CONSUMING LINCOLN: ABRAHAM LINCOLN's WESTERN MANHOOD in the URBAN NORTHEAST, 1848-1861 a Dissertation Submitted to the Kent S
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CONSUMING LINCOLN: ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S WESTERN MANHOOD IN THE URBAN NORTHEAST, 1848-1861 A dissertation submitted to the Kent State University College of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy By David Demaree August 2018 © Copyright All right reserved Except for previously published materials A dissertation written by David Demaree B.A., Geneva College, 2008 M.A., Indiana University of Pennsylvania, 2012 Ph.D., Kent State University, 2018 Approved by ____________________________, Chair, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Kevin Adams, Ph.D. ____________________________, Members, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Elaine Frantz, Ph.D. ____________________________, Lesley J. Gordon, Ph.D. ____________________________, Sara Hume, Ph.D. ____________________________ Robert W. Trogdon, Ph.D. Accepted by ____________________________, Chair, Department of History Brian M. Hayashi, Ph.D. ____________________________, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences James L. Blank, Ph.D. TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS ..............................................................................................................iii LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................................... iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...............................................................................................................v INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................1 CHAPTER ONE: Exhibitions of Western Manhood: The Visual Delight of Lincoln Prior to his Presidency in the Urban Northeast....................................................................................20 CHAPTER TWO: An Authentic Stump Speaker: Lincoln’s Speeches in New York and New England Prior to his Presidential Candidacy.....................................................................63 CHAPTER THREE: Mediating a Former Rail-splitter: Lincoln’s Manhood in Northeast Print Culture During the1860 Presidential Campaign..............................................................104 CHAPTER FOUR: Rails, Likenesses, and Fireworks: The Spectacle of Lincoln’s Manhood During the Presidential Campaign of 1860......................................................................147 CHAPTER FIVE: A Celebrity President: Western Manliness in the White House, 1861..........187 EPILOGUE: Lincoln’s Log Cabin, Commemoration, and Changing Impression of Western Manhood, 1865................................................................................................................225 BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................................................248 iii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1, Maltby’s Proposed Lincoln Campaign Medal Patent...................................................169 Figure 2, A Wide Awake Procession in Hartford, Connecticut...................................................185 iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS “Don’t pursue a Ph.D. in history unless you have something to say,” was advise that resonated with me as an undergraduate history major. This dissertation is my way of speaking up and joining a broad conversation about the past. Of course, I did not write what follows by myself, more people than I realize assisted in countless ways. My greatest intellectual debt is to Eric Miller. As an undergraduate, Eric introduced me to authors who changed my life, patiently walked along side me as I struggled to find my own voice, and, most importantly, taught me how studying the past is a way to love my neighbor. Wang Xi encouraged me to write about Abraham Lincoln and the culture of refinement during my first semester of graduate school. I was fortunate to have Joseph Mannard advise me as I expanded this idea into an M.A. thesis. Looking back, I wince thinking of the amount of ink he expended correcting my drafts. If not for the guidance of Wang Xi and Joseph Mannard, I would never have developed this dissertation topic. While enduring the Ph.D., I am grateful for the friendship and assistance of: Joel Baehler, Mike Goodnough, Michele Curran Cornell, Jason Carruthers, Angela Riotta, Rob Faith, Greg Jones. Lesley Gordon provided important insight from the start of my dissertation. Elaine Frantz graciously pored over my drafts and provided thoughtful feedback. She not only ‘got’ what I was doing, but perceptively identified key themes that needed more attention. My dissertation is much better because of her. I am immensely grateful to my advisor, Kevin Adams. While I benefitted from his sharp eye and his masterful grasp of wide-ranging historiographies, it was his selfless ability to guide me that kept me encouraged during the entire Ph.D. process. As I juggled having a family and working outside academia, he showed grace while keeping me on pace. I am fortunate Kevin was willing to serve as my advisor. v Outside of academia, our friends and church community have continually been a source of deep joy for me and my family. These dear souls have walked alongside and served me and my family through all seasons of life. I am grateful for my parents who always held firm on their family dinner policy and instilled in me critical thinking. The birth of my son, Simeon, has made my life exceedingly richer—words cannot do justice. To my wife, Annie, her abiding love is an overwhelming gift I experience daily. vi INTRODUCTION Ask an American historian about the current state of Abraham Lincoln research and they will undoubtedly retort that the topic is beat; scores of scholars, after all, have mined Lincoln- related sources for over a century and a half. John Nicolay, who served as Lincoln’s private secretary, said as much in 1903 when he curtly declined Ida B. Tarbell’s request for an interview about the famed president because, “the study of Lincoln is complete.” While an enormous primary source base concerning Lincoln has been gathered, few scholars have plumbed reactions to Lincoln using a cultural lens. This dissertation pulls from three fields of nineteenth century American history, using Lincoln scholarship, masculinity, and urban culture to uncover how Lincoln’s manhood was perceived in the urban northeast. Even though immediate reactions to his boorish backcountry image were often unfavorable, this dissertation contends curiosity about Lincoln’s western manhood facilitated his reception in, and around, New York City, Boston, Washington D.C., and Philadelphia. Building off established cultural practices such as the inculcation of alluring sights and popular print stories of western men—Lincoln’s manhood proved a compelling source of entertainment while subtly jarring longstanding ideals of what it meant to be a gentleman and statesman in the antebellum urban northeast. By considering how Lincoln’s western manhood was contested, received, and approved, this dissertation uncovers the cultural context Lincoln negotiated while also identifying the imbedding and perpetuation of consumption in the urban northeast. I contend that a consumerist orientation surmounted and 1 coopted an established refined tradition in the urban northeast and, in the process, altered the perception of Lincoln’s western manhood in the urban northeast.1 Despite the pools of ink spilled over writing something new about Lincoln’s life, studying him from a gendered angle has received little attention. Scholars affirm that a refined manhood was the dominant ideal during the nineteenth century, an ideal that Lincoln did not fit.2 Most Lincoln scholars instead place the sixteenth president in the tradition of the sturdy yeoman: frugal, industrious, and independent.3 But this does not match the impression northeast society had of the former-railsplitter. What historians have hinted at—but not developed—is the divide 1 Kathleen Brady, Ida Tarbell: Portrait of a Muckraker (New York: Putnam's, 1984), 96. 2 This dissertation benefits from various approaches to the study of manhood in the nineteenth century United States. Lorien Foote uses the Union Army discern the stratified notions of manhood between soldiers and officers. Amy Greenberg probes imperial efforts through the lens of two opposing views, restrained manhood and martial manhood. Thomas Augst and J.M. Opal examine the different concepts of morality and ambition between the city and agrarian communities. Augst, with an astute eye, traces how men’s concept of morality shifted once they were transplanted from the farm to the city. Both Richard Bushman’s Refinement of America and Paul E. Johnson and Sean Wilentz’s The Kingdom of Matthias shed light on the reception of genteel manhood as it moved outside the city. Nicole Etcheson meanwhile argues that political manliness in the Old Northwest represented a blend of Southern and Northern manly ideals. Lorien Foote, Gentlemen in the Roughs: Violence, Honor, and Manhood in the Union Army. New York: New York University Press, 2010); Amy S Greenberg, Manifest Manhood and the Antebellum American Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005; Thomas Augst, The Clerk's Tale: Young Men and Moral Life in Nineteenth-Century America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003); Nicole Etcheson, The Emerging Midwest: Upland Southerners and the Political Culture of the Old Northwest, 1787- 1861 (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1996); Paul E. Johnson and Sean Wilentz, The Kingdom of Matthias (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994); Richard Bushman,