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The past is never dead. It's not even past

Not Even Past

The Curious History of Lincoln’s Birth Cabin

The monument at Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park (via Wikimedia Commons)

by Jesse Ritner

School children across the United States learn that Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin. For seven weeks this past summer I worked at the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park in Hodgenville, Kentucky, where that cabin (as legend has it) is encased in a stone monument.  Imposingly large when viewed from the bottom of its 56 steps, the monument is almost claustrophobic inside. Designed by John Russel Pope, the early twentieth-century’s titan of neo-classical monuments and government buildings, the monument only has one room, about the size of a large living-room.  The entire log cabin fits inside, reinforcing the difference between the monument built in Lincoln’s honor and his humble origins.  The Grecian inspired edifice was built between 1909 and 1911, atop the knoll where legend (and some deeds with Thomas Lincoln’s name) lead us to believe Abraham Lincoln was born.  The now largely forgotten monument was once national news.  Over 100,000 Americans donated money to build the publicly funded temple.  The cornerstone was laid by none other than President Theodore Roosevelt and, two years later, it was dedicated by President William Howard Taft, himself a member of the Lincoln Farm Association, which led the fundraising effort.

The intended lesson of the Lincoln Birthplace Memorial is clear.  Those who begin in rags, can rise to riches.  Those men who save the nation will, for their services, have their less than impressive childhood homes enshrined in granite and neo-classical architecture, thereby tying them for eternity to the everlasting fight for freedom and democracy that can be traced all the way from ancient Athens to today’s rolling hills of Kentucky.  Yet, the monument and the cabin inside teach us much more than an overwrought story about the American dream; instead, it serves as a piece of history in of itself.

The cabin inside the monument’s granite walls never housed the Lincoln family.  It was constructed in 1895 by entrepreneur Alfred Dennett and his agent, James Bigham, from logs found in a log cabin near the sinking spring where records suggest Lincoln was born.  In 1897, the fabricated cabin was toured around the country, where it was matched with another ersatz birthplace cabin – that of none other than Confederate President Jefferson Davis.  As the caravan of cabins continued around the United States, it finally landed on Coney Island.  There, due to poor organization while shipping, parts of each cabin became mixed so they were simply joined together creating a single Lincoln-Davis Birthplace Cabin. According to James W. Loewen, author of Lies across America, when this cabin, now combining logs from the separate counterfeit cabins of the enemies of the Civil War, was sent back to Kentucky in 1906, it was represented as Lincoln’s “original” birthplace cabin. While the National Park Service does acknowledge that the cabin is not the original, but instead is “symbolic” (the quotation marks are theirs, not mine), it is largely silent on the actual origins of the cabin.

The symbolic cabin enshrined in the monument at the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park (via Wikimedia Commons)

In today’s conversations about Confederate statues, few are discussing the relationship between Confederate and Union memorials dating from the early twentieth century, both of which quite consciously use matching metaphors to affect their viewers.  In Kentucky, monuments such as Lincoln’s birthplace offer insight into the way historical narratives created by turn of the century endeavors in public history by both Union and Confederate supporters are often intertwined, despite the heated rhetoric and violence that results from these supposedly competing historical narratives today.

The Park Service’s silence calls to question why we need the monument in the first place and why we, as taxpayers, should support its preservation.  As a remembrance of President Lincoln, the monument and park are markedly outdated.  Far removed from population centers, the monument is largely forgotten.  On the other hand, the story of the cabin now enshrined in its “Temple of Fame,” as Theodore Roosevelt dubbed the granite structure, gives real insight into the way Americans, both Confederate sympathizers and Union patriots, collectively built historical narratives about the Civil War in the late nineteenth century.  Both Presidents Davis and Lincoln were born in Kentucky and, at the turn of the century, their rags to riches stories were not seen as inherently independent of each other, but were instead part of a single American narrative that both Southerners and Northerners could claim as their birthright.

A postcard of Lincoln’s Birthplace Memorial, ca. 1930-1945 (via Boston Public Library)

The cabin today, with no mention of the monument’s convoluted history, ignores the partially fabricated histories that brought both to power, and brought these Kentucky brothers symbolically back together, even after a long, violent, and devastating war.  But, the monument, despite the faults inherent in its creation, also holds valuable potential as a piece of public history that can truly engage with the way in which historical narratives are created and why monuments are built, rather than simply reinforcing centuries old attempts at public education and nation building.  It suggests historical precedents to the Republican Party simultaneously claiming heritage as the party of Lincoln, while supporting the maintenance of Confederate monuments and minimizing or even erasing the history of slavery and its role in the bloody Civil War.  And it shows that in towns like Hodgenville, where Confederate flags fly freely next to memorials to Lincoln, the apparent conflict in historical memory is not new, but is part of a conscious narrative built in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War and continuing today.

