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Personal Political
16th President of the United States First term Second term Presidential elections Assassination and legacy  | ||
Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States from 1861 to 1865, has been memorialized in many town, city, and county names, [1] Along with George Washington, he is an iconic image of American democracy and American nationalism.
Barry Schwartz, a sociologist who has examined America's cultural memory, states that in the 1930s and 1940s, the memory of Abraham Lincoln was practically sacred and provided the nation with "a moral symbol inspiring and guiding American life." During the Great Depression, he says, Lincoln served "as a means for seeing the world's disappointments, for making its sufferings not so much explicable as meaningful." Franklin D. Roosevelt, preparing America for World War II, used the words of the American Civil War-era president to clarify the threat posed by Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan. Americans asked, "What would Lincoln do?" [2] However, he also finds that since World War II, Lincoln's symbolic power has lost relevance, and this "fading hero is symptomatic of fading confidence in national greatness." [3] He suggested that postmodernism and multiculturalism have diluted greatness as a concept.[ citation needed ]
While Lincoln remains in the very top tier of the historical rankings of presidents of the United States, all of the presidents have slipped in historical prestige in the public's mind. Schwartz said that the reason is what he calls the "acids of equality": as the culture of the United States became more diverse, egalitarian, and multicultural, it also suffered a "deterioration and coarsening of traditional symbols and practices." [4]
Lincoln sites remain popular tourist attractions, but crowds have thinned. In the late 1960s, 650,000 people a year visited the Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield, Illinois, slipping to 393,000 in 2000–2003. Likewise visits to Lincoln's New Salem fell by half, probably because of the enormous draw of the new museum in Springfield. Visits to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., peaked at 4.3 million in 1987 and have since declined. However crowds at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., have grown sharply. [5]
The oldest continuously operating association in the United States honoring Lincoln is the Lincoln Association of Jersey City in Jersey City, New Jersey, which was formed in 1865 shortly after Lincoln's assassination. The association has held a banquet in Jersey City every year on Lincoln's birthday, February 12. The association has been addressed by a number of people of national importance, including political figures, military veterans, educators and civil rights leaders. The association celebrated its 150th anniversary on February 12, 2015, which included the laying of a wreath at the entrance to Jersey City's Lincoln Park. The association's annual dinner featured speaker Todd Brewster, author of Lincoln's Gamble , about the struggle to create the Emancipation Proclamation. [6]
The memorials include the name of the capital of Nebraska (1867). The first public monument to Abraham Lincoln, after his death, was a statue erected in front of the District of Columbia City Hall in 1868, three years after his assassination. [7]
In 1876, on the anniversary of his death, a memorial, paid for by emancipated citizens to honor the Great Emancipator, the Freedmen's Memorial was dedicated in Lincoln Park, Washington, D.C. Present for the dedication were President Ulysses S. Grant, cabinet members, and representatives of both the Supreme Court and Congress. Frederick Douglass gave the dedication speech. [8]
The first national memorial to Abraham Lincoln was the historic Lincoln Highway, the first road for the automobile across the United States of America, which was dedicated in 1913, predating the 1921 dedication of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., by nine years.
Lincoln's name and image appear in numerous other places, such as the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., and Lincoln's sculpture on Mount Rushmore, Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park in Hodgenville, Kentucky, [9] Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial in Lincoln City, Indiana, [10] Lincoln's New Salem, Illinois, [11] and Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield, Illinois [12] commemorate the president. [13] The Lincoln Memorial at Louisville Waterfront Park features a double-life-size sculpture of a seated, hatless Lincoln surrounded by narrative bas relief sculptures by Edward Hamilton which depict the history of slavery as witnessed by Lincoln in the slave markets of Kentucky. [14]
Ford's Theatre and Petersen House (where he died) are maintained as museums, as is the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, located in Springfield. [15] [16] The Lincoln Tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois, contains his remains and those of his wife Mary and three of his four sons, Edward, William, and Thomas. [17] Springfield's airport is named for him, the Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport. [18]
There was also the Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln exhibit in Disneyland, and the Hall of Presidents exhibit at Walt Disney World, which was based on Walt Disney admiring Lincoln ever since he was a little boy.
Lincoln Memorial University located in Harrogate, Tennessee near the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park was established in 1897 as a living memorial to President Lincoln. The Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum located on campus, houses a large collection of memorabilia relating to the school's namesake.
