“If Lincoln were not assassinated, what would he have been thinking?”-K.W

Constructing Lincoln


  • Content Areas: English, History
  • Lesson Objective: to gain background information on Lincoln’s participation in the Civil War, on various perspectives of his roles in the war, and to see how he has been remembered—and by whom—over time.
  • Common Core Standards: RI 7.3, RI 7.10, RH 6-8.2, RH 6-8.7, RH 6-8.8, RH 6-8.10
  • Time: 3 50-minute class periods—or more, depending on how you integrate reading and video. There is enormous flexibility for doing work at home or in flipping your classroom. A lot of this work can be done at home to leave the class time open for discussion and inquiry.
  • Materials-listed in order of process:
  • Download:
  • Essential Question(s):
    “What was Lincoln made of—as a man, and as a memorial?”


Process


Part One: “What Did Lincoln Do that We Should Remember?”


  • 1) To begin the lesson, ask students to answer this question in list form: “What did Lincoln do that we should remember?” Students can do this as an entrance ticket or in small groups or in individual journals. Share responses out loud. It is not necessary for students to have an extensive knowledge of Lincoln to answer this question. Accept all responses.

  • 2) Explain that today’s class will serve refresh everyone’s minds about Lincoln’s role in the Civil War and to allow students to see the complexity in the creation of the idea of remembering Lincoln through public monument.

  • 3) Play the first clip from the documentary “Looking for Lincoln” by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. “Lincoln and the beginning of the Civil War.” (8:34 mins)

  • 4) When the clip has finished, ask for a comprehension check from students.

  • 5) As a class, generate questions students have about Lincoln, his role in the Civil war, etc. Ask students to write their questions on the board, or, alternatively, hand out post-it notes for students to write their questions on and ask students to stick their notes on a designated location in your classroom so you can address those questions later.

  • 6) At stations around your room, place a laptop for students to gather around. Students will continue watching clips of the documentary, but they will also be looking at various other images and texts. It is ideal to group students into small groups of 4, but you will know how best to pair them based on your access to technology and your knowledge of dynamics. It is less than ideal to have students working alone.

  • 7) Ask students to watch the clip “The Great Emancipator?” Watch only the first 6 minutes.

  • 8) After watching the first 6 minutes, ask students to read the text of The Emancipation Proclamation. You may want to prepare a guide for vocabulary.

  • 9) Using the photocopy of a map of the United States, mark the states Lincoln mentioned in the Emancipation Proclamation as those states which were “in rebellion” against the United States. Save this map because students will need this for a later step.

  • 10) Finish clip (4:40 mins)

  • 11) Ask students at this point, to consider how residents of those states may have felt hearing the Emancipation Proclamation. This may be an opportunity for students to journal write, or to have a short discussion together in small groups. Ask students to consider the various identities (slaves, slave owners, abolitionists, women, children, business owners) and to think about how the unique hopes and fears of each perspective.

  • 12) End this class by reviewing students’ questions that they’ve generated on Post-Its. Assign homework or extension activity by having students exchange each other’s questions and find the answers at home.

Part Two: Lincoln and War


  • 1) Begin class today by recalling yesterday’s lesson. You may want to ask if students researched answers to each other’s questions/Post-It notes.

  • 2) Explain that today you’ll be talking about War. Generate some discussion about what wars these students are familiar with—what they know about war and how they know about it.

  • 3) Watch the first 3:30 minutes of the next clip, “Lincoln and the End of the Civil War.”

  • 4) After the first 3:30 minutes, have students do a Google search of the number of US fatalities in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. One excellent resource is this app, from the Washington Post. Compare data to this chart—“Wars Ranked by total number of US Military Deaths”. Ask students to reflect on the numbers, to relate current numbers to the number of fatalities in the Civil War.

  • 5) Continue watching the clip until 6:15.

  • 6) Begin clip again at 8:32 to learn how the war came to an end. (You may also want to show the text of the Second Inaugural Address, as it is the words from this speech that are on the early statue of Lincoln in USQ.)

  • 7) End this part by revisiting the question you initially asked—What did Lincoln do that we should remember? Answers this time should be far more complex, and perhaps express the idea that Lincoln made decisions which led to the deaths of over half a million people. It is essential that students understand the various feelings people had about Lincoln so that they can understand how he is depicted in statue in different places around the country, and even in NYC.


After students have gathered decent background information on Abraham Lincoln through the lesson above or through your own curriculum, you can continue with this lesson about his memorialization.


Part Three: Lincoln Statues across the country and in New York City



Students will need the map of the United States that they wrote on in Part One, step 9. If you haven’t done Part One, the map you use will need to clearly show the states that were considered “in rebellion” against the United States.

