History 111: U.S. History to 1877

Resources from class

Walt Whitman and Abraham Lincoln

Walt Whitman and Abraham Lincoln

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A photographic portrait of Walt Whitman at around age 50
Walt Whitman circa 1869, via Wikimedia Commons.

1. Based on what you read in History in the Making and what you may know about Lincoln from elsewhere, what was there about Abraham Lincoln’s personality that made him an effective leader?

2. In “O Captain” and “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” how does Whitman characterize Lincoln, either literally or figuratively? Are the traits you mentioned in response to question #1 suggested by either poem?

3. In “Lilacs,” how does Whitman depict the nation in 1865? What lines in the poem stand out to you, and why?

4. Some historians have noted that Walt Whitman was fascinated with Lincoln, even though the two men apparently never met. In fact, literature professor Martin Griffin has written of “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” “the elegy lays claim to the invisible brotherhood of Abraham Lincoln and Walt Whitman.” It’s clear Lincoln’s life and death deeply affected Whitman, as for many years, Whitman delivered a lecture on Lincoln’s death on the anniversary of the assassination.

Griffin explains that

Lincoln was an unlikely president for a nation in crisis, as Whitman was an unlikely poet of national spiritual exploration. It was not only their similar class origins — Lincoln in Kentucky and Indiana, Whitman on Long Island — in a workingman’s America, far from any social or educational privilege, that they had in common, but also the willingness, in each case, to believe in the task that life had delivered them

Whitman also saw a link with Lincoln in their common language. In [his poetry], Whitman used American idiom to invoke an American democratic landscape, and in particular an egalitarian tolerance. . .He saw the same sort of skill with the same sort of language in Lincoln’s speeches.

There was a poetry to many of Lincoln’s public addresses that tried to find that place in the American psyche, that place where people would grasp the importance of his policies, and of persevering until victory, and subsequently of repairing the nation. The president was, in many ways, walking the road the same road as Whitman: a journey to find the central meaning of the United States, a journey that would shun the path of shallow boosterism, that would embrace ugly truths and hard decisions.

In what ways do the language and imagery in “Lilacs” support Griffin’s assertions about Whitman and Lincoln?

5. As students of history, what can we learn from poetry that we might not learn from other sources? (You might recall as well Puritan Anne Bradstreet’s poems on the deaths of her grandchildren.)

6. What did you learn from “Lilacs” and “O Captain” that you didn’t already know from the textbook or other sources?

Sectional Crisis resources

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What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?

Full text of Frederick Douglass’s speech

The speech as read by Ossie Davis, part I:

And part II:

Discussion questions

In answering these questions, you may use any resources for this class to provide context, but focus on these primary source documents:

The definition of who qualifies to be considered a U.S. American has, since the founding of the nation, been under negotiation. In these five primary sources, people residing in America define, implicitly or explicitly, who qualifies as an American. Answer these questions related to the ongoing struggle over inclusion and exclusion:

  1. What criteria do people use to determine who counts as an American? As a citizen?
  2. What arguments are the creators of these documents making for inclusion or exclusion of themselves or others?
  3. In what contexts were these documents written? That is, what was going on in the U.S. at the time, and what had the sources’ creators experienced in their lives? How do these documents relate to other events that culminated in the Civil War (.docx)?
  4. According to the creators of these documents, what role does each of the following play in qualifying someone as of good character and/or an American?
  • ethnicity/national origin/race/immigration status
  • labor: hard work, wage work, unpaid work
  • Christianity
Westward expansion

Westward expansion

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Artifact analysis worksheet (.docx)

Comparing/synthesizing artworks questions (.docx)

John Gast's American Progress. A woman in flowing gowns hovers over the plains, guiding Native peoples, pioneers, farmers, and trains as she strings telegraph wire.
John Gast, American Progress (1872). Autry National Center, via Wikimedia Commons.
In this painting, various migrants head west across a rocky, mountainous, and forested North American landscape.
Emanuel Leutze, Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way (1862). Architect of the Capitol, via Flickr.
This painting depicts General George Washington in a crowded rowboat crossing an icy river. He is standing, and an American flag flies behind him.
Emanuel Leutze, Washington Crossing the Delaware (1851). Metropolitan Museum of Art, via Wikipedia.
Rustic campsite on the edge of a lake or river. Rowboat with two small figures in the foreground.
Robert S. Duncanson, Landscape with Campsite (n.d., but mid-19th century, as Duncanson died in 1872). Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Depictions of Crispus Attucks

