personal Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln PDF Author: Smith Stimmel
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 126

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Book Description


Memories of Lincoln and the Splintering of American Political Thought

Memories of Lincoln and the Splintering of American Political Thought PDF Author: Shawn J. Parry-Giles
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271079967
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
In the aftermath of the Civil War, Republicans and Democrats who advocated conflicting visions of American citizenship could agree on one thing: the rhetorical power of Abraham Lincoln’s life. This volume examines the debates over his legacy and their impact on America’s future. In the thirty-five years following Lincoln’s assassination, acquaintances of Lincoln published their memories of him in newspapers, biographies, and edited collections in order to gain fame, promote partisan aims, champion his hardscrabble past and exalted rise, and define his legacy. Shawn Parry-Giles and David Kaufer explore how style, class, and character affected these reminiscences. They also analyze the ways people used these writings to reinforce their beliefs about citizenship and presidential leadership in the United States, with specific attention to the fissure between republicanism and democracy that still exists today. Their study employs rhetorical and corpus research methods to assess more than five hundred reminiscences. A novel look at how memories of Lincoln became an important form of political rhetoric, this book sheds light on how divergent schools of U.S. political thought came to recruit Lincoln as their standard-bearer.

The Early Life of Abraham Lincoln

The Early Life of Abraham Lincoln PDF Author: Ida Minerva Tarbell
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Lincoln in American Memory

Lincoln in American Memory PDF Author: Merrill D. Peterson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198023049
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 493

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Book Description
Lincoln's death, like his life, was an event of epic proportions. When the president was struck down at his moment of triumph, writes Merrill Peterson, "sorrow--indescribable sorrow" swept the nation. After lying in state in Washington, Lincoln's body was carried by a special funeral train to Springfield, Illinois, stopping in major cities along the way; perhaps a million people viewed the remains as memorial orations rang out and the world chorused its sincere condolences. It was the apotheosis of the martyred President--the beginning of the transformation of a man into a mythic hero. In Lincoln in American Memory, historian Merrill Peterson provides a fascinating history of Lincoln's place in the American imagination from the hour of his death to the present. In tracing the changing image of Lincoln through time, this wide-ranging account offers insight into the evolution and struggles of American politics and society--and into the character of Lincoln himself. Westerners, Easterners, even Southerners were caught up in the idealization of the late President, reshaping his memory and laying claim to his mantle, as his widow, son, memorial builders, and memorabilia collectors fought over his visible legacy. Peterson also looks at the complex responses of blacks to the memory of Lincoln, as they moved from exultation at the end of slavery to the harsh reality of free life amid deep poverty and segregation; at more than one memorial event for the great emancipator, the author notes, blacks were excluded. He makes an engaging examination of the flood of reminiscences and biographies, from Lincoln's old law partner William H. Herndon to Carl Sandburg and beyond. Serious historians were late in coming to the topic; for decades the myth-makers sought to shape the image of the hero President to suit their own agendas. He was made a voice of prohibition, a saloon-keeper, an infidel, a devout Christian, the first Bull Moose Progressive, a military blunderer and (after the First World War) a military genius, a white supremacist (according to D.W. Griffith and other Southern admirers), and a touchstone for the civil rights movement. Through it all, Peterson traces five principal images of Lincoln: the savior of the Union, the great emancipator, man of the people, first American, and self-made man. In identifying these archetypes, he tells us much not only of Lincoln but of our own identity as a people.

Your Friend Forever, A. Lincoln

Your Friend Forever, A. Lincoln PDF Author: Charles B. Strozier
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231541309
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
On April 15, 1837, a "long, gawky" Abraham Lincoln walked into Joshua Speed's dry-goods store in Springfield, Illinois, and asked what it would cost to buy the materials for a bed. Speed said seventeen dollars, which Lincoln didn't have. He asked for a loan to cover that amount until Christmas. Speed was taken with his visitor, but, as he said later, "I never saw so gloomy and melancholy a face." Speed suggested Lincoln stay with him in a room over his store for free and share his large double bed. What began would become one of the most important friendships in American history. Speed was Lincoln's closest confidant, offering him invaluable support after the death of his first love, Ann Rutledge, and during his rocky courtship of Mary Todd. Lincoln needed Speed for guidance, support, and empathy. Your Friend Forever, A. Lincoln is a rich analysis of a relationship that was both a model of male friendship and a specific dynamic between two brilliant but fascinatingly flawed men who played off each other's strengths and weaknesses to launch themselves in love and life. Their friendship resolves important questions about Lincoln's early years and adds significant psychological depth to our understanding of our sixteenth president.

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln PDF Author: Michael Burlingame
Publisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 9780809327386
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
Editor Michael Burlingame sifted through the the ten-volume biography Abraham Lincoln: A History and selected only the personal observations of the secretaries during the Lincoln presidency. The result is an important collection of Nicolay and Hay's interpretations of Lincoln's character, actions, and reputation.

