Introduction

The documentary Living with Lincoln takes a different approach than we've seen in previous readings and documentaries. It is less about Lincoln himself than it is about Lincoln's memory, the connection that people feel with Lincoln many years after his death, and the effect that collecting material about Lincoln (or, really, collecting anything) has on people who take it seriously. 

The documentary tells the story of a family that amassed the largest collection of Lincoln photographs in the world, along with an enormous collection of books and papers associated with the sixteenth president and the Civil War era.

The collection was started in the 1890s by Frederick Meserve, who was helping his father, a Civil War veteran, find pictures to illustrate his diary for publication. Most of the documentary, however, is about Frederick's daughter, Dorothy Meserve Kunhardt, and her drive to document Lincoln's life while working out her own emotionally fraught relationship with her family, finding her place as a writer and historian (she was very successful writing children's books, but less respected as a scholar), and trying to understand her own battle with depression through Lincoln's example.

Though the family's work has been invaluable in remembering Lincoln, the obsession with collecting has imposed heavy costs on the family as well.

As the documentary maker, Peter Kunhardt, puts it, living with Lincoln "has been my family's glorious burden. Glorious because we have been able to live with Lincoln, to learn about life from him. But it's also a burden that has taken its toll on each generation of our family."

Question

What do you think drove the Meserve-Kunhardt family to collect material about Abraham Lincoln? Was it something about Lincoln? Or something about the family? Would they have been better off if they'd never started collecting? Or was the "glory" worth the "burden"?

Advice

I know I've asked four questions there, but I don't expect an answer to each one. I'm most interested in what you make of the people shown and their obsession with Lincoln.  The questions are designed to get you thinking about what the documentary means.

Reminders

• You have a choice of 2 discussion questions. You participate in only 1 discussion, however, not both.
• The early posting bonus date is 11:59 PM on Sunday, 11/21. You receive a half-point (0.5) bonus if you post before that date.
• Replies are optional, but you will receive a half-point (0.5) bonus for making a quality reply to another student. Your reply must be in the same discussion topic as your post.

• Please, please, please: Break up your text with frequent line breaks. It's so hard to read a big block of text!