Depictions of Crispus Attucks

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Paul Revere's famous depiction of the Boston Massacre, which depicts British troops firing on Americans at a command from an officer
Paul Revere, The Bloody Massacre, perpetrated in King-Street, Boston, on March 5th, 1770, published three weeks after the event (via Wikimedia Commons).
British troops fire on American colonists. A black American lies dying in the arms of a white colonist.
William C. Nell, Crispus Attucks, the First Martyr of the American Revolution, from The Coloured Patriots of the American Revolution (1855). (via New York Public Library).
A skirmish between British troops and American colonists. In the center foreground, a black man is being shot or bayonetted by a British soldier.
William Champney, Boston Massacre (1856). (via Wikimedia Commons)
A skirmish between British troops and largely white American colonists. Both sides are exhibiting violence.
Alonzo Chappel, Boston Massacre (1857). (via Wikimedia Commons)
A painting of several black men wearing colonial attire. Some resemble pirates. Most are armed with sticks, pitchforks, or other non-firearm weapons.
Source: “Who Was Crispus Attucks?” (2012) (via the Crispus Attucks Museum)
Several white men, and one black man, lean over the side of a rowboat to rescue a naked white man in the water. The man in the water is about to be bitten by a large shark.
John Singleton Copley, Watson and the Shark (1778). (via Wikimedia Commons)

Additional reading

Albert Boime, “Blacks in Shark-Infested Waters: Visual Encodings of Racism in Copley and Homer”

Karsten Fitz, “Commemorating Crispus Attucks: Visual Memory and the Representations of the Boston Massacre, 1770-1857”

Matthew Wills, “Crispus Attucks Needs No Introduction. Or Does He?”

Brendan Wolfe, “Believe it or Not, He Survived”

Finding the 1619 Project if you’ve hit the New York Times paywall

Finding the 1619 Project if you’ve hit the New York Times paywall

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Update: I encourage you to use the path below to find the reading so that you can familiarize yourself with the Library’s databases—resources you’ll need to use throughout your career at Boise State—but I also found a PDF of the project at the Pulitzer Center’s website.

If you find you’re hitting the paywall on the New York Times website, you can access the 1619 Project via the Albertsons Library website. I made a video to show you how to do that. You can find it below.

Note: I forgot to point out in the video that you can access a much more visually appealing version of the 1619 Project by clicking on the “Full text – PDF” tab in ProQuest:

A screen shot of the ProQuest interface, with an arrow indicating where to click to access a PDF version of the 1619 Project
Picturing Columbus

Picturing Columbus

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Image from the assigned reading

A depiction of Columbus meeting the native inhabitants of the Caribbean. Colmbus and his men look self-assured and curious; the indigenous people look cautious, worried, or subservient.
The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. “Christopher Columbus.” New York Public Library Digital Collections.

Additional images of Columbus

An engraving of Columbus greeting the Native peoples of the Caribbean. Columbus looks self-assured, and the indigenous people are approaching him with gifts.
The engraving by Theodore de Bry, from 1592, which formed part of his “America-series”, showing Christopher Columbus landing on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola in 1492 – Source.
A depiction of Columbus greeting the Native peoples of the Caribbean. Columbus looks self-assured, but the indigenous people look awed or excited.
Bernard Picart’s depiction of Columbus’ landing as featured in his Ceremonies et Coutumes Religieuses de Tous les Peuples du Monde, 1732 – Source.
An etching of Columbus greeting the Native peoples of the Caribbean. Columbus looks self-assured, but the indigenous people look awed or afraid.
Reinier Vinkeles’ 1788 etching depicting Columbus’ landing – Source.

Image captions/attributions by Michiel van Groesen, and used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license. Read van Groesen’s commentary on these images at the Public Domain Review.