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A Controversial Abraham Lincoln Statue – No, Not That One

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Lincoln Trilogy close upAbraham Lincoln is the most memorialized president in American history, in terms of the number of monuments and statues in all fifty states and the U.S. territories. According to the National Monument Audit completed in 2021, there were 193 Lincoln monuments in America, followed by George Washington at 171, Christopher Columbus at 149, and Martin Luther King Jr. with 86. Those numbers keep changing – several new Lincoln statues have gone up in 2023 alone, and statues to Columbus and Confederate General Robet E. Lee are being removed. But Lincoln is likely to continue to have the most statues. That said, not all of them are great. Some of them are downright controversial.

Among the controversial ones are Thomas Ball’s Emancipation Memorial, aka the Freedman’s Memorial, in Lincoln Park, Washington, DC. From its dedication in 1876, its visual depiction of a standing Lincoln and a kneeling African American man beginning to rise from enslavement, the statue has been problematic. A copy of it was removed from its pedestal in Boston during the protests of 2020, while activists attempted to have it taken down in Washington (a bill to have it removed has been introduced by DC Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton). The fact that it was paid for entirely from funds raised by the formerly enslaved and that Frederick Douglass keynoted the dedication has not kept the discomfort at bay. Meanwhile, the so-called “belly-ache” statue by George Grey Barnard was vehemently attacked by none other than Robert T. Lincoln, the only living son of Lincoln. Robert successfully kept a copy of that statue from being placed in London. The original did get placed in Lytle Park in Cincinnati, with the copy going off to Manchester, England while a copy of Chicago’s Augustus Saint-Gaudens statue is now featured prominently in Parliament Square, London.

Which gets us back to Vermont. Yes, Vermont.

During my recent travels in New England I stopped at Hildene, which I’ll have more about later. Down the road in Bennington, Vermont is the Bennington Museum, in front of which stands a Lincoln grouping called “The Lincoln Trilogy,” although it is also known by a reimagined name, “The American Spirit.” At first glance you can see why the statue is controversial.

Lincoln Trilogy, Bennington Museum, Vermont

Lincoln stands fully clothed, complete with a heavy cape and top hat. Sitting at his feet is a barely covered female figure looking up to him from his waist. He has his hand on her head. His other hand grasps the head of a small boy, unclothed and standing below him. The juxtaposition of the three figures is jarring, at best, even after taking a while to examine it. What could the artist have been thinking?

For one, the artist was not originally thinking the three figures were designed to be placed together.

The standing figure of the boy is called Fils de France, designed independently in 1918 to reflect a young boy gazing intently into the distance symbolizing rebirth of France following the devastation of World War I. The female figure was also produced in 1918 and in response to the War. Called Nirvana, the statue was originally completely nude, the woman’s attitude of tranquility personified the Buddhist concept of nirvana as a spiritual emancipation from passion, hatred, and delusion. Both individual statues are inside the Museum. They follow the stylistic tradition of idealized nude figures developed by the ancient Greeks and Romans. The Lincoln statue provides a stark contrast. One of many Lincoln statues the artist, Clyde du Vernet Hunt, created in his lifetime, it reflects a tribute to Lincoln as an actual historical figure. Hunt revered Lincoln as an idealist, humanitarian, and emancipator, which he tried to capture in the powerfully majestic pose of the statue. Each statue was designed to stand on its own merits and meanings.

Clyde du Vernet Hunt was born in Scotland to American parents traveling in Europe. His grandfather had been a U.S. Congressman and his father served in the adjutant-general’s department during the Civil War. Clyde Hunt studied engineering and art and maintained a studio in Paris and home in Vermont. Hunt was invited to exhibit his work at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1918, a remarkable achievement for an American artist. He submitted his bronze Fils de France (the boy sculpture) and the marble Nirvana (the woman sculpture), both of which received favorable reviews. A decade later, the Societe des Artistes Francais asked him to participate in the exclusive Paris Salon. He created a large plaster group combining the Lincoln statue with the figures of Nirvana and Fils de France. Lincoln and the boy are exact duplicates of the original versions, but Hunt enlarged the female figure of Nirvana and discretely draped the nude female for inclusion in the grouping. [How discrete the draping is a matter of opinion]. Hunt entitled the grouping simply “Lincoln” for the Paris Salon but envisioned it as representing the ideals of Faith (Nirvana), Hope (Fils de France), and Charity (Lincoln, from his “charity for all and malice toward none”). Within this context back in the states, the Fils de France was reinterpreted as “young America.”

