This presentation describes the photographs of Abraham Lincoln as they appear in the history of photography.  Lincoln was the first extensively photographed President, and the first for whom the media helped sway an election.  The sixteenth President once described his most frequent photographer, Mathew Brady (1823-96), as “the man who put me in the White House.”  Through vivid, large-scale projected images, art historian Mark Pohlad—a specialist in photohistory—traces the images of Lincoln and his circle while describing the nature and challenges of photography in the mid-nineteenth century.

Recorded Wednesday, June 20, 2007 at Robert R. McCormick Museum.