7 P.M., March 4, 2010 at the Washington County Museum-- More than 16,000 books have been written about Abraham Lincoln, more than on any other American, but none have provided a thorough overview of Lincoln's strong connections to the American West--until now.
Now, just to set the record straight, Dr. Richard Etulain presents Lincoln Looks West: From the Mississippi to the Pacific (2010). Etulain, a western historian with strong ties to the Northwest, will focus his attention upon Lincoln’s intriguing connections to Oregon.This very important finding, Lincoln Looks West: From the Mississippi to the Pacific, will be available for purchase at the Washington County Historical Museum. A book signing will follow the talk.
Richard W. Etulain is professor emeritus of history and formerly director of the Center for the American West at the University of New Mexico, where he taught from 1979 until retirement in 2001. He is the author or editor of more than forty books, most of which focus on the history and literature of the American West. They include Conversations with Wallace Stegner on Western History and Literature and Beyond the Missouri: The Story of the American West.
4 comments:
This is bound to be an interesting lecture! Lincoln lost his Senate seat for opposing President Polk's expansionist policies. But that does not mean he ignored us completely. Lincoln's bloodline is still very noticeable in Oregon. He was a kinsman of all those Daniel Boone descendants that you meet all over the Sherwood neighborhood.
Dr. Etulain's most important comment was regarding the difficulty East Coasterners have with the West Coast. I asked why my favorite historian, David Hackett Fischer, doesn't seem to know the Oregon Trail existed. Etulain said (in so many words) that from the East Coast, any road longer than ten or fifteen miles may as well be a journey to the Moon. The Oregon Trail simply exhausts the capacity of an East Coast brain to imagine such a thing as being part of the United States of America.
I was wondering if this expert had anything to say about Lincoln being asked if he would be Oregon's provisional Governor. I would like to hear more about that event in History. That could of been a huge turning point in his life to come to the the Northwest. Would he have stayed here????
Ah yes. It was an important chapter in his lecture. He said Lincoln weighed the offer very seriously. Sometimes we assume that Lincoln simply brushed the offer aside, but that is clearly not the case. The basic reason was, in the end, that Mrs. Lincoln liked to go shopping and there were no stores in Oregon worthy of her notorious spending sprees.
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