Miscegenation hoax

The Miscegenation hoax, taking the form of a pamphlet subtitled The Theory of the Blending of the Races, Applied to the American White Man and Negro, was published by New York World staff in December 1863 as part of an anti-Lincoln Copperhead campaign leading up to the 1864 presidential election.[1][2] The 72-page piece coined the term miscegenation (from the Latin miscere "to mix" + genus "kind") and was put together by World managing editor David Goodman Croly and reporter George Wakeman.[3]

Title page.

The work purports to be a sincere advocacy of the virtues of racial mixing, but it is a literary forgery intended to prompt opposition to racial equality, and to blame the Lincoln administration for allegedly supporting this goal. The authors unsuccessfully attempted to trick Lincoln into endorsing the work. The World also featured a hoax about a "Miscegenation Ball" with interracial dancing alleged to have been held at a Republican function in New York City during the campaign.[4]

References
  1. Kaplan, Sidney (1949). "The Miscegenation Issue in the Election of 1864". The Journal of Negro History. 34 (3): 274–343. doi:10.2307/2715904. JSTOR 2715904. S2CID 149894208.
  2. Guilford, Gwynn (November 28, 2016). "Fake news isn't a new problem in the US—it almost destroyed Abraham Lincoln". Quartz. Quartz (publication). Archived from the original on September 6, 2020. this miscegenation hoax still "damn near sank Lincoln that year"
  3. Waugh, John (2009-04-30). Reelecting Lincoln: The Battle For The 1864 Presidency. Da Capo Press, Incorporated. ISBN 9780786747115.
  4. Holzer, Harold (2013-05-02). "How a Racist Newspaper Defeated Lincoln in New York in the 1864 Election". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 2018-09-15.
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