they can do things that may not be expressly stated in the constitution. and the limits the congress and court can place on it. he said as you did in your opening, the u.s. as only one in four that allowed abortion. it has not settled the issue at all. >> tonight, israel versus wade, the case that determines a woman's right to have an abortion was covered under the women's right to privacy. atch landmark cases tonight 10:00 eastern on c-span and c-span www.c-span.org. >> coming up next on the presidency, senior historian david ward chronicles abraham lincoln's life photographs and

portraits and discusses images that are built idiosyncrasies liked what his clothes revealed about his health and why he chose certain photographers. this is a 90 minute event. >> good evening. my name is brian and i am the vice president for academic affairs at the university of st. mary and have alike to welcome you to the 18th annual university of st. mary lake and event featuring smithsonian national portrait gallery senior historian david ward who will speak on the first visual presidency, how abraham lincoln used photography for politics, which seemed particularly important this year to do. and a special welcome to the cue from c-span television covering .his event for later broadcast as a reminder, when we open the floor to questions, pleased be

sure to use the microphones. you will not be heard on television and you will miss your big media event. our speaker, david ward, joined the national portrait gallery 1981. he oversees the permanent collection galleries, including 1860.aces devoted to accomplishments, too many that i cannot going to completely, david was co-curator of an award-winning exhibition in american portraiture. also, curating new exhibits and a historical survey called "the sweat on their face."

speaking more directly to this talk tonight, david has his fourth civil war themed exhibit on view at the portrait gallery. it includes several lincoln photographs. i saw this last week and thoroughly enjoyed it. this exhibit was preceded by the portrait gallery's mask of .incoln and walt whitman walt whitman was a theme of our lincoln event last year. along the way, with his work at the national portrait gallery, this multi talented david ward is a poet, and editor, and a literary critic. a selection of his portrait was published in 2011 called "internal difference."

david urges bachelors degree from the university of rochester and a graduate degree from both warwick university in england and yale university. please join me in welcoming david ward. [applause] david: thank you, brian. i am delighted to be here. i am from the portrait gallery, i want to congratulate the portrait competition winners. i do need to say that we are traveling our competition, which opened in april, we will be at the kemper next year. i invite you all to join us then and i invite our portrait competition winners to come and see home -- to come and see how much better they are the modern portraitures.

i have been fascinated with lincoln for a very long time. the other reason i accepted this invitation, whenever i come to kansas city, i really enjoyed it. then i realized i was going to be in leavenworth. [laughter] so you are taking your chances tonight. so happy presidents' day. it is great to get together and celebrate the career of franklin pierce, john tyler, can't forget john tyler. i understandnt, the imperatives of a three-day weekend and you can't take two days off likely used to do back when i was a lad. there is a petition of the tory hey all get lumped together.

worked its way through to popular biographies that glorified lincoln, washington, or teddy roosevelt. we are more sensitive to democratic politics and diversity. they determine the outcome of role come historic events. it does not work for history. history is much more complicated. we lose something by not celebrating people who were great. it is a good idea to celebrate people who really achieved

something. while not all the presidents had, the presidents with complexity have done so. we should pay attention to it. it went the wrong way, here. it was short. i did my best. [laughter] i hit the button. [no audio] all right. theory, historians are always changing things because he needed come up with new ideas to write new books to keep their jobs. frontier thesis is largely discredited. as i have gotten older and thought about it again, not in a yes or no way, you can bring in

the prairiet crossing the west changes american character. i revert to the fact that i am in kansas and it is great to be thehe planes, which begins first volume, the prairie years. the long travel between kentucky and illinois. in washington, you are surrounded by monumental lincoln's. was an accessible figure. face.ascinated with his but sitting in this huge edifice with white marble. after mussolini, you can't use

that as a sculptural item. you have in washington, the monumental, their rico, the monumental lincoln, including the portrait that is the signature portrait in our gallery. the portrait gallery has all of the presidents along with the white house. we are the only collection that includes all the presidents. this is our signature, if you will, i have to say, they make a mistake of rehang the presidents. i don't like this portrait. i will end with the portrait i want to replace this with. it is a typical 19th century portrait. his face has been airbrushed. it is lincoln being thoughtful.