The current dialog revolving around Confederate memorials is far more complicated than many analyses acknowledge. Considering the current unrest regarding Civil War monuments, it is necessary for us to examine the influence of all sides on the historical narratives they choose to create.  Remedying the wrongs that statues of people such as Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee represent is harder than simply taking prominent statues down.  As a nation we must reassess the way we have remembered the entire history of the Civil War and we must reexamine the ways past generations remembered as well, regardless of whether the historical figures in question are currently viewed as villains or heroes.

You may also like:

A Historian views Spielberg’s Lincoln (2012), by Nicholas Roland
Watch: panel discussion of confederate statues at the University of Texas
Charley Binkow on the Lincoln Archives Digital Project

Panel Discussion: “The Confederate Statues at UT”

What do statues commemorating Confederate leaders mean? Why has the university decided to remove such statues? And why has the issue been so controversial? On Thursday, August 31 2017, speakers from the University of Texas, the Texas State Historical Association, and the Briscoe Center for American History came together to address these questions and more.

Featured speakers included:

Walter L. Buenger
Chief Historian, Texas State Historical Association; Summerlee Foundation Chair in Texas History, and Barbara White Stuart Centennial Professor in Texas History | The University of Texas at Austin

Peniel E. Joseph
Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy; Barbara Jordan Chair in Ethics and Political Values in the Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs; and Professor of History | The University of Texas at Austin

Ben Wright
Associate Director for Communication at the Briscoe Center for American History and curator of “From Commemoration to Education: Pompeo Coppini’s Statue of Jefferson Davis” | The University of Texas at Austin

with

Jacqueline Jones, Moderator
Professor and Chair of the Department of History; Ellen C. Temple Chair in Women’s History; and Mastin Gentry White Professor of Southern History | The University of Texas at Austin

This event was sponsored by the Institute for Historical Studies.

Connected content:

Mark Sheaves on slavery and its legacy in the USA
Leslie Harris and Daina Ramey Berry on history and memory in Savannah
Jacqueline Jones discusses Civil War Savannah


The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.

Confederados: The Texans of Brazil

By Nakia Parker

After the American Civil War ended in April 1865, white Southerners living in the defeated Confederacy faced an uncertain social, economic, and political future. Many, disappointed in the outcome of the conflict and fearful of vengeful reprisals from the victorious Union government, decided to leave the United States altogether and start afresh in a foreign land. Central and South America, in particular, seemed a safe and welcoming haven for ex-Confederates living in the Gulf South region of Alabama, Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The overwhelming choice of destination for these discontented emigrants was Brazil, where slavery was still legal and the Emperor offered attractive economic incentives, such as inexpensive land ownership and favorable tax laws. These expatriates, possibly numbering into the thousands, became known as “Confederados,” the Portuguese word for “Confederates.” However, not everyone living in the recently vanquished Confederate States of America was keen on the idea of beginning a new life in Brazil. An editorial written on the August 25, 1865 in the Houston Tri-Weekly Telegraph meticulously weighs the advantages and disadvantages of the Brazilian emigration movement.

Transcription of the editorial that appeared in the Houston Telegraph

The first Americans residing in Brazil, 1867. Via Wikimedia Commons.
The first Americans residing in Brazil, 1867.

In an attempt to “look at the question fairly,” the editorial highlighted similarities between Texas, the South in general, and Brazil, such as their comparable climates and agricultural production. Yet, the parallels abruptly stop there. The writer of the piece employed common racial stereotypes of the day, claiming that while both Brazil and the U.S. South each had “plenty of free negroes,” people of Afro-Brazilian descent were “of a much lower order of intelligence than ours,” yet enjoyed “social equality.” Even more interesting is the emphasis on the commonalities between Black and White Southerners — their shared religion, language, and “familial” ties — ignoring the devastating, bloody conflict over slavery that just ended a mere few months prior.

