Collective Memory and History: How Abraham Lincoln Became a Symbol of Racial Equality

Abstract

Abraham Lincoln's changing relation to the African American community of memory is a means of addressing unresolved problems in the work of Maurice Halbwachs. Many sociologists, beginning with Halbwachs, have recognized that commemorative symbolism creates new images of the past, but the process by which this occurs has never been closely studied. I draw on a variety of sources, including Lincoln Day observances, press commentary, oratory, cartoons, and prints, in my effort to understand how commemorative symbolism works. During the past century, no new information about Lincoln's racial attitudes has appeared; yet commemorative pairing and coupling mechanisms and their resulting commemorative networks have transformed him from a conservative symbol of the status quo during the Jim Crow era into the personification of racial justice and equality during the New Deal and the civil rights movement. Since the symbolic devices employed to depict Lincoln are shaped by the very historical record they transcend, however, Halbwachs's distinction between fact-based history and symbol-based commemoration must be modified.

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