Ask an Expert: What Did Abraham Lincoln’s Voice Sound Like?
Civil War scholar Harold Holzer helps to decode what spectators heard when the 16th president spoke
- By Megan Gambino
- Smithsonian.com, June 07, 2011, Subscribe
I suspect that when people imagine Abraham Lincoln and the way he sounded, many imagine him as a bass, or at least a deep baritone. Perhaps this is because of his large stature and the resounding nature of his words. Certainly, the tradition of oratory in the 1850s would support the assumption. “Usually people with centurion, basso profundo voices dominated American politics,” says Harold Holzer, a leading Lincoln scholar. Then, of course, there are the casting choices of film and TV directors over the years. “It can’t get any deeper than Gregory Peck,” says Holzer. Peck played Lincoln in the 1980s TV miniseries The Blue and the Gray.
But, unfortunately, no recordings of Lincoln’s voice exist, since he died 12 years before Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, the first device to record and play back sound. If anyone had an educated guess as to how it sounded though, it would be Holzer, who has written 40 books on Lincoln and the Civil War. The author has pored over reports of Lincoln’s public appearances on speaking tours, eyewitness accounts told to Lincoln’s law partner William Herndon and newspaper commentaries about the Lincoln-Douglas debates, and, surprisingly, he says, one of the only things that can be said with certainty is that Lincoln was a tenor.
“Lincoln’s voice, as far as period descriptions go, was a little shriller, a little higher,” says Holzer. It would be a mistake to say that his voice was squeaky though. “People said that his voice carried into crowds beautifully. Just because the tone was high doesn’t mean it wasn’t far-reaching,” he says.
When Holzer was researching his 2004 book Lincoln at Cooper Union, he noticed an interesting consistency in the accounts of those who attended Lincoln’s speaking tour in February and March 1860. “They all seem to say, for the first ten minutes I couldn’t believe the way he looked, the way he sounded, his accent. But after ten minutes, the flash of his eyes, the ease of his presentation overcame all doubts, and I was enraptured,” says Holzer. “I am paraphrasing, but there is ten minutes of saying, what the heck is that, and then all of a sudden it’s the ideas that supersede whatever flaws there are.” Lincoln’s voice needed a little time to warm up, and Holzer refers to this ten-minute mark as the “magical moment when the voice fell into gear.”
He recalls a critic saying something to this effect about Katharine Hepburn’s similarly startling voice: “When she begins to talk, you wonder why anyone would talk like that. But by the time the second act begins, you wonder why everyone doesn’t talk like that.” Says Holzer: “It’s that combination of gesture, mannerism and unusual timbre of voice that really original people have. It takes a little bit to get used to.”
Actor Sam Waterston has played Lincoln on screen, in Ken Burns’ The Civil War and Gore Vidal’s Lincoln, and on Broadway, in Abe Lincoln in Illinois. To prepare for the role in the 1980s, he went to the Library of Congress and listened to Works Progress Administration tapes of stories told by people from the regions where Lincoln lived. (Some of the older people on the tapes were born when Lincoln was alive.) Lincoln’s accent was a blend of Indiana and Kentucky. “It was hard to know whether it was more Hoosier or blue grass,” says Holzer. The way he spelled words, such as “inaugural” as “inaugerel,” gives some clue as to how he pronounced them.
Despite his twang, Lincoln was “no country bumpkin,” Holzer clarifies. “This was a man who committed to memory and recited Shakespearean soliloquies aloud. He knew how to move into King’s English. He could do Scottish accents because he loved Robert Burns. He was a voracious reader and a lover of poetry and cadence. When he writes something like the Second Inaugural, you see the use of alliteration and triplets. ‘Of the people, by the people and for the people’ is the most famous example,” he says. “This was a person who truly understood not only the art of writing but also the art of speaking. People should remember that, though we have no accurate memorial of his voice, this is a man who wrote to be heard. Only parenthetically did he write to be read.”
According to William Herndon, Lincoln didn’t saw wood or swat bees, meaning he did not gesture too much. Apparently, he didn’t roam the stage either. Herndon once wrote that you could put a silver dollar in between Lincoln’s feet at the start of a speech and it would be there, undisturbed, at the end. “He was very still,” says Holzer. “He let that voice that we question and his appearance and the words themselves provide the drama.”
Of the actors who have played Lincoln, “Waterston catches it for me,” says Holzer. “Although he is from Massachusetts, he gets that twang down, and he’s got a high voice that sometimes lapses into very high.”
It will be interesting to see what Daniel Day-Lewis, who is known to go to great lengths to get into character, does with the part. He is slated to play the president in Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, a 2012 release based on the book Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
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Comments (35)
Yay, Lincoln, the Slave Owner!