The Lincoln Memorial Shrine was built in 1932 in Redlands, California. Has an original Lincoln bust by George Grey Barnard. Only museum and research center to Lincoln west of the Mississippi River. [19]
On the night of November 7, 1876, a group of counterfeiters entered Lincoln's tomb with the intent of absconding with his mortal remains and holding them for ransom in order to secure the release of their leader, Benjamin Boyd, an imprisoned engraver of counterfeit currency plates. The group entered his tomb, but had only succeeded in partially dislodging its marble lid before a US Secret Service agent who had infiltrated their number alerted law enforcement authorities. Although several escaped, most served a one-year prison term. For much of the next decade (c. 1876 – 1887), Lincoln's tomb was mobile, to avoid further unwanted disinterment. [20]
On August 16, 2017, a bust of Abraham Lincoln in a park in West Englewood, Chicago was spray-painted black and later covered in tar and set on fire. [21] [22] [23] The bust restoration was finished in 2018, it was then moved to the Chicago Public Library. [24]
Within a year of this death, Lincoln's image began to be disseminated throughout the world on stamps. [25] Pictured on many United States postage stamps, Lincoln is the only U.S. President to appear on a U.S. airmail stamp. [26]
To date, more than 50 nations around the world have issued postage bearing his image. [27]
Lincoln was one of five people to be depicted on United States paper currency (federal issue) during their lifetime (along with Salmon P. Chase, Francis E. Spinner, Spencer M. Clark, and Winfield Scott). He has been featured on several denominations ($1, $5, $10, $20, $100, and $500) across different issues (e.g., Demand Notes, Legal Tender, Gold Certificates, Silver Certificates, etc.) since the first federally issued U.S. Bank Note in 1861. [28] In addition to the modern United States five-dollar bill, currency honoring the president includes the Lincoln cent, which represents the first regularly circulating U.S. coin to feature an actual person's image. [29]
Lincoln's image on the five-dollar bill was used by Salvador Dalí to help commemorate the U.S. Bicentennial with his creation of "Gala looking at the Mediterranean Sea which at a distance of 20 meters is transformed into the portrait of Abraham Lincoln (Homage to Rothko)" and Lincoln in Dalivision, the earlier of which was displayed at The Guggenheim in New York during the 1976 Bicentennial. [30]
The first statue of Lincoln outside the United States was erected in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1893. The work of George Edwin Bissell, it stands on a memorial to Scots immigrants who enlisted with the Union during the Civil War, the only memorial to the war erected outside the United States. A second statue by George Grey Barnard was erected in Manchester, England in 1919. Nowadays situated in Lincoln Square west of Manchester Town Hall, the statue commemorates the impact the American Civil War had on the cotton cloth-producing region of Manchester and Lancashire. [31] A large statue of Lincoln standing by Saint Gaudens was unveiled near Westminster Abbey in London, on July 28, 1920, in an elaborate ceremony. The principal addresses were delivered in Central Hall, Westminster. [32] In 1964, United States President Lyndon Johnson presented a Saint Gaudens to the people of Mexico, which is displayed in Mexico City's Parque Lincoln. [33] Also in Mexico, a monument in Tijuana was unveiled in 1981 while a reciprocal statue of Lincoln's contemporary and friend President Benito Juarez was unveiled in neighboring San Diego. [34]
Abraham Lincoln's birthday, February 12, was never a national holiday, but it was at one time observed by as many as 30 states. [1] In 1971, Presidents Day became a national holiday, combining Lincoln's and Washington's birthdays and replacing most states' celebration of his birthday. [35] The Abraham Lincoln Association was formed in 1908 to commemorate the centennial of Lincoln's birth. [36] In 2000, Congress established the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission to commemorate his 200th birthday in February 2009. [37]
but you can't fool all of the people all of the time
The Lincoln Memorial is a U.S. national memorial that honors the 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. An example of neoclassicism, it is in the form of a classical temple and is located at the western end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Henry Bacon is the memorial's architect and Daniel Chester French designed the large interior statue of a seated Abraham Lincoln (1920), which was carved in marble by the Piccirilli brothers. Jules Guerin painted the interior murals, and the epitaph above the statue was written by Royal Cortissoz. Dedicated on May 30, 1922, it is one of several memorials built to honor an American president. It has been a major tourist attraction since its opening, and over the years, has occasionally been used as a symbolic center focused on race relations and civil rights.
