General Resources
The sixth issue of History Now, December 2008, was also a “Lincoln” issue. I won’t bother to repeat my discussion of general resources that appeared three years ago. Instead, I’ll refer you to the “Suggested Lincoln Sources” Webpage that appears there:
And devote myself here, to books and other sources that either didn’t exist three years ago or that I somehow overlooked.
First, the books on Lincoln published since then that seem most likely to be of help:
Burton, Orville Vernon. The Age Of Lincoln. New York: Hill and Wang, 2007. As much a study of Lincoln’s time as a biography.
Carwardine, Richard. Lincoln: A Life Of Purpose And Power. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. Published in England in 2003.
Foner, Eric, ed. Our Lincoln: New Perspectives On Lincoln And His World. New York: W.W. Norton, c2008. The collection of essays on which the articles in this issue are based.
Harris, William C. Lincoln's Rise To The Presidency. Lawrence:
University Press of Kansas, c2007. Emphasizes Lincoln’s Whig background.
Holzer, Harold, and Sara Vaughn Gabbard, eds. Lincoln And Freedom:
Slavery, Emancipation, And The Thirteenth Amendment. Carbondale:
Southern Illinois University Press, c2007. Wide-ranging collection of
essays by historians and lawyers – topics from African-American
troops to details of the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment.
Jayne, Allen. Lincoln And The American Manifesto. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2007. Analysis of Lincoln’s ideology and its links to Jeffersonian ideals.
McPherson, James M. Tried By War: Abraham Lincoln As Commander In Chief. New York: Penguin Press, 2008. Not directly related to any of our essays, but should be on your shelf. McPherson contributed an essay on the same subject to Our Lincoln (ed. Foner).
Miller, Richard Lawrence. Lincoln And His World. 2 vols. to date. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2003 and 2006. The first installments in a multi-volume biography. Volume two brings Lincoln to 1842.
Miller, William Lee. President Lincoln: The Duty Of A Statesman. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.
Here are some additions to your list of useful Internet materials on Lincoln:
The Miller Center at the University of Virginia now has a page on Lincoln:
http://millercenter.org/academic/americanpresident/lincoln
The Lincoln Institute, founded by Lewis Lehman, a co-founder of the Institute
that sponsors History Now, has greatly expanded its Web presence:
http://www.abrahamlincoln.org/
Take a careful look at the sections on “Teacher Assistance”:
http://abrahamlincoln.org/teachers/index.asp
and “Student Assistance”:
http://abrahamlincoln.org/students/index.asp
“Abraham Lincoln’s Classroom” offers a changing variety
of features along with permanent online exhibitions like the one on cartoons:
http://www.abrahamlincolnsclassroom.org/
The bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth will come next year, of course.
The Lincoln Bicentennial Commission has done considerable work on its
Website. The” Learning about Lincoln” section has lesson plans,
while the “Calendar of Events” will keep you up-to-date on
Lincoln celebrations in your area through 2009:
http://www.lincolnbicentennial.gov/
Another entrant is the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Museum
http://www.alplm.org/home.html
Their lesson plans done in conjunction with exhibits at the Museum, but
you can mine some of them for your own purposes:
http://www.alplm.org/education/teachers.html
Abraham Lincoln and Jacksonian Democracy
The fuller version of Professor Wilentz’s essay on Lincoln and the
Jacksonian tradition appears on p. 135-166 of Our Lincoln.
Professor Wilentz’s work on political leaders and thought of ninteenth
century America, read his two books:
Andrew Jackson (New York : Times Books, 2005)
The Rise Of American Democracy : Jefferson To Lincoln (New York : Norton, c2005)
You may also want to read two essays in Abraham Lincoln and the American Political Tradition (Amherst: Univ. of Mass., 1986), a collection of studies edited by John L. Thomas:
Oates, Stephen. “Abraham Lincoln: Republican in the White House,” p. 98-110,
Wiebe, Robert H. “Lincoln’s Fraternal Democracy,” p. 11-30.
Internet Resources
To help refresh your students knowledge of Jackson’s political
legacy, I strongly recommend Digital History’s segment on the subject:
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=92
The same Website’s “Impending Crisis” segment shows
way that the political crises of the 1850s that realigned old Jacksonians
and Whigs into Democrats and Republicans in the election of 1860:
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=58
