Snapshots of People Meeting Abraham Lincoln

“I see you have erected a very fine and handsome platform here for me, and I presume you expected me to speak from it.”

― Abraham Lincoln

 

 

The most famous statue of Abraham Lincoln (12 February 1809 – 15 April 1865) is the ginormous one sculpted by Daniel Chester French (1850–1931) and embedded into the Lincoln Memorial (constructed 1914–1922) on the National Mall in Washington D.C. (founded 16 July 1790). The thing rises 30 feet (9.1 m) from the floor, including the 19-foot (5.8 m) seated figure of the 16th US president.

Carved in white marble, it’s big, honest and tough. Lincoln’s enemies would have a hard job pulling it from the pediments. An arm or leg might fall off, but effigies to heroes of ancient Greece and Rome have never looked better than when they’re missing a nose or a foot and nodding to their humanity.

More than any other artforms, statues mark time and its passing. When despots go their statues topple; when religious lunatics gain power they blow statues up; conforming revisionist triggered by a myopic yearning to be on the ‘right side of history’ demand their removal; and when the regent falls their likeness gets sat on a stone horse for posterity.

So Lincoln sits in the world’s biggest seat of power, tourists and other visitors milling by his feet. But if you can’t get to DC to see the big one, don’t worry. Just as there was more than one statue of Italy’s wartime leader, the brick-jawed Benito Mussolini, or Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin, who other than Jesus Christ must be the world’s all-time leading statue model, there are many likeness to Lincoln throughout the US.

Thanks to Robert E. Jackson, we can see people posting with Lincoln in his collection of snapshots.

As ever, let’s enjoy the pictures and imagine the stories between…