The Museum admits that the intellectual concept behind the Lincoln Trilogy was more successful than the visual relationship of the three figures. Even they admit the combination of three distinctly individual sculptures of differing scale and spatial orientation is “somewhat awkward.” After returning to the US in 1938, Hunt cast the trilogy in bronze for display at the New York World’s Fair. Hunt’s heirs presented the bronze trilogy to the Bennington Museum in 1949, where the director of the museum appended the title “The American Spirit” to the statues, an interpretation influenced by the nationalism of the 1940s. So whereas one of the statues depicts a Civil War president, and two of the statues were influenced by World War I, the reinterpretation and retitling came about due to World War II.

Despite the controversy, the statue grouping is worth a visit. The Bennington Museum is a short drive from Robert T. Lincoln’s summer home at Hildene, so definitely put it on your agenda if you’re in the area.

[Photos by David J. Kent]

 

Fire of Genius

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

 

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Climate Influenced Abraham Lincoln’s Move From Kentucky to Indiana

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Lincoln at JonesboroEl Nino is officially here, which usually means warmer temperatures across much of the United States and Canada. But did you know that changes in the climate in 1816 influenced Abraham Lincoln’s move from Kentucky to Indiana?

The Lincoln family was living on the Knob Creek farm in northern Kentucky in 1816. The farm contained only three small fields in a valley surrounded by high hills, thus subject to repeated flooding after heavy rain. Abe remembered a time that summer in which his father was planting corn while Abe dropped pumpkin seeds into nearby furrows. A week later: “there came a big rain in the hills, it did not rain a drop in the valley, but the water coming down through the gorges washed ground, corn, pumpkin seeds and all clear off the field.” This incident taught Abe a brutal lesson in farming: one poorly timed deluge could disrupt an entire summer’s crop. Of course, drought could have similarly devastating effects, as could insect infestation or poor soil quality. Rarely was there a year without calamity.

Not long after this, Thomas lost three-quarters of his land, “partly on account of slavery,” but mostly because of Kentucky’s inadequate surveying and land title system. Although only seven years old at the time, Lincoln could sense the importance of skilled surveyors, a lesson he carried into manhood. He likely also noticed another scientific factor influencing the Lincoln family’s decision to move to greener pastures—climatic extremes.

That summer of 1816 brought unusually severe cold to the Lincolns’ drafty log cabin. Deep freezes, each lasting a week in June, July, and August, stunted crops. The end of summer brought two killer frosts that killed off much of what was left of the year’s growth. Crop failures led to hoarding and hunger. Prices for agricultural commodities such as wheat, vegetables, meat, butter, milk, and flour soared. Animals, both wild and domesticated, scraped by on inadequate forage. It was a terrible year for farmers.

The “year without a summer” was so extensive that widespread cold and famine spread across the United States, Asia, and Europe, with history-changing effects. Farmers in New England gave up and moved west, beginning a process of westward migration that altered the course of the growing nation. Loss of crops in the Yunnan province of China led family farms to switch to the more durable and profitable opium crop, giving rise to the “Golden Triangle” of opium production. In Switzerland, the damp dreariness of Lake Geneva kept nineteen-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft inside a chalet with future husband Percy Shelley and prominent poet Lord Byron. Challenged to while away the bleakness by writing ghost stories, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley brought to life a creation called Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus.

