Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T04:33:10.307Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Framing Variations and Collective Memory

“Honest Abe” versus “the Great Emancipator”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Howard Schuman ,
Amy Corning  and
Barry Schwartz
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Central to American identity have been public memories of events like the struggle for independence and the achievements of key figures from the past. The individual most often subject to hagiographic accounts is Abraham Lincoln, with emphasis both on his epic achievements in saving the Union and ending slavery and on his personal characteristics, such as honesty and the motivation to transcend his “backwoods” childhood and attain positions of local, state, and national leadership. However, a recent study based on extensive survey data found that Lincoln’s connection to emancipation provided the primary content of beliefs about him for most Americans today, with other beliefs mentioned much less often. Our present research supports that emphasis when presidential actions are the focus, but a randomized survey-based experiment shows that with a type of questioning that reflects the distinction between “essence” and “action”—inner character versus public achievements—beliefs about the former become at least as prominent as beliefs about the latter. Preliminary evidence to this effect is replicated decisively in a separate experiment, and the study is then extended to consider changes over time in indicators of essence versus action. Our research highlights the importance of how inquiries are framed, and they show that variations in framing, including those that are unintended, can enlarge our understanding of collective memory of Lincoln and of collective memory generally.

Type
Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 36 , Issue 4 , Winter 2012 , pp. 451 - 472
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 2012 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Angle, Paul M., ed. (1991) The Complete Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Basler, Roy P. (1935) Lincoln Legend: A Study in Changing Conceptions. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Bennett, Lerone (1968) “Was Abe Lincoln a white supremacist?” Ebony, February.Google Scholar
Bennett, Lerone (2000) Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln’s White Dream. Chicago: Johnson.Google Scholar
Burlingame, Michael (2008) Abraham Lincoln: A Life. 2 vols. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Campbell, Donald T.Stanley, Julian C. (1963) Experimental and QuasiExperimental Designs for Research. Chicago: Rand McNally.Google Scholar
Charnwood, Godfrey R. B. (1917) Abraham Lincoln. New York: Holt.Google Scholar
Chong, DennisDruckman, James N. (2007) “Framing theory.” Annual Review of Political Science 10 (10): 103–26.Google Scholar
DiLorenzo, Thomas J. (2002) The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War. Roseville, CA: Prima.Google Scholar
DiLorenzo, Thomas J. (2006) Lincoln Unmasked: What You’re Not Supposed to Know about Dishonest Abe. New York: Crown Forum.Google Scholar
Donald, David (1956) Lincoln Reconsidered. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
Donald, David (1995) Lincoln. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Fehrenbacher, Don (1987) Lincoln in Text and Context: Collected Essays. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Gamson, William A.Croteau, DavidHoynes, WilliamSasson, Theodore (1992) “Media images and the social construction of reality.” Annual Review of Sociology 18: 373–93.Google Scholar
Garfinkel, Harold (1956) “Conditions of successful degradation ceremonies.” American Journal of Sociology 61 (5): 420–24.Google Scholar
Gates, Henry Louis Jr. (2009) Lincoln on Race and Slavery. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving (1974) Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Herndon, William H.Weik, Jesse W. (1888) Abraham Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life. New York: Appleton-Century.Google Scholar
Hetherington, Marc J. (1998) “The political relevance of political trust.” American Political Science Review 92 (4): 791–808.Google Scholar
Hofstadter, Richard (1973) The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Jividen, Jason R. (2011) Claiming Lincoln: Progressivism, Equality, and the Battle for Lincoln’s Legacy in Presidential Rhetoric. De Kalb: Northern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
Kansteiner, Wulf (2002) “Finding meaning in memory: A methodological critique of collective memory studies.” History and Theory 41 (2): 179–97.Google Scholar
Katz, Jack (1975) “Essences as moral identities: Verifiability and responsibility in imputations of deviance and charisma.” American Journal of Sociology 80 (6): 1369–90.Google Scholar
Lincoln, Abraham (1953–55) The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Basler, Roy. 9 vols. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Mallon, Thomas (2008) “Set in stone: Abraham Lincoln and the politics of memory.” New Yorker, October 13.Google Scholar
Masters, Edgar Lee (1931) Lincoln the Man. New York: Dodd, Mead.Google Scholar
Oates, Stephen B. (1977) With Malice toward None: The Life of Abraham Lincoln. New York: New American Library.Google Scholar
Olick, Jeffrey K. (1999) “Collective memory: The two cultures.” Sociological Theory 17 (3): 333–48.Google Scholar
Peterson, Merrill D. (1994) Lincoln in American Memory. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Potter, David (1947) The Lincoln Theme and American National Historiography. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Rajaram, S.Barber, S. J. (2008) “Retrieval processes in memory,” in Byrne, John H. (ed.) Learning and Memory: A Comprehensive Reference. Vol. 2, Cognitive Psychology of Memory, ed. Roediger, Henry L. III. Oxford: Elsevier: 261–83.Google Scholar
Rugg, Donald (1941) “Experiments in wording questions: II.” Public Opinion Quarterly 5 (1): 91–92.Google Scholar
Sandage, Scott A. (1993) “A marble house divided: The Lincoln Memorial, the civil rights movement, and the politics of memory, 1939–1963.” Journal of American History 80 (1): 135–67.Google Scholar
Sandburg, Carl (1926) Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years. New York: Harcourt Brace.Google Scholar
Sandburg, Carl (1939) Abraham Lincoln: The War Years. New York: Harcourt Brace.Google Scholar
Schuman, HowardCorning, Amy (2012) “Generational memory and the critical period: Evidence for national and world events.” Public Opinion Quarterly 76 (1): 1–31.Google Scholar
Schuman, HowardPresser, Stanley (1981) Questions and Answers in Attitude Surveys: Experiments on Question Form, Wording, and Context. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Schuman, HowardSchwartz, Barryd’Arcy, Hannah (2005) “Elite revisionists and popular beliefs: Christopher Columbus, hero or villain?” Public Opinion Quarterly 69 (1): 2–29.Google Scholar
Schwartz, Barry (1996) “Memory as a cultural system: Abraham Lincoln in World War II.” American Sociological Review 61 (5): 908–27.Google Scholar
Schwartz, Barry (2000) Abraham Lincoln and the Forge of National Memory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Schwartz, Barry (2008) Abraham Lincoln in the Post-heroic Era: History and Memory in Late Twentieth-Century America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Schwartz, Barry (2010) “What is memory good for?” Paper presented at the Social Memory Session of the Annual Meeting of the Society for Biblical Literature, November 21, Atlanta.Google Scholar
Schwartz, BarrySchuman, Howard (2005) “History, commemoration, and belief: Abraham Lincoln in American memory, 1945–2001.” American Sociological Review 70 (2): 183–203.Google Scholar
Smith, Tom W. (1987) “That which we call welfare by any other name would smell sweeter: An impact of question wording on response patterns.” Public Opinion Quarterly 51 (1): 75–83.Google Scholar
Sztompka, Piotr (2000) Trust: A Sociological Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tarbell, Ida M. (1896) Early Life of Abraham Lincoln. New York: McClure.Google Scholar
Tarbell, Ida M. (1900) Life of Abraham Lincoln. New York: Doubleday and McClure.Google Scholar
Thomas, Benjamin B. (1952) Abraham Lincoln: A Biography. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar