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By Kurt Vidmer

I chose to watch the movie Lincoln, which stars Daniel Day Lewis as Abraham Lincoln. The plot of this movie is largely based on Lincoln’s efforts to both pass the 13th amendment and end the Civil War. Throughout Lincoln, there are many examples of technological advancements, and information exchange between people that largely relate to our class.

Although there is no actual time cinema movies available from the Civil War, as said in the Sorlin article, “Newsreels were born with the cinema: sometime in 1896 or 1897″ (Sorlin, 30). However, with information known to us about the time period, the director and producers were able to make a very realistic representation of the time period.

During the movie, it showed the use of telegraphs as a means for communication. Particularly, these telegraphs depicted how military leaders were able to communicate to their army’s from long distances. An example of this is when Lincoln, along with many others were keeping in close contact with people engaged in the battle of Wilmington, in Wilmington, NC from Washington, DC. As Avery speaks about in her post when she says, “Together, their stories create a picture of telegraphy that acknowledges the significance of both the wires that transmit information and the people whose culture decides what information is transmitted”, telegraphy was a revolutionary breakthrough in communication technology, enabling people to communicate on a much larger scale.

Also, Lincoln recognizes the the roles that trains and railroads played in communication exchange. Railroads were mentioned many times in reference to transportation, specifically when Lincoln asks a man working for him to take a train to Harrisburg to speak with the Governor of Pennsylvania. This leads in to the point that even though there were many technological advancements in technology that enabled communication on a much larger scale, personal interactions were still by far the preferred means of communication. Lincoln makes an effort to have his allies, as well as himself work to speak to people face-to-face in an effort to best persuade them into voting for the 13th Amendment.

The movie Lincoln serves as a great example of a movie accurately depicting historic events in American History, and how information exchange played a role in them.

Work Cited

Lincoln. Performed by Daniel Day Lewis. USA: Dreamworks, 2012. DVD.

Scorlin, Pierre. “How to Look at an “Historical” Film.” The Historical Film: History and Memory in the Media, 2001.