No one understood it at the time, but modern scientists now know the disruption was caused by a geological phenomenon half a world away. Mount Tambora, a massive volcano on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa, erupted in early April 1815, reducing the volcanic peak’s height from over 14,000 feet to less than 10,000 in seconds. The colossal eruption destroyed local villages, killing over 10,000 people, while spewing 100 cubic kilometers of molten rock, ash, and pumice over 800 miles away. Ten times the explosive power of the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa (made more famous by the invention of the telegraph), Tambora sent toxic clouds into the atmosphere that affected global climate patterns for several years. By the spring and summer of 1816, a persistent sulfate aerosol veil often described as a “dry fog” settled in over the eastern United States.

Tambora’s climate-altering effect on top of the recent crop losses solidified Thomas’s tentative deliberations, and the Lincolns moved to Indiana in December. After the rough year, November and December proved mercifully warmer than normal, again a lingering effect of the Mount Tambora eruption.

[Adapted from Lincoln: The Fire of Genius]

[Photo by David J. Kent, Jonesboro, IL]

 

Fire of Genius

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

 

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Lincoln’s Discoveries and Inventions – Bringing the Power of Science to Agriculture

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National Academy of SciencesIn Abraham Lincoln’s lecture on Discoveries and Inventions, he discussed how the ingenuity of man had made life easier for the growing millions of Americans. Early in the lecture he used biblical language to relate how the need for clothing led to technological advances, as was also true for communication. At one point he turned to transportation. As with clothing, he stressed the advantages of inventive, productive labor that improves the human condition. Here the goal was to advance beyond human motive power to get from place to place. Inventive thought led to development of the wheel, then wagons on land and boats on water. These were powered by animals such as horses, mules, and oxen on land, or wind and paddles on the water.

Lincoln thought back to his own invention for a system to float boats over obstructions. He reminded his audience of “the philosophical principle upon which the use of the boat primarily depends—to wit, the principle, that anything will float, which cannot sink without displacing more than its own weight of water,” although he admitted it was unlikely that principle of physics was known when the first boats were made. Rather, it was by observation of floating objects that the self-evident principle was discovered where objects heavier than water could remain on the surface of water.

Lincoln explored another topic on which he was eminently conversive—agriculture. Describing food as man’s “first necessity,” he explained that after the fall, “labor was imposed on the race, as a penalty—a curse.” He lamented that while agriculture was perhaps the most important science, it had derived less direct advantage from discovery and invention than almost any other. The plow was one example of invention put to work in the field, but only after man had conceived of substituting other forces for man’s muscular power. These forces, Lincoln indicated, were “the strength of animals, and the power of the wind, of running streams, and of steam.” Lincoln would revisit agriculture as president, but his foresight in seeing the advantages of wind showed that he was ahead of scientists of the time. “Of all the forces of nature, I should think the wind contains the largest amount of motive power—that is, power to move things.”

“Take any given space on the earth’s surface,” Lincoln said, and all the power exerted by men, beasts, running water, and steam “shall not equal the one hundredth part of what is exerted by the blowing of the wind over and upon the same space.” Here was the man who opened with man’s digging out his destiny in an extractive economy now turning to renewable energy innovations. He acknowledged that the intermittent nature of wind had so far limited controlling and directing it, which was why it was yet “an untamed, and unharnessed force,” but argued that one of the greatest discoveries to be made was how to put the unsurpassed energy of the wind to work for man.

Lincoln also spoke of running streams as a motive power, in particular its application to mills and other machinery by means of the waterwheel. Again, referring to its use in the Bible, Lincoln reflected on his own personal experience working the grist and saw mills in New Salem. He introduced the idea of steam power, which was a modern discovery but not yet fully put toward useful work.

He was just getting started on his road to discoveries and inventions, but I’ll leave that for another post. Check out my earlier post about Lincoln discusses the forces of nature.

[Adapted from Lincoln: The Fire of Genius]

[Photo from Wiki, National Academy of Sciences founders and Lincoln]

 

Fire of Genius

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

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OTD 1848 – Congressman Lincoln Pushes for Internal Improvements

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Canal boat LaSalle ILOn June 20, 1848, Congressman Abraham Lincoln so strongly believed in the long-term economic benefit of improvements that he used some of the limited time allotted to freshmen congressmen to argue for internal improvements on the floor of the House. He began by rebutting the recent Democratic platform written for the 1848 nomination of Lewis Cass, which concluded the Constitution did not confer upon the federal government the power to carry on a system of internal improvements. Lincoln disagreed and systematically dismantled each of the positions offered to support that conclusion.

