Abraham Lincoln is the most frequently portrayed American historical figure in the history of the film and television arts.  Lincoln has been featured as a character in over 300 screen productions since the birth of the motion picture medium in the 1890s.  My book Abraham Lincoln on Screen is a detailed examination of these productions.  The book features entries that cover each film, documentary and television portrayal of Lincoln, providing essential cast, production and release information, and a discussion of each work’s historical accuracy and artistic merits.

 

 Abraham Lincoln on Screen was first published by McFarland and Company in 1999.  McFarland released a revised and expanded second edition of the book in 2009.  Writing this book was a lot of work, but it was work that I loved doing.  In order to view certain rare Lincoln-related screen productions, I traveled to many different film libraries across the country such as the Library of Congress, the UCLA Film and Television Archive, and the Los Angeles Museum of Television and Radio.  In the years since the book first came out, I have been given the opportunity to present programs about Lincoln screen works at historical sites and museums all over the United States.

 

 My research for the book led me to start collecting copies of rare screen works that featured Lincoln as a character.  One of the things I managed to get my hands on was a VHS tape of a 1913 silent film drama called When Lincoln Paid starring Francis Ford as Lincoln.  My tape was used by Keene State College to help restore a very old 35mm print of the film that was discovered in a dilapidated barn in Nelson, New Hampshire in 2006.  The restored version of When Lincoln Paid was first screened at Keene in April 2010 – this “re-premiere” of the film received a huge amount of nationwide media attention.  The screening turned out to be such a widely covered story because film historians considered the film to have been lost for almost a century.  Of course, this came as quite a surprise to me – I didn’t consider When Lincoln Paid to be “lost” since it had been sitting on a shelf with all of my other Lincoln tapes and DVDs for years!

 

That said, however, it was very exciting for me to see so many people interested in a Lincoln screen work.  And it is my guess that people may very likely become more interested in the general history of Lincoln-related screen works because several high-profile films featuring Lincoln as their main subject matter are in the works at this time.

 

 If you have found your way to this site because you are interested in Lincoln-related film and television, I hope you find the information I have posted here helpful.  Please feel free to click on the links in the sidebar to read a history of Lincoln film and TV productions, or to learn more about the restoration of When Lincoln Paid, or to get information about purchasing a copy of Abraham Lincoln on Screen.  If you have any questions or comments regarding this site, please contact me at lincolnonscreen@gmail.com.