we have the mystery of abraham lincoln. the monument and the portrait extraordinary career. this was to movement from kentucky to springfield, his family spends one entire winter -- mom.ess takes his the beginnings are ultimately mysterious. exhibition "the masque of lincoln." we'll have a public persona. i have one on now. have a public persona. i have one on now. you haverivate life, different ways of doing things. lincoln had that element of a

public pose. there was something mysterious where the masque blocks lincoln. it is the susceptibility -- it -- the excess ability to lincoln becomes more and more difficult. lincoln has become part of the natural landscape. it he is lying on his back -- he is lying on his back reading. it drove his father crazy. lincoln would famously read a book while plowing and get to the end of the road and forget to turn the horse around. thomas would get angry at him. would switchn young abraham. man,dreamy young,

dreaming what? in the middle of nowhere. a small farm field. guidance. no college. century, there was no safety net. if you didn't succeed, you died, you became invisible. there was no record of your passing. lincoln and his autobiographical all facet cut off the discussion of his youth. he refuses to talk about it. lincoln does this repeatedly. he just cuts it off. analogy, thes' short and simple handles of the poor. very little inquiry about what he was doing. when thomas was on his deathbed,

the young lincoln moved on and refuses to visit, doesn't go to the funeral. relations with the man he has grown to loathe. his dad, thomas, would hire him out. this is the beginning of the ideology of free labor. it is the beginning of lincoln's evolution, someone who is an advocate of free labor. lincoln is coming of age politically.

a hierarchical element when oil painting is disappearing. presidents liked george washington, especially, but andrew jackson and the lesser-known one john quincy adams, would have an oil painting done because it was customary descendent from the kings and claims of england. -- kings and queens of england. chain moved on the food to the local almanacs and newspapers, the quality becomes not artistic. thursday to find energy that photography satisfied -- there was this thirst to find energy that

photography satisfied. .e worked his way up he is becoming a lawyer and establishing himself. he has gone through this process of self teaching of where all the cliches are true. he does walk five miles to return five cents where he is walking -- working in a shop. mystery of this .odern country lincoln is coming out of the west. he is coming into prominence. in 1846, he starts to get photographed. the thing that is interesting about lincoln politically to me is that he is a classic figure

of the democratic party. west. he is coming into prominence. in 1846, he starts to get which is aa wiig, party of privilege. they have taken the example of the french revolution. a clash between the have and-a-half knots. the have nots. does, this is a .ask of lincoln's hands that he didphasize work unwillingly for his father. and more willingly as he made his way on the river looking for jobs in the 19th century when there was no real pattern you could follow outside of the

priesthood that would get you ahead. we think of lincoln as he has become mythologized as not really being human. but he was intensely human. of the things he has was the attribute of his physical strength. he was 6'4". he was famous for his wrestling ability. parallelhold a sledge to the ground and he could hold it there longer than anyone else. this element of masculine fortitude. although he jokes about his service in the black hawk war, -- there is career an element that is early charisma embodied in his physique in the way he

appeared. for trade in these photographs and ultimately, in the oil painting. the thing that makes lincoln a wiig, he is the only president to receive a patent, which is nice for me. in the portrait gallery, the original patent office building, it was built in the 1830's under jackson. i invite you all to visit. just call me and i will show you around. building which is a symbol of american progress is a takeoff of the american economy in the 1830's under the of jacksonian.

appealing to lincoln as a rising man in springfield. he was a man on the make. he becomes a corporation lawyer, works for the railroads. he invented was particularly interesting. patent without an invention actually working. [laughter] this is a model we have in the collection. you can see the label. famous for thes sandbars and construction. in thiscoln invented sort of barge was a way of walking the boat over. they would have two men on each boat and eventually shuffled the boat over to the

sandbar and move down the river. element ofis openness to lincoln that the river should be open and opportunity should exist. channels of industry should exist. he creates his fascinating tohanism that would allow carry it down the river. vicksburgcontrols during the civil war. lincoln writes that the father to thers runs on decks sea. the point of america was to have this element of opportunity and discourse and openness and the river should run free. and back to the landscape

this notion that the south could not be allowed to leave the union because it was a part of the sacred ground of the union. first pictures of lincoln getting his crew off the ground. hised to address homeliness. he was famously ugly, supposedly. su. he seems more and more attractive to me. the thing i was struck by what i tousled, this was the romantic hair. but what i noticed was the hooded eyes and sense of inwardness that lincoln is centered on an inward looking.

you don't get people smiling in 19th century photographs. , heoln is picturing himself is still a bad dresser. he has this incredible tie. what did he wear? he would universally wear black. i was struck again and i come of the the dreaminess eyes. the politician who was masking his intentions behind jokes. again with lincoln, there is this sense of an understanding of who he was. himself.uld not reveal he is famous for using jokes to distract people.