Lincoln provided concrete examples of the argument he previewed at the River and Harbor Convention. On the position that the burdens of improvements “would be general, while their benefits would be local and partial,” Lincoln did not deny that there was some degree of truth. He then pointed out the logical axiom that “no commercial object of government patronage can be so exclusively general, as to not be of some peculiar local advantage; but on the other hand, nothing is so local, as to not be of some general advantage.” As an example of the former, he reminded members that while a navy that protects shipping offers benefits to the nation as a whole, it also provides a specific local advantage to the port cities of Charleston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston well beyond any benefit to interior towns in Illinois.

Then he noted the converse is also true, that projects seemingly local can provide general benefit. Using the newly opened Illinois and Michigan Canal as an example, Lincoln acknowledged that “considered apart from its effects, it is perfectly local. Every inch of it is within the state of Illinois.” But the effects are widespread. “In a very few days” after its opening, he explained, “sugar had been carried from New-Orleans through this canal to Buffalo in New-York.” Having selected that route for its reduced cost of transport, a savings that seller and buyer presumably shared, “the result is, that the New Orleans merchant sold his sugar a little dearer; and the people of Buffalo sweetened their coffee a little cheaper.” This benefit resulted “from the canal, not to Illinois where the canal is, but to Louisiana and New-York where it is not.” This example “shows that the benefits of an improvement are by no means confined to the particular locality of the improvement itself.”

Lincoln warned that if the nation refuses to make improvements of a general kind because it might provide benefits locally, then by using the same logic, states could refuse to make an improvement of a local kind because its benefits might be more general. In essence, the “if you do nothing for me, I will do nothing for you” mentality would inhibit both local and national economic development. He hoped instead that both the nation and the states would “in good faith” do what they could in the way of improvements such that inequality perceived in one place might be compensated in another, “and that the sum of the whole might not be very unequal.”

He also argued that “The true rule, in determining to embrace, or reject any thing, is not whether it have any evil in it; but whether it have more of evil, than of good. There are few things wholly evil, or wholly good. Almost everything, especially of governmental policy, is an inseparable compound of the two; so that our best judgment of the preponderance between them is continually demanded.”

Lincoln would continue to press for government support of internal improvements. His lifelong obsession with internal improvements as a means of economic and personal growth was demonstrated by his support for progressive legislation, the inclusion of which he encouraged in the 1860 Republican platform. It was the North’s emphasis on internal improvements, and the South’s disdain for it, that made the difference during the Civil War.

A side note: June 20, 2023 is the 160th anniversary of West Virginia becoming a state, another important development during the Civil War.

More on internal improvements in Lincoln: The Fire of Genius.

[Photo by David J. Kent]

 

Fire of Genius

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

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Abraham Lincoln and the Portrait Painter

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On June 13, 1860, the newly selected Republican nominee for president, Abraham Lincoln fidgeted as he attempted to sit still for a portrait artist. The painting by Thomas Hicks is considered the first portrait oil painting ever of the man who would soon become our sixteenth president. Hicks had come to Springfield to capture the likeness of the rough, western lawyer that would preside over America’s greatest trial. It would be one of many portraits, both in painting and in the still new technology of photography, that Lincoln would sit for in his life.

While he sat, Illinois attorney Orville Hickman Browning “spent a portion of the day with Lincoln talking to him whilst Mr Hicks worked upon his portrait.” Browning recalled, “[Hicks] completed it this P. M. In my judgment it is an exact, life like likeness, and a beautiful work of art. It is deeply imbued with the intellectual and spiritual, and I doubt whether any one ever succeeds in getting a better picture of the man.”