Grant, Lincoln, and the Freedmen

Grant, Lincoln, and the Freedmen PDF Author: John Eaton
Publisher: Negro Universities Press
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 398

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Book Description


There I Grew Up

There I Grew Up PDF Author: William E. Bartelt
Publisher: Indiana Historical Society
ISBN: 0871954435
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
In 1859 Abraham Lincoln covered his Indiana years in one paragraph and two sentences of a written autobiographical statement that included the following: "We reached our new home about the time the State came into the union. It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals in the woods. There I grew up." William E. Bartelt uses annotation and primary source material to tell the history of Lincoln's Indiana years by those who were there. The book reveals, through the words of those who knew him, Lincoln's humor, compassion, oratorical skills and thirst for knowledge, and it provides an overview of Lincoln's Indiana experiences, his family, the community where the Lincolns settled and southern Indiana from 1816 to 1830.

An Oral History of Abraham Lincoln

An Oral History of Abraham Lincoln PDF Author: Michael Burlingame
Publisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 0809388146
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
John C. Nicolay, who had known Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois, served as chief White House secretary from 1861 to 1865. Trained as a journalist, Nicolay had hoped to write a campaign biography of Lincoln in 1860, a desire that was thwarted when an obscure young writer named William Dean Howells got the job. Years later, however, Nicolay fulfilled his ambition; with John Hay, he spent the years from 1872 to 1890 writing a monumental ten-volume biography of Lincoln. In preparation for this task, Nicolay interviewed men who had known Lincoln both during his years in Springfield and later when he became the president of the United States. "When it came time to write their massive biography, however," Burlingame notes, "he and Hay made sparing use of the interviews" because they had become "skeptical about human memory." Nicolay and Hay also feared that Robert Todd Lincoln might censor material that reflected "poorly on Lincoln or his wife." Nicolay had interviewed such Springfield friends as Lincoln’s first two law partners, John Todd Stuart and Stephen T. Logan. At the Illinois capital in June and July 1875, he talked to a number of others including Orville H. Browning, U.S. senator and Lincoln’s close friend and adviser for over thirty-five years, and Ozias M. Hatch, Lincoln’s political ally and Springfield neighbor. Four years later he returned briefly and spoke with John W. Bunn, a young political "insider" from Springfield at the time Lincoln was elected president, and once again with Hatch. Browning shed new light on Lincoln’s courtship and marriage, telling Nicolay that Lincoln often told him "that he was constantly under great apprehension lest his wife should do something which would bring him into disgrace" while in the White House. During their research, Nicolay and Hay also learned of Lincoln’s despondency and erratic behavior following his rejection by Matilda Edwards, and they were subsequently criticized by friends for suppressing the information. Burlingame argues that this open discussion of Lincoln’s depression of January 1841 is "perhaps the most startling new information in the Springfield interviews." Briefer and more narrowly focused than the Springfield interviews, the Washington interviews deal with the formation of Lincoln’s cabinet, his relations with Congress, his behavior during the war, his humor, and his grief. In a reminiscence by Robert Todd Lincoln, for example, we learn of Lincoln’s despair at General Lee's escape after the Battle of Gettysburg: "I went into my father’s office ... and found him in [much] distress, his head leaning upon the desk in front of him, and when he raised his head there were evidences of tears upon his face. Upon my asking the cause of his distress he told me that he had just received the information that Gen. Lee had succeeded in escaping across the Potomac river. . ." To supplement these interviews, Burlingame has included Nicolay’s unpublished essays on Lincoln during the 1860 campaign and on Lincoln’s journey from Springfield to Washington in 1861, essay’s based on firsthand testimony.

Lincoln's Melancholy

Lincoln's Melancholy PDF Author: Joshua Wolf Shenk
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 054752689X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 538

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Book Description
A nuanced psychological portrait of Abraham Lincoln that finds his legendary political strengths rooted in his most personal struggles. Giving shape to the deep depression that pervaded Lincoln's adult life, Joshua Wolf Shenk’s Lincoln’s Melancholy reveals how this illness influenced both the President’s character and his leadership. Mired in personal suffering as a young man, Lincoln forged a hard path toward mental health. Shenk draws on seven years of research from historical record, interviews with Lincoln scholars, and contemporary research on depression to understand the nature of Lincoln’s unhappiness. In the process, Shenk discovers that the President’s coping strategies—among them, a rich sense of humor and a tendency toward quiet reflection—ultimately helped him to lead the nation through its greatest turmoil. A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice SELECTED AS A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Washington Post Book World, Atlanta Journal-Constituion, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette As Featured on the History Channel documentary Lincoln “Fresh, fascinating, provocative.”—Sanford D. Horwitt, San Francisco Chronicle “Some extremely beautiful prose and fine political rhetoric and leaves one feeling close to Lincoln, a considerable accomplishment.”—Andrew Solomon, New York Magazine “A profoundly human and psychologically important examination of the melancholy that so pervaded Lincoln's life.”—Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D., author of An Unquiet Mind