they think he is a buffoon. lincoln is using jokes and country folk tales. william steward and unlike those like those jokes, but the people dead. it was a way of connecting with the public and the way linking connected with the public when he was elected. but the homeliness become something that lincoln was more than happy to use to his advantage. opinions differ. spouse is the's best person they've met. smoothnesshave the of the eastern politicians. responded by saying

my opposers accuse me of being two-faced. humility is not completely forced or fictional. lincoln knew who he was in new what he looked like. he could use to his advantage with frontiersmen coming east. women and lincoln share this curious connection. lincoln.e to idolize there is an amazing quote by whitman and one of his political tracks. a redeemer president of the united states who would

from the west clearing the mountainside. american blacksmith or boat man and walk into the presidency. i go back to this sense of the west, which whitman hits very early on. he responded not only to whitman 's democracy, but of course, with a sense of the union, that the union would be wound up. they would be exemplified by the bond that exists between each of us. again, lincoln early on, the photographic process, i am jumping chronologically. we need to remember that photography is just getting started.

record. have a complete you have this episodic -- they worked their way through the archives. this element of an advertisement for himself. they have a deal where they rotate offices. he is a one term congressman. he goes back home and clearly, as he puts it, in the context of the presidential race, where he things he has a shot in 1860, " you must admit, the taste is in my mouth." a little engine of his ambition

new no rest. ambition to escape his on -- stence as the su if you did not succeed, you would disappear. his photograph taken is evidence of his existence. this is, i think, is a wonderful photo. the prints were done by the springfield mafia for the identify him as a charismatic figure working his way through the wiig party to national prominence. days, the delegate elected senators. element of, this

verbal combat were lincoln is beginning to stake a claim making a name. stages, his joshua backers struck to commission photographers. so, his name would be known. we are dealing with a society that people did not know what other people looked like. the wy taylor wins nomination ini 1850ig. iig nomination. someone had to hurry back to clay and say that his general taylor. this element of the size of the country and distance between people and the lack of imagery as photography is coming on, not until the 20th century.

go look google, you can at yourself. but that was not the case in the 1850's. what is happening as photography is a way you can have images made. it was a way with ordinary -- photography was not cheap, but it was not expensive. controlled asidly an oil painting. process,oln did in the -- they began to realize that photography was a way of molding your personality and presenting it. whitman is photographed almost as much as lincoln. shifter.as a shape

longfellow only had one pose. he had the same pose as when he was aging and gray. he is holding a hat, a butterfly, wearing a poet's shirt, and is adapting to circumstances. lincoln was used in a slightly different way to indicate the evidence of his circumstances as he moves into prominence, moves into the white house, and leaves the civil war. mask of abraham lincoln just before he was inaugurated in 1861. this is older technology.

in order to obtain an accurate depiction of somebody, you would have a life mask taken. would come and put a big block of plaster on your head and it ever first mold. anything.urn into thomas jefferson was nearly when a man came homee retired president's and started chatting with jefferson. he lost track of the time and jefferson nearly suffocated and was too polite to get up and rip the plaster off.

finally, -- jefferson was not in good health. this is the older technology. bit toing back a little another photograph. the springfield guys put together for lincoln. this one. better in what you have again is the distant, far searching gaze.ar, . he was born in 1809. he was 56 when he dies. he is growing into manhood before our very eyes. by the tremendous circumstances of wanting a career that will move him into the law, into politics, and into office.

this is a photograph -- i have icult , you have a time doing this with powerpoint. small. very you have one in your pocket. it is about that big. they were the most widely disseminated and easily produced. they were the cheapest as opposed to the big imperial plates. plate negatives. they have not invented film. in this consultative process of chemical and visual stimulation, you would take the print from

it. i was doing this for high school students and they didn't even know what film was. [laughter] this was a photograph. this is the famous portrait that -- he says, the famous photograph that brady took that made me famou president. the republican party rises, but lincoln going back to the free soil, free labor ideology of his rewardedu should be for the work that you do. iig party is collapsing.

he is still not known. in 1859, he accepts an beecher's to come to the and give a speech -- succession crisis was growing. they wanted to know what lincoln looked like. it wanted to hear him. lincoln goes to brooke brothers, buys a suit, and goes to matthew brady's studio and has his portrait taken. he then goes to the cooper union -- delivers this incredible constitutional scholars could understand. it is an incredibly complicated, itl-run speech about why is

is unconstitutional for the south to succeed. they had to take them seriously as a candidate. he establishes that in the cooper union. brady takes his photograph, -- there werevis two things in the 19th century that they hav. tligion and politics with it .o devices that galvanized republican party, is the rising

