The National Joker

Abraham Lincolns love of jokes hearing them, telling them, drawing morals from themprompted critics to dub Lincoln the National Joker. Interestingly, the political cartoons and print satires that mocked Lincoln often trafficked in precisely the same images and terms Lincoln humorously used to characterize himself. In this intriguing study, Todd Nathan Thompson considers the politically productive tension between Lincolns use of satire and satiric treatments of him in political cartoons, humour periodicals, joke books, and campaign literature. Thompson traces Lincolns comic sources and explains how, in reapplying others jokes and stories to political circumstances, he transformed humour into satire. Time and time again, Thompson shows, Lincoln engaged in self-mockery, turning negative assumptions or depictions of himas ugly, cowardly, jocular, inexperiencedinto positive traits that identified him as an everyman while attacking his opponents claims to greatness, heroism, and experience as aristocratic or demagogic. By fashioning a folksy, fallible persona, Thompson shows, Lincoln was able to use satire as a weapon without being severely wounded by it. Thompson also considers how Lincoln used political cartoons and other media to craft the particular Lincoln image of the self-made man, underscores exceptions to Lincolns ability to mitigate negative depictions, and closely examines political cartoons from both the 1860 and 1864 elections. Throughout, Thompsons deft analysis preserves Lincolns popular humour. This enjoyable volume will appeal to scholars of history, politics, literature, and cultural studies as well as to those of American humour and satire.