About this Event

“Wide Awake” for a “Black Republican”? 
The Politics of Race in Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 Campaign for the White House

In this short lecture, Prof. Norwood will draw on materials from the Lincoln Collection at the University of Delaware Library to explore how Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party made their case to voters in the 1860 presidential campaign, and explain how the United States antebellum culture of anti-Black racism formed a crucial context for that contest.

This program complements the exhibition The Rail-Splitter Surprise: Abraham Lincoln and the Presidential Election of 1860, on view in the Lincoln Exhibition Case, Morris Library, from August 27 – December 13, 2024. The exhibition is also available online at the link here.

Dael A. Norwood is an historian of nineteenth-century America specializing in the global dimensions of U.S. politics and economics. He is associate professor in the Department of History at UD, where he also co-chairs the Legacies of Enslavement and Dispossession at UD committee.

This virtual event is free and open to the public. This event will be recorded.

Registration is required. Once registered, you will receive an email with details on how to join the event via Zoom.