Daniel Chester French was an American sculptor of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He is best known for his 1874 sculpture The Minute Man in Concord, Massachusetts, and his 1920 monumental statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum was an American sculptor best known for his work on Mount Rushmore. He is also associated with various other public works of art across the U.S., including Stone Mountain in Georgia, statues of Union General Philip Sheridan in Washington D.C. and in Chicago, as well as a bust of Abraham Lincoln which was exhibited in the White House by Theodore Roosevelt and which is now held in the United States Capitol crypt in Washington, D.C.
Henry Bacon was an American Beaux-Arts architect who oversaw the engineering and design of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., built between 1915 and 1922, which was his final project before his 1924 death.
Charles Keck was an American sculptor from New York City, New York.
Augustus Saint-Gaudens was an American sculptor of the Beaux-Arts generation who embodied the ideals of the American Renaissance. From an Irish-French family, Saint-Gaudens was raised in New York City. He traveled to Europe for further training and artistic study. After he returned to New York, he achieved major critical success for his monuments commemorating heroes of the American Civil War, many of which still stand. Saint-Gaudens created works such as the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial on Boston Common, Abraham Lincoln: The Man, and grand equestrian monuments to Civil War generals: General John Logan Memorial in Chicago's Grant Park and William Tecumseh Sherman at the corner of New York's Central Park. In addition, he created the popular historicist representation of The Puritan.
The Lincoln Tomb is the final resting place of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States; his wife Mary Todd Lincoln; and three of their four sons: Edward, William, and Thomas. It is located in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois.
James Earle Fraser was an American sculptor during the first half of the 20th century. His work is integral to many of Washington, D.C.'s most iconic structures.
Larkin Goldsmith Mead, Jr. was an American sculptor who worked in a neoclassical style.
The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum documents the life of the 16th U.S. president, Abraham Lincoln, and the course of the American Civil War. Combining traditional scholarship with 21st-century showmanship techniques, the museum ranks as one of the most visited presidential libraries. Its library, in addition to housing an extensive collection on Lincoln, also houses the collection of the Illinois State Historical Library, founded by the state in 1889. The library and museum is located in the state capital of Springfield, Illinois, and is overseen as an agency of state government. It is not affiliated with the U.S. National Archives and its system of libraries.
Bela Lyon Pratt was an American sculptor from Connecticut.
Abraham Lincoln: The Man is a larger-than-life size 12-foot (3.7 m) bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States. The original statue is in Lincoln Park in Chicago, and later re-castings of the statue have been given as diplomatic gifts from the United States to the United Kingdom, and to Mexico.
The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission (ALBC) was the congressionally created, 14-member federal commission focused on planning and commemorating the 200th birthday of the United States' 16th president on February 12, 2009. The commission served for ten years, from 2000 to 2010. Its official successor organization, announced in 2011 with an expanded board and broadened mission, is the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation.
The Emancipation Memorial, also known as the Freedman's Memorial or the Emancipation Group is a monument in Lincoln Park in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C. It was sometimes referred to as the "Lincoln Memorial" before the more prominent so-named memorial was dedicated in 1922.
Andrew O'Connor was an American-Irish sculptor whose work is represented in museums in America, Ireland, Britain and France.
Major General John A. Logan, also known as the General John A. Logan Monument and Logan Circle Monument, is an equestrian statue in Washington, D.C., that honors politician and Civil War general John A. Logan. The monument is sited in the center of Logan Circle, a traffic circle and public park in the Logan Circle neighborhood. The statue was sculpted by artist Franklin Simmons, whose other prominent works include the Peace Monument and statues in the National Statuary Hall Collection. The architect of the statue base was Richard Morris Hunt, designer of prominent buildings including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and The Breakers in Newport, Rhode Island. Prominent attendees at the dedication ceremony in 1901 included President William McKinley, members of his cabinet, Senator Chauncey Depew, Senator Shelby Moore Cullom, and General Grenville M. Dodge.
Abraham Lincoln: The Head of State is a 9-foot (2.7 m) tall bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln in Grant Park, in Chicago. Created by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and completed by his workshop in 1908, it was intended by the artist to evoke the loneliness and burden of command felt by Lincoln during his presidency. The sculpture depicts a contemplative Lincoln seated in a chair, and gazing down into the distance. The sculpture is set upon a pedestal and a 150-foot (46 m) wide exedra designed by architect Stanford White.
Casimir Pulaski was a Polish nobleman, soldier and military commander who has been called "the father of the American cavalry". He has had hundreds of monuments, memorial plaques, streets, parks and similar objects named after him.
