| Abstract | This article narrates the role of oral testimony in the field of Abraham Lincoln studies from 1865 through the 1930s. Collected in the form of letters, affidavits, and face-to-face interviews, this mounting body of "eyewitness evidence" dominated the discourse for two generations and reflective, public practice culminated in the organization of a "Lincoln Inquiry" in the Midwest during the 1920s and 1930s. For a time, practitioners successfully defended themselves against increasing positivist assaults on the credibility of oral testimony. Their interests and efforts resonate with later oral history practice and theory about method, authorship, performance, and memory, and their story highlights the contingency inherent in the development of oral historical practice in America.
|