Thomas Hicks was born in Newtown, Pennsylvania, a rural enclave closer to Trenton, New Jersey than it is to Philadelphia. He quickly showed his talent, moving to New York when he was fifteen to study at the National Academy of Design, where his first major painting, “The Death of Abel,” was exhibited in 1841. A few years later he moved to Europe and studied in London, Paris, Florence, and Rome, before returning to New York four years later and beginning a successful career as a portrait painter. He would go on to paint some of the most iconic figures of the period, including Henry Ward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Cullen Bryant, Margaret Fuller, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and perhaps most ironically, Edwin Booth. But his most famous portrait is his painting of Abraham Lincoln.

Made more famous by its wide distribution as an engraving, the original painting is now exhibited at the Chicago Historical Society. I visited there several years ago and took the below photo. Unfortunately, the painting has a glass cover and it’s impossible to get a photograph of it without glare from the exhibit lighting.

 

Hicks became a philanthropist during his highly successful painting career, although he has been largely forgotten since his death in 1890. Mostly this is because his portraiture style had become out-of-date and photography had become so popular that painted portraits were being obsolete, except by the very wealthy.

Lincoln, of course, has been the subject of many paintings, at least 131 photographs of various styles, and hundreds (or thousands) of statues and busts around the world. Hicks may have faded from memory, but his post-nomination portrait helped get Lincoln’s face known to a curious general public ahead of the 1860 election.

[Photo by David J. Kent]

 

Fire of Genius

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

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The Fire of Genius in the Civil War Monitor Magazine

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Lincoln: The Fire of Genius has been reviewed several times, including in Civil War Times, but there was recently a new one in the Civil War Monitor magazine. Written by Jonathan Tracey, co-editor of Civil War Monuments and Memory with Chris Mackowski, the review is very positive.

Civil War Monitor screenshot

Tracey notes:

“Kent, who has authored books on Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison, applies his technological history lens to Abraham Lincoln in this book. Part biography and part history of innovation, Kent moves chronologically through Lincoln’s life following the threads of technology and science.”

And,

“Throughout the book, Kent repeatedly supplies strong evidence that Lincoln was a thoughtful and curious man who defied stereotypes. He was aware of advancement in fields as diverse as soil sciences, ship design, railroads, and military weapons, and he used this information in his professional and political careers.”

You can read the entire review online.

The Civil War Times review can be found in the Spring 2023 issue (page 67).

This week also featured comments from me in a Salon article written by Matt Rozsa. He explored the incident in which Lincoln says he sewed the eyes of hogs shut to get them on the flatboat (which didn’t work). Rozsa quoted me substantively, along with Harold Holzer and the president of PETA. You can read that article online at: https://www.salon.com/2023/06/04/abraham-lincoln-pig-torture-animal-cruelty-compassion/

Rozsa had quoted me last year in an article about Lincoln’s patent: https://www.salon.com/2022/08/27/abraham-lincoln-master-inventor-the-true-story-of-the-only-to-ever-patent-an-invention/

More past events and media mentions can be found on my media page.

[Screenshot of Civil War Monitor review online]

 

Fire of Genius

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

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Lincoln Memorial Dedication, Daniel Chester French, and Many, Many Cemeteries

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The original Memorial Day, then called Decoration Day because gravestones of fallen soldiers would be decorated with American flags, was May 30, 1868. It remained the 30th until 1970, the first year it was officially designated as the last Monday in May. May 30th was also the date on which the Lincoln Memorial was dedicated in 1922. Robert Lincoln, Abraham and Mary’s oldest son and the only one of the four boys to reach maturity, was present at the dedication. I had the privilege of emceeing the Lincoln Memorial Centennial program in 2022. If you missed it, you can watch the entire program on C-SPAN.

Memorial Day was celebrated yesterday, May 29, 2023. President Biden Vice President Harris laid the traditional wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. Arlington was created in the Civil War on the property belonging at the time by Robert E. Lee, whose defection to the confederacy led the United States government to take possession of the land and dedicate it as a resting place for soldiers. It also holds the graves of presidents (e.g., John F. Kennedy) and Robert Lincoln, who was buried in Arlington at the request of his wife rather than in the Lincoln Tomb in Springfield, Illinois with his parents and brothers.

