Lincoln Lore

An Interview with Jon Grinspan by Jonathan W. White Jon Grinspan is Curator of Political History at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. His work explores the history of American democracy, with a focus on ways the formative, forgotten...

From the Collection: CARTOONS OF THE CAPTURE OF JEFFERSON DAVIS By Jane Gastineau Former Lincoln Librarian, Allen County Public Library On May 10, 1865, Confederate president Jefferson Davis and his wife Varina were captured by soldiers of the 4th Michigan...

THE SON OF THE GREAT EMANCIPATOR: Robert Todd Lincoln and African Americans By Jason Emerson   In recent years there has been a renewed output of scholarship analyzing Abraham Lincoln’s interactions with African Americans, but scholars have yet to adequately...

THE CONCISE LINCOLN LIBRARY of Southern Illinois University Press by Sylvia Frank Rodrigue At its meeting in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in November 2023, Jonathan White—editor of Lincoln Lore and vice chairman of The Lincoln Forum—announced that the annual Wendy Allen Award,...

An Interview with Richard Carwardine by Jonathan W. White   Richard Carwardine is Emeritus Rhodes Professor of American History at Oxford University and former president of Corpus Christi College at Oxford University. His research focuses on the United States between...

Abraham Lincoln & Woman Suffrage by Charles Benfanti and Eden McMillan In a public letter announcing his candidacy for the Illinois state legislature in 1836, twenty-seven-year-old Abraham Lincoln declared his support for his constituents’ right to vote, saying, “I go...

From the Collection: Women at the White House by Jessie Cortesi and Abbie Meek   President Abraham Lincoln hosted many notable women at the White House during his administration. From advocating on behalf of the U.S. Sanitary Commission to urging...

LITTLE SISTER Emilie Todd Helm and the Lincolns by Angela Esco Elder She expected to hear “Fee, fi, fo, fum!” He was tall, a stranger, walking in her home, shaking hands with adults in the wide hall. As her eyes...

Polly Rogers and Her Husband’s Lawyer by Stacy Lynn   “The allegation of adultery against the said defendant was muted in the complainant’s bill, for no other cause, than through tenderness to the said defendant’s character.” —Abraham Lincoln, affidavit for...

Ann & Abe Forgeries by Glenn W. LaFantasie   By the early twentieth century, the story of the romance between Ann and Abe rose in popularity. Newspapers published countless articles, fact and fiction, about the tragic story of young love,...

Ann Rutledge’s Resting Places by Jonathan W. White   When she died in 1835, Ann Rutledge was buried in New Concord, Illinois, about six miles north of New Salem. In 1890, one newspaper reported that the “remains of the emancipator’s...

The Belle of New Salem by Glenn W. LaFantasie   The story of a romance between Abraham Lincoln and Ann Rutledge, once believed to be only a legend but now more widely accepted as fact by historians, almost always focuses...

Lincoln Ballots from the Election of 1864   In the Civil War Era, political parties were responsible to design, print and distribute their own ballots. When Lincoln ran for reelection in 1864, Republicans utilized pro-Union words and symbols to appeal...

From the Collection: Gettysburg by Jessie Cortesi & Kayla Gustafason   By the time the Battle of Gettysburg took place on July 1–3, 1863, the Civil War had been raging for two years. Stopping the Confederate advance into the North...

The Uses & Abuses of Presentism By Rob Kaplan   “The past is a foreign country: They do things differently there,” wrote L. P. Hartley in his novel The Go-Between. For good or ill, we cannot literally travel to that...