Posted by Purcel Tresvant on March 19,2013 | 10:25 PM
Abraham Lincoln's surviving son, Robert Todd Lincoln, who went on to serve in two separate presidential cabinets, was reported to have sounded remarkably like his father by those who knew both. There is a recording of one of his speeches, although I myself haven't located it yet on the internet.
Posted by Christian B. Unger on November 22,2012 | 08:40 PM
I am related to both Lincoln and Booth. (by law)
Posted by Tater Salad on November 16,2012 | 03:49 AM
What did Lincoln'e voice sound like? Robert Todd Lincoln, Lincoln's oldest son who was 23 when Lincoln was killed, said that Raymond Massey's voice beared an uncanny resemblance to Lincoln's voice. Robert Todd saw Massey play Lincoln on stage in the early 1920's. The use of the word "uncanny" to describe the resemblance leads me to believe that Massey was indeed "spot on".Although largely forgotten today, up to the 1980's Massey was renowned for playing Lincoln on stage and on film. I suggest you join netflix and order the 1940 movie on Lincoln starring Raymond Massey.It is also a very good film.
Posted by Anthony on November 11,2012 | 10:49 AM
@bill trip: Robert Tood Lincoln died in 1926, 14 years before Raymond Massey played his father. Massey didn't appear in any movie or on stage until 1929 or so.
Posted by Bfdesign on November 10,2012 | 12:13 PM
I remember that Walt Disney did a lot of research into Lincoln's voice before casting Royal Dano as the voice of Lincoln for his "Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln" exhibit at Disneyland. I would love to hear Holzer's opinion on that voice. Maybe too deep but straight out of Kentucky.
Posted by Karla Sofen on November 9,2012 | 09:59 AM
The video does not work!
Posted by George Kopchinsky on October 30,2012 | 08:31 PM
Mon.Oct.22,2012 When speak of Mr, Lincoln as a person and later President of United States it really doesn't matter what his voice sounded like. It was at time the country when the country was divided with itself. His job was to try mold it back to-gether again as one. With his administration and cabinet not agreeing with must have been very diffucult. Finally with the power and belief it could be done it happen. Sadly Mr. Lincoln didn't live to see the results and was assassinated shortly after the Civil War ended.In my opinion he was the greatest president in American History and what he suffered in his personal life as well his political life.
Posted by Robert J. Hillman on October 22,2012 | 12:44 PM
good wibsite
Posted by vargas on October 12,2012 | 02:03 PM
Actually, Robert Todd Lincoln is on record saying the actor, Raymond Massey, sounded very much like his dad.
Posted by Bill Trip on October 9,2012 | 05:26 PM
I wonder if Lincoln constantly berated his predecessor as the does the current POTUS?
Posted by J on October 5,2012 | 01:51 PM
(Quote from the article: "'Usually people with centurion, basso profundo voices dominated American politics,' says Harold Holzer, a leading Lincoln scholar.") Perhaps Holzer meant to say "stentorian" rather than "centurion"!
Posted by David Byron on September 14,2012 | 11:47 AM
With the advancement of medical technology I imagine the actual pitch of Lincoln's voice could be determined by a thorough examination of his corpse. I doubt if such an examination will ever be allowed and we would never learn of the subtleties in his inflection during his delivery of public speeches. Without the accent, and with the articles aforementioned description, I think his pitch may have been similar to, or slightly higher than, John F. Kennedy's during his inaugural address in 1960.
Posted by R.D. Fritz Jr. on July 22,2012 | 11:55 PM
I always imagined he sounded a little like Paul Lynde.
Posted by Amos Humiston on July 10,2012 | 11:20 PM
What's the use of posting if it's going to be "moderated?|?"i.e, censored.
Posted by Herman King on July 4,2012 | 01:03 PM
The adulation of Lincoln is sickening. He was a sadistic monster who caused the deaths and mutilations of hyndreds of thousands of his fellow man. He also destroyed the Republic.
Posted by Herman King on July 4,2012 | 01:01 PM
Interesting article, and interesting comments. I agree with the comments of S.Young. Language and grammar evolve with/by everyday usage. It seems that eventhough the word might have been 'wrong', its meaning was understood. Getting back to the article, I'm not sure how much faith I'd put in the eyewitness accounts of Lincoln's voice. I hear my husband's voice multiple times a day from close range, and yet I'd be hard pressed to describe his voice so that it could be played back in someone else's brain with accuracy. I put more faith in the overall feeling that the accounts conveyed, and their general descriptions of his oratory style.
Posted by Kathy on June 29,2012 | 08:01 PM
I read this article when it was first published a year ago and upon coming across it again today I found it just as fascinating on the second reading as I did on the first. Whereas most of us could not name every president, I think most people would agree that George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and perhaps Franklin D. Roosevelt are simply unforgettable.
