This essay appeared in Lincoln, Congress, and Emancipation, ed. Paul Finkelman and Donald R. Kennon (Ohio University Press, 2016), pp. 236-58 Mr. Spielberg Goes to Washington[1] By Matthew Pinsker When Frank Nugent, the film critic for the New York…
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ESSAY –General Jackson is Dead
This essay original appeared in The Worlds of James Buchanan – Thaddeus Stevens, ed. Michael J. Birkner, Randall M. Miller, and John W Quist, LSU Press, (2019), 82-108. “General Jackson is dead”: Dissecting a Popular Anecdote of Nineteenth-Century Party Leadership…
General Jackson is Dead
“General Jackson is dead”: Dissecting a Popular Anecdote of Nineteenth-Century Party Leadership By Matthew Pinsker President James Buchanan delivered an icy stare to Senator Stephen A. Douglas as they sat across from each other inside the White House…
Abraham Lincoln: Campaigns and Elections
The following is an excerpt from Chapter 2, “Campaigns and Elections,” in Matthew Pinsker’s biographical study of Abraham Lincoln (CQ Press, 2002), 55-79. OVERVIEW Lincoln’s track record in politics is often misunderstood. He lost a popular vote only once,…
ESSAY –After 1850
This chapter originally appeared in Fugitive Slaves and Spaces of Freedom in North America, 1775-1860 ed. D.A. Pargas, U Press Florida, (2018), 93-115. After 1850: Reassessing the Impact of the Fugitive Slave Law Matthew Pinsker The 1850 Fugitive Slave Law…
ESSAY –Lincoln and Obama
This opinion piece by Matthew Pinsker originally appeared in The Weekly Wonk, an online magazine from the New America Foundation, in June 2014. The original title was “Obama’s Lincoln Moment.” There was a particularly tense period during the summer of 1862 when…
ESSAY –Short History of Campaign Finance Reform
Matthew Pinsker offered this overview of American campaign finance history for the Christian Science Monitor in March 1997. The more things change… American politicians began shaking the money tree long before President Clinton or Newt Gingrich, but campaign finance reformers…
ESSAY –Lincoln’s Catty Letters
This op-ed by Matthew Pinsker appeared in Time.com on President’s Day 2014 as a way to introduce readers to some of the new Lincoln documents that had been discovered in recent years. Several of the links take readers to the full…
1860s
Overview When Booker T. Washington recalled the outbreak of the Civil War, he claimed that “every slave on our plantation felt and knew that, though other issues were discussed, the primal one was that of slavery.” Washington’s memory of life as young slave…
ESSAY –Lincoln Theme 2.0
In 2009, Matthew Pinsker published a state-of-the-field essay on Lincoln studies for the Journal of American History (“Lincoln Theme 2.0”), which argued that the digital revolution was fundamentally changing the way scholars research and write about Abraham Lincoln’s life and career. The…