The Memorial Day observances reminded me how many cemeteries I’ve visited in recent years. I had grown up across the street from the Old Burying Ground, one of the oldest cemeteries in the country, having been established in 1634. I’ve visited many cemeteries over the years during my various road trips to examine Lincoln sites. In addition to the Lincoln Tomb, I’ve seen the gravestones of Lincoln’s sister Sarah, his parents, and many other relatives and others associated at one time or another with Lincoln. And of course, I usually end up in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania each year where Lincoln spoke at the dedication of the cemetery with his unforgettable Gettysburg Address.

On my most recent road trip that took me to New England, I made sure to stop at the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts. Concord had been a hotbed of transcendentalism in the 1800s, which attracted authors such as poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer Louisa May Alcott (Little Women), Nathaniel Hawthorne (Scarlet Letter, House of Seven Gables), and Henry David Thoreau (Walden, Civil Disobedience). Gravestones for these authors are conveniently placed near each other in an area called “Authors’ Ridge.” One of the more famous memorials at Sleepy Hollow is from the team that brought us the Lincoln Memorial. Daniel Chester French was commissioned by Boston businessman James Melvin to create a funerary monument to honor his three brothers who died in the Civil War. Asa, John, and Samuel Melvin had all served in Company K of the First Massachusetts Heavy Artillery. French designed the central figure of Mourning Victory emerging from a block of marble and overlooking bronze memorial tablets for each of the three brothers. The exedra that surrounds the monument was designed by Henry Bacon, just as Bacon designed the Lincoln Memorial that surrounds French’s massive seated Lincoln sculpture that dominates the Memorial’s interior.

French’s original design was to have the image of “Victory” with her right arm outstretched and the left raised. After seeing the location of the monument in Sleepy Hollow, French decided to switch the positioning, putting the left arm outstretched so that people coming up the path would not have the face of “Victory” covered by her upraised elbow. But when a copy of the monument was created for the Metropolitan Museum of Art a few years later, French had it carved according to the original design, with the right arm outstretched.

Other stops on the New England road trip took me to Hildreth Cemetery in Lowell, Massachusetts to see the massive gravestone of General Benjamin Franklin Butler, a key figure in the Civil War and later a Massachusetts congressman and governor. I also stopped at the Grove Street Cemetery not far from the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, to see the graves of Eli Whitney and his family. Whitney played a major role in my book Lincoln: The Fire of Genius because in 1794 he patented the cotton gin, which made it easier to remove the seeds from cotton bolls, thus making cotton more profitable and inadvertently leading to the expansion of slavery.

All this talk about my time visiting cemeteries reminds me that last September I had the honor of being one of the dedicatory speakers for a new monument in Congressional Cemetery in Washington, DC that honors famed Civil War photographer Mathew Brady (whose photograph of Lincoln on the day of his Cooper Union speech may have made him president), Abraham Lincoln himself, and Frederick Douglass. I also had the privilege each of the last several years of laying a wreath at the feet of Daniel Chester French’s seated Lincoln in Henry Bacon’s Lincoln Memorial as part of the annual Lincoln’s birthday program.

I do feel as if I live a privileged life, even if it seems I spend an inordinate time in cemeteries.

[Photo by David J. Kent, 2023]

 

Fire of Genius

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

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The One Year Anniversary of the Lincoln Memorial Centennial Program

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David J Kent at the Lincoln MemorialOne year ago today I was the master of ceremonies for the centennial anniversary of the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial. What an experience it was.

Two recent posts on Lincolnian.org (the website of the Lincoln Group of DC, of which I am president) recounted highlights from the program. My reminiscences noted that the program was a year in the making, with me as the lead organizer but several others in the Lincoln Group using their contacts to help get some of the key participants. We were able to get the services of some of well-known Lincoln scholars, historically important speakers, a fantastic singer to highlight the evolving role of the Memorial from one of reconciliation to a symbol of the rights of all Americans, a famous actor to recite the dedicatory poem and Lincoln’s two most famous speeches, and even “The President’s Own” Marine Band.

Wendy Swanson’s newest post recalls the Lincoln Memorial Centennial as “A Shining Moment,” both for the Memorial and the Lincoln Group of DC. Whereas the sole African American participant’s speech was censored at the Jim Crow-era dedication in 1922…:

“the theme of the 2022 offering – “Building on Lincoln’s Vision of Unity and Equality” – clearly proclaimed that this event would be different. In 2022 Lincoln would be celebrated both as a unifier and as an emancipator. It was fitting and proper to do so – after all, over the years Lincoln’s Memorial has become not only a tribute to the man himself but also a symbol of social justice and equality for all.”

She noted that:

“The program executed that theme beautifully – a mixture of history, music, and inspiration but also of “calls to action.” Moreover, unlike in 1922, those gathered that morning – both the speakers and the attendees – reflected the face and diversity of America.”

In my reminiscences, I noted that:

“By all metrics, the Lincoln Memorial Centennial event was a wonderful success. We managed to pay homage to the original dedication while also correcting some of the deficiencies of that day. We also captured the continuing evolution and growth of the Memorial’s meaning to all Americans. I believe we honored Abraham Lincoln with our program and demonstrated how the Memorial will continue to be a focal point for both memory and change. It seemed altogether fitting and proper that at the end of the formal ceremonies, we invited all of those present – speakers, organizers, park rangers, audience members, and random visitors – to join us on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial for a grand photo, which can be seen on our website.”

Lincoln Memorial

Looking back, the Centennial program was a lot of work on the part of many people. But it was a program that I’ll forever be proud of for how we captured the continuing and evolving meaning of the Memorial both for Lincoln’s memory and the future of all Americans.

[All photos: Bruce Guthrie]

 

Fire of Genius

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

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Barcelona: Catalonia, Not Spain? Plus, Photos of Park Guell

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As mentioned in the last post, my trip around the Iberian Peninsula ended in Barcelona, the largest city the Catalonia region and the second largest city in all of Spain. But is it actually in Spain? Well, it’s complicated.

Spain is a nation, but it’s also a collection of autonomous communities created in accordance with the Spanish Constitution of 1978. In short, Spaniards were not keen on going through another bout of central control such as they had just done for nearly four decades under the nationalistic dictator Francisco Franco. After his death they tried to have both a country and the freedom for different regions to act on their own. The result is what some call a “federation without federalism,” which is topic others can dive into but I’ll skip. The bottom line is that Catalonia, the region of northeastern Spain that includes Barcelona, is fiercely regionalistic, going so far as to declare themselves independent. Whereas English was fairly commonly used – spoken, on menus, signs, etc. – throughout the trip, Barcelona was a bit less so, especially once leaving the big tourist areas. This was made especially obvious when we ventured down a twisted alley in the El Born neighborhood of Barcelona to eat at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant where the waiter and menu had fewer words of English than I know of Catalan [Hint: Zero].

In any case, we powered through with a lot of pointing and rudimentary Spanish to totally enjoy the visit. One of the highlights of Barcelona was Park Guell (pronounced “Gway”). This was Antoni Gaudi’s exquisite contribution to Barcelona society, a beautiful park that demonstrates why his quirky designs defined Catalan Modernism. He was a big proponent of curvy architecture and the use of mosaics made from cracked ceramics. You’ll see his influence throughout Barcelona, including in the Casas Battlo and Pedrera, and, of course, the Sagrada Familia.  I’ll have more photos from other sites as I can get them loaded.

 

Due to limits of photo uploads on WordPress, I’ll post more photos on my Facebook author page.

[All photos: David J. Kent, 2023]

 

Fire of Genius

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

 

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Cruising Lisbon to Barcelona, and Everywhere in Between

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A few days ago, I returned from a two-and-a-half-week Windstar cruise-plus trip around the Mediterranean. We started in Lisbon and ended in Barcelona, but made several stops along the way, including Gibraltar, and Morocco. Here are the places we stopped. It was an amazing experience.

