In San Francisco, Virus is Contained but Schools Are Still Closed

[Rob Wick]

In celebration of the centennial of Lincoln's birth, Tarbell was invited to speak at the University of Michigan. In her remarks she said (quoting from my own article on Tarbell's development of Lincoln's views of democracy while in Indiana) "Tarbell warned her listeners not to make Lincoln out to be a demi-god. To do so would rob him of his connection to the masses. 'He ceases to be one of us and becomes a fabulous personage that you cannot sit down comfortably with and study on something like an equal footing, He is eminently more valuable to this people if understood, and studied, as a man like the rest of us. A man of high qualities, no doubt, but of qualities common in some degree to all of us.” (Tarbell speech to the University of Michigan, February 12, 1909. Entire speech is available on the Internet Archive and quoted in Robert G. Wick, "'He Was A Friend of Us Poor Men' Ida M. Tarbell and Abraham Lincoln's View of Democracy," Indiana Magazine of History, Vol. 114, No. 4, December 2018)

On February 25, 1921, a woman by the name of Frances M. Morehouse wrote Tarbell from England where Morehouse was a guest lecturer in American History at the University of Manchester. While I won't quote the whole letter (I will link to it) Morehouse asked Tarbell her thoughts on a lecture topic exploring what she called "the Lincoln Cult."

"I can find nothing better than an account of the growth in popular regard for Lincoln; the appreciation of his actual service, the accretions of legend and tradition, the tendency to regard him as a prophet and an infallible seer--all the phases of hero-worship which just now seem to be about at their probable height," Morehouse wrote.

Tarbell didn't respond until April, as she was on a speaking tour in the western U.S. Again, I won't quote the entire letter, but two main points will suffice Tarbell noted that after the Civil War, that generation viewed Lincoln as a hero, but Tarbell noted "I believe their worship is being replaced by a growing feeling of admiration and respect for the man, very solidly based. Our people are much devoted to what they consider the American type with its characteristics of common sense, directness, humor, and a bull-dog grip--and Lincoln had all of these things." Tarbell questioned whether Lincoln was worshiped as much as George Washington, Noting, "There has never been so large a hlao around Lincoln as around Washington, and I doubt if there ever will be, because of the detailed study that the country gives to the man." (emphasis added).

In what I feel is the most relevant passage, Tarbell noted, "Again, you ask if there is not danger that 'popular adulation and an aura of mythical supermanliness will jeopardize the sober evaluation of Lincoln's true and inestimable worth.' Not to any great extent. The people on the whole, have him about right His place with us depends upon the conviction of the people that he was a man, and not that he was a superman. (emphasis added). It is likeness to themselves, the fact that they understand the words he uses and the arguments-they understand, too, the struggle that he went through, it is like their own."

https://dspace.allegheny.edu/handle/1045...Frances+M.

Best
Rob