 | |
| Authors | John Nicolay and John Hay |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Bibliography |
| Published | 1890 |
| Media type | |
| 973.70924 | |
| LC Class | E457 |
| Text | Abraham Lincoln: A History at Wikisource |
Abraham Lincoln: A History is an 1890 ten-volume account of the life and times of Abraham Lincoln, written by John Nicolay and John Hay, who were his personal secretaries during the American Civil War.
Early in his presidency, Hay and Nicolay requested and received permission from Lincoln to write his biography. [1] In the first years after Lincoln's death, Hay and Nicolay were not encouraged to publish such a work—Representative Isaac Newton Arnold, a Lincoln supporter, had quickly published a substantial Lincoln biography, and publishers were not eager for another. Further, the permission of Robert Lincoln, who controlled his father's papers, would have to be gained. Lincoln's former secretaries decided to wait until they had sufficient time and money. [2]
The often-dormant proposal to write the biography was given new impetus as they came to believe Lincoln's historical image was being distorted. Ward Hill Lamon in 1872 published a biography of Lincoln based on research by William Herndon, Lincoln's law partner. Lamon's book first made widely known many of the early accounts of Lincoln's life, such as those regarding Ann Rutledge, whom Lamon related Lincoln had loved and whose death devastated him. Without access to his papers, these early biographers focused on episodes told of the young Lincoln that fascinated the public. The Lincoln family believed that some of these were distorted or untrue, and in any event disrespectful. [3] Also becoming popular were interpretations of the war that minimized Southern blame, with the bravery of the soldiers stressed in the name of sectional reconciliation. Popular fiction, such as that by Joel Chandler Harris, pressed a nostalgic view of the Old South. [4]
By 1872, Hay was "convinced that we ought to be at work on our 'Lincoln.' I don't think the time for publication has come, but the time for preparation is slipping away." [5] Robert Lincoln, Lincoln's surviving child, in 1874 formally agreed to let Hay and Nicolay use his father's papers; by 1875, they were engaged in research. Hay and Nicolay enjoyed exclusive access to Lincoln's papers, which were not opened to other researchers until 1947. They gathered documents written by others, as well as many of the Civil War books already being published. On rare occasions they relied on memory, such as Nicolay's recollection of the moment at the 1860 Republican convention when Lincoln was nominated, but for the most part they relied on research. [5] The research was so extensive that, in their published volumes, Hay and Nicolay sometimes wrote that no records existed on certain points—statements that proved to be premature. [6]
Hay began his part of the writing in 1876; [7] the work was interrupted by illnesses of Hay, Nicolay, or family members, [5] or by Hay's writing of The Bread-Winners . [7] When Hay was in Washington as Assistant Secretary of State in 1879–81, and after Hay returned to Washington in 1885, he and Nicolay (then the Marshal of the Supreme Court) would walk to each other's house with chapter drafts or research materials. [8] In 1881, after his temporary service as editor of the Tribune in Whitelaw Reid's absence, he agreed to do unsigned Civil War book reviews for the Tribune, but when asked to do obituaries as well, he refused, "I have not read any thing this winter except what bears on one subject". [9]
By 1885, Hay had completed the chapters on Lincoln's early life, and they were submitted to Robert Lincoln. [10] Robert retained the right of approval of the text, and required a number of changes; for example, he felt the depiction of Lincoln's father Thomas showed him as too shiftless. [11] Sometimes Hay and Nicolay alternated chapters, and sometimes one took responsibility for an entire volume. [12]
Sale of the serialization rights to The Century magazine, edited by Hay's friend Richard Watson Gilder, helped give Hay and Nicolay the impetus to bring what had become a massive project to a whole. Gilder, for his part, tried to keep the perspective from becoming too partisan in favor of the North, as The Century was a national magazine with a diverse readership. [13]
The published work, Abraham Lincoln: A History, has an alternation of parts in which Lincoln is at center, and discussions of contextual matters such as legislative events or battles. [14] The first serial installment, published in November 1886, received positive reviews, though some, including Herndon, considered the contextual sections dull. [15] Life magazine proposed a party game, to locate five references to Lincoln in a given installment, assuming there were any to be found. [16] When the ten-volume set emerged in 1890, it was not sold in bookstores, but instead door-to-door, the practice followed then by noted authors like Twain. Despite a price of $50, and the fact that a good part of the work had been serialized, five thousand copies were quickly sold. [17]