-- creates modern campaigning. mthis is one of my favorite its are it you could edit and a very lightweight. the hair has been smoothed out. invented not quite photoshop, but you could see -- they cannot quite invented photoshop, but you could see it. they hired an intern to cut little ovals and put them inside these really nice, wooden, painted gold ovals and created a political pin. you could wear your lincoln heartthrob on your sleeve. there was the man.

there was lincoln himself. you could proudly proclaim your allegiance to abraham lincoln. buts just amazing to me, this is the beginning of the modern media campaign adapting to all of this. i'm throwing this and again because the older world of the caricature and the newspaper did not disappear. you cannot print a newspaper with a photograph. modern journalism was in the process of being invented. i just liked this. this is lincoln, he got elected. purportedoln was a assassination plot. link and then early in the morning instead of later in the day.

he was ridiculed for this. you'll notice the really nice touch of the scaredy-cat in the foreground. cowards lincoln, the sneaking into town as a unit , breaks up. and here we are with the confluence of alexander gardner and abraham lincoln. gardner is in town working for brady. gardner would take many photographs of lincoln. again, there is the photograph presence tos to his , his moving to the job. legendarily, lincoln is sort of hiding his right hand because, supposedly, it was swollen it was swollen from shaking thousands of hands. i think that's a myth. i think it is a nice story and i don't mind retelling it. lincoln did shake a lot of hands, but this is a fairly conventional piece.

now, the other thing that needs addressing, he has grown a beard. aitman had talked about bearded man coming out of the west. lincoln famously grows the beard between the election and the inauguration. it is the biggest alteration by any president. imagine today in the president were to dramatically change their look by growing a beard between an election? what i think and met for lincoln, and i go back to this notion, the way lincoln was cutting things off from the past, he is putting aside childish things. he is out of the union. there is an element that he is toughening up. i am a big sports fan. i liked cocky. and the way the hockey players hockey. and the way the hockey players

grow a beard during the playoffs. this is the first big break for lincoln. the rising politician is getting harder. have become accustomed to his face. now you see a new face. lincoln is reinventing himself. he is the wartime president. and this is the great alexander gardner photograph as lincoln begins to deal with this crisis. it is march 1861. lincoln is inaugurated. gardner goes to the west front of the cap at all. -- the west front of the capital. he is desperately trying to keep the union together. he appeals to the mystic parts of memory that ties each of us.

the foundation of american democracy in the revolution, the declaration of independence. he is begging this outcome if you will, to remember that shared inheritance and find common ground. of course, it doesn't work. in fact, just the opposite. lincoln's words fall on deaf ears. the south takes is inauguration as a black republican, a high radical usurping power. he was overly concerned with he was overly concerned with the welfare of african-american people. the work proceeds. i am bringing in this portrait. this is the beginning of battlefield journalism with alexander gardner, who is beginning, in the same way that

photography widens the sphere of who can have a portrait made of ordinary americans. does come at the same time that he is specializing in portrait photography for the generals or ordinary americans in the studio in washington, the revolution that begins to occur here, which will have a political impact is that gardner takes his camera out to antietam. 25,000 killed and wounded in one day. the battlefield is this smoking wreckage because there is no infrastructure to take care of the troops. there's no dog tag team. there is no great registration. and gardner takes a camera and brings back these her five -- brings back these incredibly horrifying scenes of american casualties. and we are critically ambivalent about displaying casualties.

gardner breaks the taboo at a very early stage. endsns romanticism -- it romanticism once and for all. realize the to consequences of the industry. "the new york times" had a great article on these photographs. mr. gardner, if he has not brought the war into our very houses, our parlors and streets, he has done something liked it. it is a huge change in american about the way that we mourn and worship and think about language and culture. people totness leads

both through an entire emotional and cultural change. where practically, again, lincoln goes out to antietam to find out what mcclellan is doing. mcclellan does not pursue south. lincoln is desperate for a general who will pursue lee. here is lincoln. -- lincoln had to wear the stove-pipe hat. hisead of minimizing height. and in the great election with douglas, douglas was not called the littlejohn for nothing because he was only five foot one. here, lincoln is towering over little mac. this, again, or mcclellan -- and mcclellan thought lincoln was a fool and treated him terribly rudely.