Posted by M. Chall on June 13,2012 | 05:36 PM
I would think that the sound of Abraham Lincoln's voice would be a cross between Hal Holbrook and Ron Paul.
Posted by Ron Ray on June 9,2012 | 12:08 PM
Was the bushy mustache Joshua L. Chamberlain was always pictured with considered a full beard during the Civil War? Was the definition of a full beard during the Civil War the same as we define a full beard today?
Posted by Robert Ryan on January 20,2012 | 10:18 AM
I have been known to be pretty fair with pencil,pen and marker and have done some rough portraits, I just can't see why they call Lincoln ugly, he look like Gregory Peck to me...I would have loved to hear Lincoln say just a hello...anything, ever since I was a child the teachers would love to see me draw Lincoln his face is a wonder to me forever changing just by a turn of the head he goes from Icabod Crane to Gregory Peck, I could never forget Lincoln .
Posted by Kenneth Jon Heinz on January 3,2012 | 06:30 AM
What gets left out here is that in Lincoln's time, his speeches went over much better in print than in person. The Gettysburg Address was considered to by most of those present to be a mediocre speech at best. It was when the newspapers published it that it became considered a great piece of oratory.There are many accounts of Lincoln having a very shrill and whiny voice almost bordering on being effeminate, and with a thick country accent to boot.
Posted by rtbrno65 on December 17,2011 | 01:31 PM
I find it preposterous that other readers would stoop to the level of "flaming" over a misspoke, or misquoted, word.
Posted by S. Young on December 1,2011 | 09:00 AM
This article on Lincoln's voice was so fasinating that I would jump at the chance to join Renee Sinrod in her 'time machine'.
Posted by Mary-Lou Chall on August 22,2011 | 08:13 PM
From everything I've read, as an habitual student of all things Lincolnian, ol' Abe had a bit of a twang fashioned from the rural Illinois/Kentucky inflection that probably was cultivated through his youthful days, and the tenor of his voice was fairly high and fairly shrill, without being extremely either. I would imagine it was less high and shrill than, say, the Don Knotts character from the Andy Griffith TV show of the late 1950s and early 1960s whom we've all come to lampoon over time, certainly not to be construed with a southern accent, but somewhere in that range in which rural meets southern. It is said that the voice was as high and shrill as one can imagine without it being squeaky. In any case, it was certainly a far cry from the classically filmic versions of his delivery as we have come to know from actors with clear baritones, such as Raymond Massey and Gregory Peck, each of whom portrayed Lincoln with an almost booming basso profundo that rose from the depths of the abdomen. It would have been one of the most intriguing moments for me personally to have been able to hear with my own ears just once the great man speak.
Posted by TheClambelly on July 30,2011 | 06:54 AM
I read somewhere many years ago that Lincoln's voice was high and nasal, so I'd agree that Hal Holbrook's performance would be one of the most accurate. My all-time favorite Lincoln performance, however, was that by Henry Fonda in "Young Mr. Lincoln."
Posted by Gray Rivers on July 8,2011 | 10:41 PM
We will little note, nor long remember what Lincoln's voice sounded like...but we can never forget what he said here.
Posted by R. A. on July 2,2011 | 03:33 PM
"...centurion, basso profundo voices..."???
I assume Mr. Holzer meant "stentorian."
Posted by David Bessmer on June 30,2011 | 06:57 PM
"Centurion?" Surely the word Ms. Gambino is groping for here is "stentorian." That is, unless Holzer made the mistake, which seems unlikely.
Posted by D. P. Higgins on June 30,2011 | 05:07 PM
Ah, but what does Megan Gambino's voice sound like?
Posted by whatsinaname on June 30,2011 | 02:01 PM
When I read about a great man like our sixteenth president, Abraham Lincoln and try to imagine how he spoke, I envision the time when Science will invent the Time Machine and we will all cease to wonder and know how he sounded.
Posted by Renee Sinrod on June 12,2011 | 07:38 PM
I enjoyed this very much
Posted by John V Berberich III on June 11,2011 | 01:38 PM
JFK did not have a "BASS" voice,but in his inaugural address,"ASK NOT,WHAT YOUR COUNTRY CAN DO FOR YOU,BUT ASK WHAT CAN YOU DO FOR YOUR COUNTRY?" got a clear message across.
Posted by Wayne Owens on June 11,2011 | 03:22 AM
I remember reading that a French inventor had once tried to record Lincoln with his string recording device? Is the story true? And could it have worked?
Posted by Seth Feldman on June 10,2011 | 06:34 PM
Over the years I have read as many accounts of Lincoln's voice as I could find. Im my opinion Hal Holbrook's interpretation comes closest to my understanding of the sound of Lincoln's voice.
Posted by N.W.Randle on June 10,2011 | 04:51 PM