Lincoln's two-minute Gettysburg Address reframed the Civil War as a fight for equality

historyThe Public Domain Review1863 · Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, USA

Lincoln's two-minute Gettysburg Address reframed the Civil War as a fight for equality

the gist

On November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln spoke at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, for soldiers killed in the battle four months earlier. His short address came after a two-hour speech by Edward Everett. Lincoln argued that the nation was founded on the idea that all men are created equal and that the war was a test of whether such a nation could endure. He called for a new birth of freedom and said that government of the people, by the people, for the people should not perish from the earth. In a few sentences he recast the war as a struggle for equality as well as for the Union.

so what

The speech is one of the most quoted in American history and still shapes how Americans describe the purpose of the Civil War. It set out a vision of the United States founded on equality that later shaped debates over civil rights.

fun fact

Edward Everett's speech before Lincoln's lasted about two hours.

more on this

background

The Gettysburg Address is a dedication speech delivered by Abraham Lincoln, the 16th U.S. president, following the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. The speech has come to be viewed as one of the most famous, enduring, and historically significant speeches in American history.

Lincoln delivered the speech on the afternoon of November 19, 1863, during a formal dedication of Soldiers' National Cemetery, now known as Gettysburg National Cemetery, on the grounds where the Battle of Gettysburg had been fought four and a half months earlier, between July 1 and July 3, 1863, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. In the battle, Union army soldiers successfully repelled and defeated Confederate forces in what proved to be the Civil War's deadliest and most decisive battle, resulting in more than 50,000 Confederate and Union army casualties in a Union victory that altered the war's course in the Union's favor.

From Wikipedia: Gettysburg Address (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗

see

Photographer attributions vary from unidentified (William F…, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Dsdugan, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

David Bachrach, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

key facts

Country: United States
Published: 19 November 1863
Author: Abraham Lincoln
Date: 19 November 1863

Facts: Wikidata (CC0)

Image: The Public Domain Review

source: The Public Domain Review ↗

historyThe Public Domain Review1909 · United States

D. W. Griffith’s A Corner in Wheat (1909)

the gist

In 1909 D. W. Griffith made a 14-minute film about a speculator who corners the wheat market and doubles the price of bread. A farmer sows his field while a 'Wheat King' gambles in the Chicago wheat pit; bakers raise the loaf from five cents to ten and the poor line up for bread. Griffith cut back and forth between the farm, the feast and the breadline, a technique called parallel editing, so audiences saw both ends of the economy at once. The film drew on Frank Norris's stories and on a real scheme: months earlier Chicago financier James Patten had cornered wheat, sent bread prices up and made about $5 million, roughly $185 million today.

how it works

To corner a market, a trader buys up most of the available supply and the futures contracts that promise more. Anyone who has to deliver the commodity must then buy from the cornerer at whatever price is demanded. The trader profits until the stock is released or the scheme collapses.

so what

A century on, it still shows how markets can be rigged by someone who controls supply, and how the people at either end, farmers and eaters, pay for it. It also helped establish editing as a way to argue a point, not just tell a story.

the bigger pattern

Corners have recurred whenever supply could be locked up, from the Hunt brothers' attempt on silver in 1979 to 1980 to the 'Black Friday' gold panic of 1869. Many such schemes end by collapsing, and the response is often new rules on speculation.

fun fact

In the film the Wheat King dies by falling into a grain elevator and being buried in the wheat he hoarded, an ending borrowed from Norris's novel The Octopus.

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