Windstar cruise Lisbon to Barcelona

This is our fourth Windstar trip. Previously we sailed in the Caribbean, yachted in the Baltic Sea, and motored from Hong Kong to Singapore via the Philippines, Borneo, and Brunei. We were supposed to be on another trip in the Caribbean to northern South America in December 2019 but it was canceled at the last minute due to mechanical difficulties. Then COVID hit and nothing happened for a while. Last year we were booked for a trip starting and ending in Istanbul that bounced around the Black Sea, including Odessa, Ukraine. Needless to say, the cruise line canceled that trip as soon as Russia invaded Ukraine. We ended up in Iceland instead, then a trip to Tanazania near the end of 2022. This was our first Windstar since late 2018 and it was wonderful. The ships carry only about 300 passengers, so unlike the big multi-thousand hotel ships, Windstar gives you the chance to get to know the other passengers and crew.

Looking at the map above you can see there are a lot of markers inland. Obviously, we didn’t sail the ship to Marrakesh, but in retrospect it turned out that we took excursions to other cities at each stop other than Gibraltar. That expanded the cultural immersion immensely.

We arrived in Lisbon, Portugal early on Thursday. The cruise didn’t board until Saturday afternoon so we played tourist in the city, hitting all the hot spots like the castle, the Belem tower, the Monument to the Discoveries, and wandering the neighborhoods. On Friday we took the train out to Sintra. Not only was it the only rainy day during the entire trip, it was a day of deluge. It rained so hard it soaked through my otherwise trusty umbrella and created its own rain on me. Still, it was worth the trip. I had been in Lisbon and Sintra about 15 years ago but hadn’t planned ahead so didn’t even see much other than the famed Oceanario.

The first stop on the ship was Gibraltar and a tour around the “Rock” and its famous apes and St. Michael’s Cave. Then we were off to Casablanca, Morocco. I had always wanted to visit because of the Humphrey Bogart movie, but was told by others that the trip out to Marrakesh was a better use of time. So onto a 12-hour excursion to the city made famous (at least to me) by the Crosby, Stills, and Nash song, “Marrakesh Express.” Long day but worth it.

Then it was back to bounce around Spain. Porting at Cadiz overnight, we spent one day roaming the city and another day going out to Jerez, where we toured a vineyard, wine cellar, and best of all, got to taste two kinds of sherry and a brandy. [Yes, we bought some to take home] Malaga was another overnighter so we walked Picasso’s birth city one day and on the other day took a trip out to Cordoba, home of a huge mosque that was turned into a church (the mosque had been built on a previous church; such back and forth happened a lot as the Muslim Moors and Christians took turns invading each other’s space). Our stop in Cartagena gave us an opportunity to go out to Murcia, heavy in preparations for one of the seemingly ubiquitous music festivals, and still had plenty of time to wander the city of Cartagena itself.

The Windstar cruise ended in Barcelona, Spain. Again, I had been there about 15 years ago but only for a day. This time I was determined to get into the Sagrada Familia (which has grown a lot in 15 years), the Picasso Museum, and spend some time in the Catalonian city of Gaudi. In keeping with the trend of maximizing the opportunities, we took a 3+ hour bus ride from Barcelona to the tiny country of Andorra, deep in the Pyrenees mountains nestled on the border between Spain and France. I’ll write more later, but one thing I noticed is that is that English seemed to disappear as we got into the Catalonia region of Spain. Barcelonians and the greater Catalonians are feverishly protective of their Catalan heritage, going so far as to declare their independence from Spain (which neither Spain nor any other country I’m aware of has conceded to). This was especially true in Andorra where I had to struggle through my rudimentary Spanish and French just to order lunch (the waitress laughed when I asked for an English menu).

Two and half weeks later we’re back in the USA, having visited five countries, thirteen cities, one aquarium, and two or three thousand photo opportunities. It will take a while to sort through the photos, but I’ll be back to flesh out the highlights of key stops.

[Map created by Ru Sun, who in addition to being such a great travel companion, had to survive my temporary insanity in the tower of the Sagrada Familia.]

 

Fire of Genius

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.