Thus, the seedlings of the “Lost Cause” mythology of paternalistic slave owners and happy slaves as a part of their extended family reveals itself in the article’s description of Southern African-Americans. Furthermore, the document vacillates from the practical to the poignant, imploring readers to consider such factors as the financial costs of making an overseas move, the health risks of resettling in an unfamiliar land, the repercussions of moving to a country with a different political and religious infrastructure, along with the emotional and psychic wages of leaving behind beloved friends, family, and an established way of life, no matter how “shaken,” for unsure prospects. The author resolutely came to the conclusion: “No Brazil for us. The “land of the South, imperial land is still for us our home and grave. We hope to go to heaven from it.”

House of the first confederate family in Americana, Brazil. Image via Wikimedia Commons.
House of the first confederate family in Americana, Brazil.

Despite the objections of the unknown writer, many Texans did leave for Brazil. Today, many of their descendants honor their American South/Brazilian lineage with a festival known as the Festa Confederada. This annual celebration combines Brazilian culture, such as dances and music, with traditional “Southern” foods, Confederate uniforms, antebellum dresses, and the waving of Confederate flags. This proud, yet problematic, commemoration highlights the powerful hold that the Civil War exercises not just in the American South, but in the “global South” as well.

In 1972, Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter visited Brazil and remarked on the similarity between American Southerners and Confederados, descendants of Confederates who emigrated to Brazil after the Civil War. Via Wikimedia Commons.
In 1972, Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter visited Brazil and remarked on the similarity between American Southerners and Confederados, descendants of Confederates who emigrated to Brazil after the Civil War.

More amazing finds at the Briscoe Center:

A Texas Ranger and the Letter of the Law

“The Die is Cast”: Early Texans Face the Comanches

Standard Oil writes a “history” of the old south

Stephen F. Austin visits a New Orleans bookstore

 

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All images via Wikimedia Commons.


The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.

Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz (1999)

by Kristie Flannery

In his introduction to Confederates in the Attic, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tony Horwitz recounts the very strange moment when his weekend sleep-in was rudely interrupted by the loud cracking of gunfire.

Confederates in the AtticeThe noise came from an unexpected Civil War re-enactment being filmed outside of his bedroom window.  Horwitz had once been a little boy who would spend hours engrossed in an old, enormous book of Civil War sketches, captivated by images of Yankee and Dixie soldiers engaged in battle.  But despite spending a number of years working as a war correspondent, it was this surprise encounter with the “men in grey” that prompted Horwitz to turn the critical gaze of the journalist upon his own and his country’s enduring fascination with the bloody conflict that pitted American against American in 1861-1865.

Confederates in the Attic is an informative and entertaining record of the extended road trip that Horwitz made through the Confederate heartland of the United States to investigate how Americans and southerners in particular continue to remember the war, and to make sense of that strange and enduring Confederate pride.  Along the way Hortwitz gets to know a number of interesting people.  His exchanges with Civil War enthusiasts from all walks of life spur the narrative along.  They include the famous Civil War Historian Shelby Foote, female members of the Daughters of the Confederacy who devote considerable effort to finding Dixie soldiers in family trees, and bands of modern day “hardcore” Civil War re-enactors; factory workers who devote much of their free time and money to re-living as authentically as possible the experiences of nineteenth-century Confederate soldiers.  For these rough and ready men who are perhaps the most interesting Horwitz introduces us to, this means sewing their own Civil War uniforms, dressing up to march for miles through wild country in ill-fitting boots, and spending nights in open, near-freezing conditions under thin blankets, spooning together for warmth.

Of course race cannot be left out of a book about the Civil War past or present. Horwitz does not meet one Civil War-obsessed African American in his travels.  He concludes through his many conversations with white southerners who cherish the memory of the Confederacy that slavery has been conveniently forgotten in popular conceptions of why the South ceded from the Union and went to war against it.  Horwitz provides a sobering account of the role the Civil War plays in modern racial violence; how in 1995 the ostentatious display of the confederate flag could lead one young man to kill another young man, and how the Klan is never really far away.

Horwitz demonstrates that the Civil War is very much still alive in the imaginations of Americans and shapes the way in which many perceive themselves and the world they live in.  Confederates in the Attic is a must read for anyone studying the US Civil War and modern US history, or history and memory.  It is a wonderful resource for teachers who want to get their students excited about this history and its continued influence on the present.  It is truly a delight to read and would make a perfect gift for anyone who enjoys history.

You may also enjoy hearing UT professor of History Jacqueline Jones read from her book “Saving Savannah: The City and the Civil War.”

 

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