lincoln is incredibly patient and he says mildly to mcclellan in one of these meetings before he fires him general, if you are , not using your army, may i borrow it? [laughter] and mcclellan being of two self-important, he didn't get it . this is not the meeting in which lincoln fires mcclellan. it is where he is trying to find out what mcclellan is doing. i'm showing this picture because it is the beginning again a photojournalism. that camera was big. it was cumbersome. there was the process of taking a plate and developing it. gardner could not manipulate the camera that easily, but he was manipulating himself. he was taking himself out in getting the beginnings of photojournalism, which lincoln is participating in. and what lincoln is doing here, again, lincoln doesn't talk as

much as we think he did. his speeches, probably because a quality is really high. he would tell the crowd, i really appreciate it, but i am not going to speak. he would ask the band to play and then he would leave. and this is the obverse of what whitman was doing. whitman was constantly posing. he was changing his clothing. what lincoln is doing is indexing himself to the american people. he is using photography is a measure. as so many americans were fighting and dying, as the call was suffering more and more as mothers and fathers were mourning the lives and unworthy of the constitutional question. lincoln used photography and he was always getting photographed by gardner and the other photographers in washington. it was a way of showing that he was on duty.

you could go to gardner's studio and see them. this is where we are beginning to transition to the posthumous lincoln because we know what is coming. hugh seeley wear and tear on lincoln's body. by 1863, you could see the way the closer just hanging off of him. still,t the nice suits but he is well groomed. .he eyes are haunting this --is staring at is

-- ing home the point you notice they are not wearing shoes. these are union casualties. their shoes have been stripped by scavengers. again, lincoln is distressed because the need will not pursue lee is vigorously as he wants. and this is my favorite lincoln. this is a cut down, full faced lincoln. there is something in this picture where there is his hardening element that gardner captures perfectly. gardner was a great photographer. this photograph is more of the war hawk. it is not that oblique angle

that making usually post in. there is a fierceness to it. you are looking right into his eyes. it is i into the barrel of a gun. like looking into the barrel of a gun. this is an interesting moment in american political culture. again, it is november 8. lincoln was invited to gettysburg to give what would become the gettysburg address. famously, lincoln is not the main speaker at the dedication of the cemetery. it is edward everett, the star orator of the north. he had preprinted his remarks. and his remarks were really not remarks. they are two hours long. it is an incredibly long address. this is the thing that historians love, when these facts -- you get this level of serendipity. lincoln goes down to gardner's studio. we know he was reading everett's

address. he was chewing the fat with gardner his secretaries and he was reading it. i think lincoln was a political genius in the way he mastered campaigning and invented the campaign pen. and also in terms of what was expected and breaking the mold. lincoln did not write the gettysburg address on the trainer to gettysburg. he was thinking about it a lot in the context of anti-slavery and and abolitionism. and abolitionism. and i'm convinced he sat there and said to himself, being a sly dog, you are going to give them two hours? i'm getting give them two minutes. no one is going to stop the president for speaking if you us to speak for 45 minutes. and i'm been a take these two minutes and him going to use them, because the other thing that he does -- and we know this from the diary entry in the ward -- war department clerk.

while lincoln is sitting there, he is surrounded by the photographs that we just saw. it is a visual recapitulation of the battlefield in a graphic -- battlefield in a virtual, photographic form. i believe this is when lincoln begins to construct the great preordination of the gettysburg address. he says nothing we do or say here can consecrate this crowd anymore than those that have fought and died here. it is for us, the living, to create the new birth of freedom. this is where he cuts the cord with the past. this is when he asked for the new birth of freedom. this is when he cuts american better missing loose from issues about the union and secession and the slavery and the tired abolitionists. everything that had gone from 1776 to lincoln says enough. 1861. the new birth of freedom will be the new birth of american politics. and he radically reorients the war. so it is no longer a war for union. it is a war for freedom.

he does that because of the dialogue he was constructing in his own head between what he wanted to do and what he saw in , this terrible pictures by alexander gardner. again, this level of indexing that he is doing, the beard looking a little haphazard here. this great anthony burger photograph of lincoln, profile, this is the picture, by the way, that is on the penny. again, lincoln in profile. this is a country beginning to discover imagery. these were two cards put together and created a 3-d image. we are back here with strange looking abraham lincoln because his hair has been cut. we are back to the hooded eyes and slightly heavy downturned

mouth. the supposition is that he had a slightly different hair because he had been posing for another one of the life masks where they would grease your hair back. so that's why he looked strange. and this again is his official family, nikolai and hayes, the lincoln secretaries. again, i work in washington and a tiny bureaucracy in the great scheme of things. lincoln ran the war with two secretaries and a telegraph at the war office. .o, i commend him the federal government is in the process of being invented. nikolai and hay are the two closest observers. even the people who knew him very well thought that he was mysterious and strange and unfathomable. they never could figure it out. they always talked about what is

the tycoon up to now? we are now reaching the end game. again, the smile on lincoln's face. his son was developmentally challenged. he only lived to 18. this is the year 1865. lincoln endured the death of his son who dies in the ward. was distraught. i had a poet in the gallery and i asked him why he was interested in lincoln. he said, as a young father, he was desperately afraid for his children. and he identified with lincoln losing his son. and here is this incredible image about lincoln running the war the same time that he is

running the war as he endured the loss of his son. it's like trying to perform dog isurgery while a attacking your leg. there was his physical pain lincoln had to endure. it was indexed on his face. notice the shadows. notice the hair. again, the moving to lines on the face becoming greater. the hands gnarled. look at the suit the way it falls off him. to 1865 where lincoln is reelected. he is down below with a paper in his hand. is john boothrait who begins to stop lincoln. the two gentlemen in gray are possibly lewis powell and one of the other lincoln conspirators.

