Manchester, Lincoln Square

Image: © David Dixon Taken: 1 Mar 2013

This small public square in Manchester was created and given the name “Lincoln Square” in 1986, when the area near the town hall was redeveloped. At that time, the council moved a statue of Abraham Lincoln from Platt Fields Park to its present site within the square. The statue of Abraham is a replica of a one in Lytle Park, Cincinnati (http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM3QET_Abraham_Lincoln_Statue_Cincinnati_Ohio ). It was donated to the city in 1919 as a gift from Charles Taft, half brother to former US President William Howard Taft. The link between Lincoln and Manchester is that unemployed mill workers supported Lincoln during the American Civil War. In the mid-nineteenth century, Manchester was the World’s largest processor of cotton but, in 1862, Lancashire mill workers took a principled stand by refusing to touch raw cotton picked by US slaves. This was not an easy decision to make and led to the Lancashire Cotton Famine, which saw many cotton workers lose their jobs and struggle to feed their families. Lincoln acknowledged the self-sacrifice of the 'working men* of Manchester' in a letter he sent them in 1863. Lincoln's words, later inscribed* on the pedestal of the statue, praised the workers for their selfless act of "sublime Christian heroism. The statue is Grade II listed by English Heritage (https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1293302 National Heritage list for England) http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/from-the-archive-blog/2013/feb/04/lincoln-oscars-manchester-cotton-abraham Lincoln’s Great Debt to Manchester (Guardian.co.uk, Monday 4 February 2013) http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMDKE8_Abraham_Lincoln_Statue_in_Lincoln_Square_Manchester_UK Abraham Lincoln on Waymarking.com *In 1986, when the pedestal was added and inscribed, the council changed the text of Lincoln’s letter slightly and changed a reference to the ‘working men of Lancashire’ to the ‘working people of Lancashire’. Although some criticised this as an act of 'political correctness', the change is actually more accurate because at the time of the writing of the letter, more than half of the work force in the cotton mills was female.

Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0