HONEST ABE

Technology rescued the evening for the Lincoln Group of New York dinner when actor Sam Waterston was unable to accept his award in person. The “Law and Order” star was honored for his re-creation of the antislavery speech Lincoln gave at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in 1860, which helped win the country lawyer the Republican nomination and the presidency.

Mr. Waterston was able to address the group by cell phone. Harold Holzer, author of “Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President” (Simon & Schuster), placed his phone against the microphone, and the actor came through loud and clear. Mr. Waterston told the crowd that he didn’t feel he deserved the bulk of the credit for his one-night performance at Cooper Union last year, attended by roughly 900 people (another 900 were turned away). “This is not false modesty, but it is the speech that is the hero of the whole thing. The night showed how fantastically well the speech still worked for an audience.”

When Mr. Waterston hung up to return to the set of “Law and Order,” Mr. Holzer explained the significance of the Lincoln speech in New York history.

Lincoln, said Mr. Holzer, traveled to New York in a three-day, 1,400-mile rail journey. He was accompanied by Mrs. Smith, a cousin of his wife, Mary, and her 2-year-old infant. “This was at a time where there was no sleeping car, no dining car, and no bathroom.” The audience laughed when Mr. Holzer added that a newspaper of the time had reported, “Mr. Lincoln has just passed through Fort Wayne with a woman who says that her name is Smith.”

He said that when Lincoln first arrived in the office of a sponsor, Henry Bowen, and lay down on the couch, the alarmed host had wondered if he had wasted his money.

The speech changed his mind. In it, Lincoln argued that the Founding Fathers felt the federal government had the right to restrict the spread of slavery. After the event, sponsor James Briggs wrote “Enclosed please find a ‘check’ for $200. I would that it were $200,000, for you are worthy of it.” An entry fee was charged, but Bowen and his partners only made $9 each on the night, Mr. Holzer said.

Lincoln had done exhaustive research, Mr. Holzer said, in preparing his speech, including reading all the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention and the state ratification conventions as well.

At that time, oratory was public entertainment, Mr. Holzer said. Though Lincoln’s speech lasted two hours, four more addresses followed.

“Unlike today, no one rushed for the exits to get to the parking garage.” In fact, when Lincoln finished “they rose up in a massive show of enthusiasm.” The 7,500-word speech was carried in the New York Tribune the next day, edited at the newspaper office by Lincoln himself after he had been taken to a club for dinner. In those days, it was habit to throw the pages of copy down on the floor after the typesetting had been checked: Lincoln did this, and the manuscript was lost. Later, thousands of pamphlet reprints helped win Lincoln his campaign.

Mr. Holzer, who is vice president for communications and marketing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is cochairman of the U.S. Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. The commission’s executive director, Michael Bishop, traveled from Washington to report that it had initiated preparations for the 2009 bicentennial celebrations – including a Lincoln exhibition that will travel around the country.

Mr. Holzer told the Knickerbocker that President Bush has been very supportive of the commission. The success in Washington has been bipartisan: Hilary Rodham Clinton attended Mr. Holzer’s book party in Washington.

Unusual for a scholar, perhaps, the book has also been financially rewarding. Introducing Mr. Holzer, the president of the Lincoln Group, Joseph Garrera, noted that Mr. Holzer recently delivered the National Endowment for the Humanities 2nd annual “Heroes of History” lecture and received a $10,000 honorarium. “I am sorry, Harold, but we can’t pay you $10,000 for tonight!” he joked. “Dinner’s on me!” Mr. Holzer replied.

Mr. Holzer was then awarded the Lincoln Group’s annual award of achievement for writing the best Lincoln book published in the last year. In his acceptance, Mr. Holzer assured the company that the few errors in the first edition would be corrected, including the page where Lincoln is recorded as having six fingers, since the text said he had posed with his index finger on his brow, his thumb under his chin, and “the other four [sic] fingers” on his cheek.

Those present included New York public relations gurus John O’Keefe and Tim Mulligan, both of whom introduced Mr. Holzer to his editor at Simon & Schuster, Alice Mayhew; Mr. Holzer’s daughter, Meg,who studies at New York University School of Law; a retired textile manufacturer and major collector of political Americana, Stanley King; and a New Jersey-based attorney, Stuart Schneider, who collects not only rare Lincoln memorabilia but also turn-of-the-century flashlights, fountain pens (“though I don’t use one”), fluorescent minerals, Halloween artifacts, and space race memorabilia.

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AMERICAN STYLE

Two new publications were feted at in-store book parties last week. One crowd was ostensibly celebrating Kelly Killoren Bensimon’s “American Style” (Assouline), but Cartier catalogs were more in evidence. Receiving congratulations from Bruce Wasserstein, Aerin Lauder, and the Allen Grubmans, the author was snapped repeatedly by her photographer husband Gilles, festooned in a red foulard and artfully framing his shots, the Knickerbocker hoped, to avoid revealing the hole in the stretch mesh sleeve of his wife’s gown. “It’s a mutual admiration society,” explained host Ralph Destino, as the sparkle of the guest list reflected the jewels.

Meanwhile a few blocks north, a guitar book was playing second fiddle to luxury goods at Hermes, which opened an exhibit of the photos from “Light Strings: Impressions of the Guitar” (Chronicle Books) by photographer Ralph Gibson, with heady text by former “Police” strummer Andy Summers. (“The string has a history. A length of gut ripped from the carcass of an animal, twisted and stretched between two points of green willow. It vibrated, danced, had tension, and a sound that penetrated body, mind, and soul.”)

The connection here is craftsmanship explained, said one attendee, “all the technique and workmanship that goes into creating fine objects.”