  • 1) Begin class with the question: “How might people in various regions of the United States choose, or have chosen, to remember Lincoln through public memorial?” This could be a quick discussion that students could either write about or share out loud. You may not even want students to write about it just yet; leave it on the board for students to see and think about throughout class.

  • 2. Remind students of the previous class, activate prior knowledge, perhaps answer some questions students asked on their post-it notes. Watch the final clip of the documentary, “Assassination and Aftermath.” Ensure comprehension through the clip or at the end.

  • 3. Explain to students that today’s class will explore how Lincoln was remembered after his death, through public monument.

  • 4. Instruct students to go to their computer stations and to bring the map they used in an earlier lesson. (Part One, step 9)

  • 5. Using the map students wrote on yesterday, in which they identified and labeled the states Lincoln called out as “in rebellion against the United States” in his Emancipation Proclamation, ask students to look at the website: Lincoln Statues Across the Country.

  • 6. Ask students to notice which states do not have Lincoln statues and to mark those states on their maps with a check-mark. There will be obvious correlation between confederate states (those “in rebellion”) and those that do not have Lincoln memorials. Pay attention to the Vicksburg memorial in Mississippi and ask students to Google that memorial. Here is a good resource for information about that memorial from the National Parks Service. Give students time to look over a few of the memorials, and let them see how different they are from one another. (Questions to consider: Why and where is he memorialized as a child? As a young man? Why in some is he sitting? Why in others is he standing?)

  • 7. After students have had some time to make observations and draw conclusions about national Lincoln memorials, return students’ attention to New York City. Ask students to address the question on the board—how Lincoln is portrayed around the country and why.

  • 8. Show images of the two NYC Lincoln statues, both created by Henry Kirke Brown. One in Brooklyn, and the other in Union Square. Ask students to explain how these two statues are similar to and different from one another.

  • 9. Explain that the Brooklyn statue shows Lincoln holding a scroll in his left hand that very obviously contains lines from The Emancipation Proclamation, while the Manhattan statue shows him holding a scroll in his left hand but without any writing on it. Additionally, the Brooklyn statue depicts Lincoln very obviously pointing to the scroll, while the Manhattan statue does not.

  • 10. Ask students to discuss possible reasons for the differences in Lincoln’s stance and in the specificity of object in left hand.

  • 11. Explain that at the time of the Civil War and after Lincoln’s death, Brooklyn and Manhattan were two distinct cities—not boroughs of one large city called “New York.” How might that information help students to explain the difference between the two statues? Ask them to remember how different the statues were around the country in various regions. Ideally, students will say that the two cities of Brooklyn and Manhattan felt very differently about Lincoln, which is why he is depicted differently in the statues.

  • 12. Read aloud, or hand out, page 19 and 20 of Karen Lemmey’s article “Re-constructing Lincoln.” Ask students to read paragraphs 1, 3, and 4 to themselves or in small groups, or have a volunteer read aloud. (These excerpts should clarify the difference between Brooklyn and Manhattan politics and begin to explain why the two statues were different.)

  • 13. Show the image on page 22 from Lemmey’s article. (This image is Brown’s proposed statue for Union Square.) Ask students for their reactions to the statue. Show, also, Thomas Ball’s famous memorial, The Freedmen’s Memorial (or, The Emancipation Group). Ask students to compare the two images.
    • a. You may also want students to read page 21-22 about the pairing of white men and “crouching African Americans” in art. What kind of message does this pairing send to us now in the 21st century? How might it have been different in Brown’s day?

  • 14. Explain that it was Henry Kirke Brown who also did the George Washington statue in Union Square and that now students are going to read more about how the public perceived the memorial in Union Square.
    Hand out copies of the blog post: Henry K. Brown’s Much Maligned “Abraham Lincoln” Statue—Union Square along with a photocopy of page 21 of Lemmey’s article—a map of Union Square showing the original placement of the Washington and the Lincoln statues.

  • 15. Finally, recall the clip in the documentary yesterday that called Frederick Douglass a “ferocious critic” of Abraham Lincoln, and said Douglass had called Lincoln a “slave hound” to “the most powerful slave catcher in the United States.” Now explain that when Thomas Ball’s monument “Freedman’s Monument” was erected, Douglass spoke at its unveiling on the 11 year anniversary of Lincoln’s death. Explain, also, that the monument was funded entirely by freed slaves, primarily those who had fought in the Union Army. Hand out, or put on the board, “Douglass speech” and explain this is an excerpt from a much longer speech. Read it together aloud.Finally, ask students, “What is Douglass—and this memorial—remembering about Lincoln? About the war? About the United States? And, just as importantly, what are these two “texts” not remembering?”


This lesson, and that final question, should set students up for looking critically at K.W’s installation in Union Square, and for hearing the words of veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.