both was stocking lincoln. he was after him. he originally had a plot to kidnap lincoln. when he discovers that lincoln will give us to qualified african-americans, he said, that is it, i will run him through. in february 5, gardner was thinking this would be the last sitting. this is an early paparazzi photograph. this photographer, henry warren, had finagled his way to the white house. he was playing around. when he went to deliver the photographs, he said, go get your dad and i will take his picture, too. a rather exasperated lincoln takes time to write his a non-grill -- his inaugural address. but you will notice again the eyes disappear. his presence to the public and the suffering, the suffering we are dealing with in this great photograph by gardner, the ruins

of the south and ruins of the confederacy. the north wanted to see them beaten badly. lincoln's space with the binding the nation's wounds. here again, the last sitting with lincoln with a very haggard face. and again, when lincoln went to sit, he had several photographs taken. at the same time, he had this life mask taken for a sculpture. when people see this, they think it is a death mask because it is white and the eyes are closed. the cadaverous element suggests

somebody who is dead. there is an anticipation. this is about the same time as this. i am moving to close here. famous cracked plate. some point in the development process, probably when gardner heated the play to pull the image, you had to heat the chemical mixture before you apply the paper. the myth was that it was dropped. these were incredibly fragile items. there are only two surviving plates. andner looked at the print threw away the plates because it was not reusable. so there is one cracked plate image. it is not a very good condition and we always show it rarely. and i'm happy to have it in the garden show. but this is a single moment.

we are looking at february in 1865. think about -- he's thinking about the speech, the inauguration. thinking about reconstruction and dealing with the social problems of freedom. melancholy because he is very tired. you can see that in the photograph. you notice the shoulders are out of focus. you can read the crack lincoln

is looking forward to the future. confluence between the actual lincoln growing from nothing into something. war and enduring the simultaneous and of the war. the death of lincoln changes everything. before hisin to do assassination, we begin to look at what will happen. we are projecting backwards. it was noted instantly in this highly religious society that lincoln was shot on good friday,

the lincoln dies the next morning. now he belongs to the ages. -- now he belongs to the angels. this macabre portrait of lincoln takingse weird angels lincoln to heaven to be greeted. the founder and the preserver of the union combined together in was carried out. i chose this one because it is so terrible. [laughter] that were many others more fine art productions. rather fine depictions.

what was on everybody's mind was everybody had changed. he is disappearing at the same time. he has this small smile on his face of satisfaction. byill conclude by alluding two whitman poems. lincoln of the present moment in the middle of the victorian century of the your captain, my captain, your faithful trip is done. this allegorical elliptical

morning poem, the morningstar in the west. a little thrush that appears in certain points in the act. he mourns in the spring. not just in his political life, but there is a combination -- it is incredibly mysterious process. .is actions in this world

lincoln remains present to us. and unaccountable to us, even as we begin to try to understand america's greatest president. thank you. [applause] eager tos overly express my willingness to answer questions. if there are questions, feel free. silence.nt you into

ok, if there are no questions -- oh there is a question. you do not like to have an invitation turned down. >> i noticed no photographs from the brief and undistinguished military portion of lincoln's career. did he minimize that aspect of his background in his political -- >> no, he used it to his advantage. when lincoln was joking he was always serious. it is that interesting psychological tick. this is one of the things i like about lincoln. particularly presidential muchdates -- they talk too . they are much too self

referential. what lincoln does is -- he was in the black hawk war. it was part of his grassroots campaign to become someone. what he did was, instead of puffing this up as any other candidates did, instead of turning this into, i could have won the black hawk war. he minimizes it, he turns it into a slightly -- he deflects attention from it. he was a volunteer for a couple of months and it was not a whoation like william henry killed guys. was whatoln was doing was used in the gettysburg

