page_title: Wide Awakes
hierarchical_section_title: Wide Awakes
caption_attribution_description: English: Identifier: abrahamlincolnsp1860linc_36 (find matches) Title: Abraham Lincoln's political career through 1860 Year: 1860 (1860s) Authors: Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection Subjects: Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 Lincoln Young Men's Wide Awake Club Presidents Publisher: Contributing Library: Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection Digitizing Sponsor: Friends of The Lincoln Collection of Indiana, Inc. View Book Page: Book Viewer About This Book: Catalog Entry View All Images: All Images From Book Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book. Text Appearing Before Image: n,burst the Roman candles of every celestial hue. Herbert R. Collins, in his 44 page pamphlet PoliticalCampaign Torches, Museum of History and Technology,Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. (1964) hasidentified nine differene tin torches used in the 1860 Pres-idential campaign, and three different tin lanterns usedin 1864. Four of the 1860 torches were mounted on swiv-els while three of the four featured a ring to form a re-volving and oscillating frame. One of the torches ident-ified by Collins bears the slogan Hurrah for Lincoln.The remaining torches are designated as rifle, plat-form, eagle and firemans. The torches with the ex-ception of the one designated rifle were, of course, at-tached to long poles. Very few of the campaign torches that appear in mu-seums and collections today are marked with any typeof identification, and only a very few were patented.With the hundreds of thousands of torches used in themany political campaigns it is surprising that so fewhave survived. Text Appearing After Image: Grand proce.ssion of Wide Awakes at New York City on the evening of October 3, 1860 from Harpers Weekly, October13, 1860. As this is a drawing, the artist depicted all of the torches to be alike. A photograph of the same scene wouldlikely have revealed many different types of torches. This drawing was made when the Wide Awakes marched alongNews paper Row as the Tribune and Times buildings are depicted along with the City Hall Park at the right of the picture. The Republican marching clubs, called the WideAwakes, formed parades carrying mineral oil torches.The men wore oilcloth capes and glazed caps to protecttheir clothes from the dripping oil. The cheering,singing of campaign songs, and the torchlight pro-cessions were very effective in the election ofAbraham Lincoln. The Wide Awakes political token was one of theearliest medals struck for the 1860 campaign and wasin honor of the Hartford Corps of Wide Awakes, thefirst to be organized and the model for all the latergroups, The unique Note About Images Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original work.
context_page_description: The Wide Awakes were a youth organization and, later, a paramilitary organization cultivated by the Republican Party during the 1860 presidential election in the United States. Using popular social events, an ethos of competitive fraternity, and even promotional comic books, the organization introduced many to political participation and proclaimed themselves the newfound voice of younger voters. The structured, militant Wide Awakes appealed to a generation profoundly shaken by the partisan instability of the 1850s and offered young northerners a much-needed political identity.
context_section_description: The Wide Awakes were a youth organization and, later, a paramilitary organization cultivated by the Republican Party during the 1860 presidential election in the United States. Using popular social events, an ethos of competitive fraternity, and even promotional comic books, the organization introduced many to political participation and proclaimed themselves the newfound voice of younger voters. The structured, militant Wide Awakes appealed to a generation profoundly shaken by the partisan instability of the 1850s and offered young northerners a much-needed political identity.
caption: A Wide Awakes parade in Lower Manhattan, one of a series of political rallies held in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland, and Boston during the first week of October 1860.
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