Abraham Lincoln and the Movies

Comparatively little work has been done on how Abraham Lincoln has been represented in American cinema. Yet movies have been a major – and during the first half of the twentieth century probably the major – influence on how his memory has been constructed in American popular culture. This article analyzes changing representations of Lincoln on screen, showing that differing cinematic constructions of the sixteenth president were shaped by a range of factors, including popular biographies and the biases of directors. They also echoed salient issues of the era in which they were produced and more general changes in American attitudes.