address. here is the establishment, i will go against it. i will be in public and poke mild fun. it worked for him. i do not know if that answers your question. i will jump in with a quick one. in our research we found abraham lincoln was perhaps the most photographed president of the 19th century and frederick douglass's overall most photographed. lincoln led such a short life professedly, how can that be. was he using photographers that extensively and why didn't other presidents? >> it is a sort of thing that seems obvious. avant-garde here. he understood very quickly that the medium is plastic, it is

fast., it is rapid, it is they can keep up with current events as we saw with the battlefield pictures and the journalistic photo op pictures of him. there is this element of visibility that lincoln exploits. we do not know how -- lincoln was interested in technology as his background indicates. the processested in up war and modernity and there was something about it that made it attractive to him. if you want to be malicious you could say he was an eager test, but i do not believe that is the case. it is that he wanted to be visible to the public and was using it, just real quickly before we get to the next question. frederick douglas is an interesting parallel case to

lincoln. think, because he lived longer, he was taken his photograph that he was having his photograph taken because it made people visible. he moves into his career as an anti-slavery and abolitionist, this element of bearing witness, here is an african-american man. goesisibility of the cause words.ith douglas's i think if nixon had heard this he would have been president earlier. it seems today with twitter, facebook, and photoshop that is used to form images form all of

us -- or video. my question is, following on lincoln's example, his developing use of photography, did that continue in a strong way after him? >> that is the key, you see it in the technology. garner.increased -- you can blame lincoln and garner if you like. but the images are ubiquitous, we are overwhelmed with them. the verbal is turning into the visual where now we have a situation where the visual trump -- that was totally inadvertent, i am it government employee i cannot make political statements. without getting into the details of the history of photography, the sense in which photography

can be faked and manipulated becomes important. the image seemed to be from two or three photographers, how did lincoln control access to the other photographers that wanted to take his pictures? >> except for the alexander at the and where the guy ambushes lincoln, it is still pretty structured. despite that early intervention -- part of the reason why i included it -- it did not happen . they could not afford to put somebody outside of the white house gate and hope to capture marion and eve walking to the -- railwaywalking to the station. it was too cumbersome to move the photographic apparatus around. it is very much a client

relationship in which there was a kind of complicity. lincoln kept these photographs, he paid for them. it was not an official white house photographer. the deal would be -- and garner probably cut him a deal because sell theuld photographs in the same way he would take pictures of celebrities or theater people. he would do it as a form of advertisement because he could sell what of the other actors did there was not a situation where, and i do not know the mechanism where if you wrote lincoln a letter and said, can i photograph you. there were not that many photographers. there is brady studio where gardner breaks off from. there were not that many in washington, you had very few

wartime southern photographs. it is still a process being invented. the camera itself is not flexible enough that you could be outside the white house and sit. >> i was curious if you believe the affluence of his wife, mary, had anything to do with the amount of pictures that he had done. you said he paid for them personally. i am sorry the what of mary? >> the affluence of his wife. >> i would like to know more about the mechanism -- there are no personal business papers from alexander gardner. he would like to find the shop book entry in which he says, received today from lincoln, $20 for pictures. i do not know how much lincoln drew on mary's money.

>> d unit know which image was created when they made rushmore? or was it a compilation? was aould say it compilation, but i do not want to dress -- guess. i am trying to be fair to the left and right. >> i had heard there was a 21ldhood injury to one i -- to one eye. >> i have never heard that. --are always trying to find

we have come obsessed with medical explanations. maybe he was depressed, maybe if he had been on prozac we could have ended the war faster. i had not heard the eye injury story. >> how long would the subject have to remain still in order to get a sharp image? >> the cliche is you had to have your neck -- they did use a phrase from a portrait studio. stayer would ask people to still but it is coming down to 5 or 7 seconds. you needed a little camera for the little picture and a bigger

camera as you moved up in size. i really enjoyed the alexander gardner show i put on because of the photographs -- it is really beginning to make the camera mobile. if only he had the technology to invent the modern film camera and really be flexible. as it is, he has to manipulated this rather cumbersome. you also could not handhold the camera which mitigates against the kind of ambush shots of them walking out. battlefieldeners's photos staged. >> you anticipate what gardner did at gettysburg.

my gardner show closes in the middle of march. it is worth looking at these photographs. the main drive you have hit upon weree antietam portraits not. everyone was stupefied at the carnage it was a relatively small battlefield. he moves his camera in one or two spots. what you anticipate is what he .id at gettysburg this is a different lecture so i will make this quick. he manipulates the title of his shots with major figures who .ied on the spot he associates them with generals like donna reynolds. -- don reynolds.

infantrymengeorgia and many played him about 70 him and and manipulate tableau of visual the fate of this unfortunate -- and it was complete fraud. photograph is with much more patience than myself found, by examining the .hotographs -- that is why your question is so interesting. at the moment when photography is claiming truth in which abraham lincoln is dealing it as using it to deal with truth.

gardner starts to create this uncertainty about the accuracy of the image -- this ongoing debate, is it real, is it photoshop, is it staged. there is a famous photograph from the spanish civil war -- the moment of a republican soldier's death or he is laid out and a bullet takes him. -- that just the luckiest pardon the expression -- shot in the world? inventingr, he is photo war journalism. it was gettysburg not antietam. wait a minute, -- >> to what extent did lincoln's death and mourning publicly

memorialized by photographers. >> there were a tremendous number of fakes. this competition to get -- what everybody wanted was in the coffin. what happens -- none of those exist. what happened was -- and you cannot overstate the deepness of the way in which americans mourned. the cataclysm of having lincoln assassinated and killed at the very moment of union victory -- this emotion which psychologically and -- individually and collectively white people out. this in tents, -- this intense, overbearing grief. buildings all in black and the body of lincoln is projected

into our imaginations by the photographs. but a lincoln then disappears is this you have attempt to come to grips with him in religious terms by him rising -- going to heaven. what you have is photography disappearing for a while. he cert -- you have a certain amount of landscape photography --re there is a famous somebody in new york has a very blurry image of what appears to be the feral cortez where the body was taken from washington. the body becomes invisible. it is put in a coffin, mary refuses to have lincoln buried in washington because she hates washington. she takes the body back to springfield and there is this long process in which the body --an balm -- is an balm

embalmed. the body begins to decompose. religious --rt of it only adds to the whole kind of religious -- i will have to say hysteria of the body disappears, but because of that it becomes more mythologized. photography does not really pick up -- it becomes part of the landscape -- no president really uses it until later in the century and somebody like teddy roosevelt.

himselflways having photographed and that was when photography -- by then you could print photographs in the newspaper and teddy took full advantage of that. thank you again, i see brian lurking. [applause] >> thank you, david. a very interesting presentation. as david has suggested. if you have a chance to get to washington, the gardner exhibit is well worth the trip. i would like to ask diane -- she is on her way up already. i would ask her to take a presentation -- give a presentation to david. what sister is giving david is a

framed copy of the roy niemann's oil painting of lincoln. the original hangs in the abraham lincoln presidential library in springfield, illinois. and here, we have a limited reproduction of this piece. it is quite beautiful and certainly unique. thank you again. [applause] >> to close i would like to thank the lincoln event committee for organizing tonight's gallery. as you leave the theater, the sure to stop by the walnut room, there are people who can guide you to the next floor to view

some special pieces on our lincoln collection as well as to join us for a reception. thank you for joining us. we hope to see you again next year. [applause] c-spanican history tv on three. a lectures and history. >> we see new factors making emancipation desirable. with the result that by august, if not earlier of 1862, lincoln has decided that he will announce a new war effort that would add to the union human freedom. >> tracy mckenzie on the evolving war goals of the north during the civil war. at 10:00 on real america -- >> how was it possible for

america to achieve such production and at the same time build an army? and the amazing reports came in .rom the united states 20% of american industrial manpower was a woman power. legions of american women were massing to stop my advance across the world. first taking the round of liberty for the grim task of war. >> this war department filled documents how women in a world war ii helped the war effort. inting that the hidden army factories are the main reason germany lost the war. we visit the daughters of the american revolution bcm to learn about an exhibit marking the anniversary of the exhibit founded in 1890. >> one thing that stands out is the creation of this imagery of

the apotheosis. it goes back to ancient times godlikewarrior is made by lifting him up and celebrating him. jeffersonshington and -- james madison who follow jefferson as the fourth president of the united states owned over 100 slaves, holding a large percentage while he occupied the white house. he is responsible for proposing and expanding the 3/5 compromise which guaranteed the south hold a disproportionate hold on congress. , on the 12rry

american president who were slave owners. eight of them while in office. for the complete weekend schedule, go to www.c-span.org. the book tells a story about the fact that the manuscript is a national treasure is not what we thought and also trying to chronologically think about, what was medicine and countering at the time. keeping those narratives straight was quite tricky for a while. >> boston college law school on her book. which takes -->> madison took the notes, she took paper. in half anded them

wrote on the two pages and the backside. he sowed all these pages together into a manuscript. what we noticed was the last quarter of the manuscript, the holes did not match with the earlier one. this confirmed my suspicion that the end of the manuscript had been written later. you cannot see that on the microfilm. announcer: next, we look at the history of the chicano movement. his remarks are about 20 minutes. >> is a pleasure to have them ba