Category: Music, Text, War, Brown University, Abraham Lincoln

About This Collection This database comprises sheet music from the McLellan Lincoln Collection at the John Hay Library and includes material written between 1859 and 1923. Music written about Lincoln ranges from popular song to compositions for orchestral performance. Although the focus is on Abraham Lincoln, these pieces offer an important resource for understanding the popular context of Lincoln’s life and presidency and, later, the significance of his legacy in American life. Between 1859 and 1865, popular music about Abraham Lincoln proliferated. Much more than simply suggesting 19th century musical fashions, Lincoln songs are an important source for understanding popular attitudes towards the Illinois candidate, later the 16th President, and his policy agenda.