Robert L. Gale noted that Hay and Nicolay "emerge as Protestant Christian defenders of Unionism, of Constitutional abolition [of slavery], of the Republican party, and of a martyred president who was almost divine because of the comprehensiveness of his supernal intelligence and charitable heart." [6] Kushner and Sherrill opined that the biography "became the Lincoln gospel according to St. John and St. Nico, who like 'two everlasting Angels,' would transmit to their fellows the truth about their hero". [18] According to historian Joshua Zeitz:
Writing against the rising currents of Southern apologia, Hay and Nicolay pioneered the "Northern" interpretation of the Civil War [and] helped invent the Lincoln we know today—the sage father figure; the military genius; the greatest American orator; the master of a fractious cabinet who forged a "team of rivals" out of erstwhile challengers for the throne; the Lincoln Memorial Lincoln. That Abraham Lincoln was all of these things, in some measure, there can be no doubt. But it is easy to forget how widely underrated Lincoln the president and Lincoln the man were at the time of his death and how successful Hay and Nicolay were in elevating his place in the nation's collective historical memory. [5]
The Gettysburg Address is a speech that U.S. President Abraham Lincoln delivered during the American Civil War at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery, now known as Gettysburg National Cemetery, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on the afternoon of November 19, 1863, four and a half months after the Union armies defeated Confederate forces in the Battle of Gettysburg, the Civil War's deadliest battle. It remains one of the best-known speeches in American history.
John Milton Hay was an American statesman and official whose career in government stretched over almost half a century. Beginning as a private secretary and an assistant for Abraham Lincoln, he became a diplomat. He served as United States Secretary of State under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. Hay was also a biographer of Lincoln, and wrote poetry and other literature throughout his life.
Ward Hill Lamon was a personal friend and self-appointed bodyguard of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. Lamon was famously absent the night Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865, having been sent by Lincoln to Richmond, Virginia.
John George Nicolay was a German-born American author and diplomat who served as private secretary to U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and later co-authored Abraham Lincoln: A History, a ten-volume biography of the 16th president. He was a member of the German branch of the Nicolay family.
The Century Magazine was an illustrated monthly magazine first published in the United States in 1881 by The Century Company of New York City, which had been bought in that year by Roswell Smith and renamed by him after the Century Association. It was the successor of Scribner's Monthly Magazine. It was merged into The Forum in 1930.
The National Union Party was the name used by the Republican Party and elements of other parties for the national ticket in the 1864 presidential election during the Civil War. Most state Republican parties did not change their name. The name was used to attract War Democrats, border state voters, and Unconditional Unionist, and Unionist Party members who might otherwise have not voted for Republicans. The National Union Party nominated incumbent Republican President Abraham Lincoln of Illinois and Democrat Andrew Johnson of Tennessee for Vice President. They won the Electoral College 212–21.
Abraham Lincoln grew up in a highly religious Baptist family. He never joined any Church, and was a skeptic as a young man and sometimes ridiculed revivalists. He frequently referred to God and had a deep knowledge of the Bible, often quoting it. Lincoln attended Protestant church services with his wife and children. "Especially after the death of his young son Willie in 1862, Lincoln moved away from his earlier religious skepticism." Some argue that Lincoln was neither a Christian believer nor a secular freethinker.
Samuel Lincoln was an Englishman and progenitor of many notable United States political figures, including his 4th-great-grandson, President Abraham Lincoln, Maine governor Enoch Lincoln, and Levi Lincoln Sr. and Levi Lincoln Jr., both of whom served as Massachusetts Representatives, Governor and Lieutenant Governor. Because of Samuel Lincoln's descendants, his fortuitous arrival in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the fact that his ancestry is known for several generations, he is considered the father of the most prominent branch of Lincolns in the United States.
