Booknotes: Lincoln's Campaign Biographies

New Arrival:

• Lincoln's Campaign Biographies by Thomas A. Horrocks (SIU Press, 2024).

This is the 2024 paperback reissue of the original 2014 hardcover edition, which is part of SIU Press's long-running Concise Lincoln Library series.

In pre-modern American political history, campaign biographies provided a great way to for a presidential campaign to expose its candidate to a wide audience while at the same time controlling the message. From the description: "During the 1860 and 1864 presidential campaigns, Abraham Lincoln was the subject of over twenty campaign biographies. In this innovative study, Thomas A. Horrocks examines the role that these publications played in shaping an image of Lincoln that would resonate with voters and explores the vision of Lincoln that the biographies crafted, the changes in this vision over the course of four years, and the impact of these works on the outcome of the elections."

According to Horrocks, Lincoln's campaigns were more adept than most when it came to using the campaign biography as an effective election tool. More from the description: "Horrocks investigates Lincoln’s campaign biographies within the context of the critical relationship between print and politics in nineteenth-century America and compares the works about Lincoln with other presidential campaign biographies of the era. Horrocks shows that more than most politicians of his day, Lincoln deeply appreciated and understood the influence and the power of the printed word."

Campaign biographies were also useful when it became necessary, or simply advantageous, for a candidate's public face to shift and evolve. That was certainly the case between 1860 and 1864. More: "The 1860 campaign biographies introduced to America “Honest Abe, the Rail Splitter,” a trustworthy, rugged candidate who appealed to rural Americans. When Lincoln ran for reelection in 1864, the second round of campaign biographies complemented this earlier portrait of Lincoln with a new, paternal figure, “Father Abraham,” more appropriate for Americans enduring a bloody civil war."

In the end, Thomas Horrocks's Lincoln’s Campaign Biographies "provides a new perspective for those seeking a better understanding of the sixteenth president and two of the most critical elections in American history."