Joshua Michael Zeitz is an American historian and former Democratic politician. He is the author of several books on American political and social history and has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, The Atlantic, Dissent, and American Heritage. Zeitz appeared as a commentator on two PBS documentaries – Boomer Century, and Ken Burns' Prohibition — and has commented on public policy matters on CNBC and CNN International. He has held faculty positions at Harvard, Cambridge and Princeton and is the author of four books.
Helen Julia Hay Whitney was an American poet, writer, racehorse owner/breeder, socialite, and philanthropist. She was a member by marriage of the prominent Whitney family of New York.
The first inauguration of Abraham Lincoln as the 16th president of the United States was held on Monday, March 4, 1861, at the East Portico of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. This was the 19th inauguration and marked the commencement of the first, and eventually only full term of Abraham Lincoln as president and the only term of Hannibal Hamlin as vice president. The presidential oath of office was administered to Lincoln by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney. John C. Breckinridge became the first outgoing vice president to administer the vice-presidential oath of office to his successor.
This bibliography of Abraham Lincoln is a comprehensive list of written and published works about or by Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States. In terms of primary sources containing Lincoln's letters and writings, scholars rely on The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy Basler, and others. It only includes writings by Lincoln, and omits incoming correspondence. In the six decades since Basler completed his work, some new documents written by Lincoln have been discovered. Previously, a project was underway at the Papers of Abraham Lincoln to provide "a freely accessible comprehensive electronic edition of documents written by and to Abraham Lincoln". The Papers of Abraham Lincoln completed Series I of their project The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln in 2000. They electronically launched The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln, Second Edition in 2009, and published a selective print edition of this series. Attempts are still being made to transcribe documents for Series II and Series III.
Linconia was the name of a proposed Central American colony suggested by Republican United States Senator Samuel Pomeroy of Kansas in 1862, after U.S. President Abraham Lincoln asked the Senator and United States Secretary of the Interior Caleb Smith to work on a plan to resettle freed African Americans from the United States.
Michael A. Burlingame is an American historian noted for his works on Abraham Lincoln. He is the Naomi B. Lynn Distinguished Chair in Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois Springfield. Burlingame has written or edited twenty books about Lincoln.
Lincoln is a 2012 American biographical historical drama film directed and produced by Steven Spielberg, starring Daniel Day-Lewis as United States President Abraham Lincoln. It features Sally Field, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader, Hal Holbrook, and Tommy Lee Jones in supporting roles. The screenplay by Tony Kushner was loosely based on Doris Kearns Goodwin's 2005 biography Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, and covers the final four months of Lincoln's life.
The Papers of Abraham Lincoln is a documentary editing project dedicated to identifying, imaging, transcribing, annotating, and publishing online all documents written by or to Abraham Lincoln during his lifetime (1809–1865).
The Bread-Winners: A Social Study is an 1883 novel by John Hay, former secretary to Abraham Lincoln who in 1898 became U.S. Secretary of State. The book takes an anti-organized labor stance, and when published anonymously sold well and provoked considerable public interest in determining who the author was.
Nicolay and Hay refers to John G. Nicolay and John Hay jointly. Nicolay and Hay were friends from an early age. In 1860 they were selected as personal secretary and assistant secretary, respectively, to President Abraham Lincoln of the United States, and served throughout his presidency. Each of them became notable in his own right as both went on to other offices, Hay later serving as U.S. Secretary of State. The collective term "Nicolay and Hay" usually refers to them as co-authors of the ten-volume Abraham Lincoln: A History, one of the earliest and most important comprehensive biographies of Abraham Lincoln. The term is also used as shorthand when citing the biography itself. Nicolay and Hay also co-edited Lincoln's Complete Works.
Maunsell Bradhurst Field was an American lawyer, diplomat, judge, and author.
The presidential transition of Abraham Lincoln began when he won the United States 1860 United States presidential election, becoming the president-elect of the United States, and ended when Lincoln was inaugurated at noon on March 4, 1861.
Abraham Lincoln: A History public domain audiobook at LibriVox The ten volume work by John George Nicolay and John Milton Hay, originally published in 1890, is in the public domain :
