Logging Some History

I found a bag of Lincoln logs on the curb. Rushing to catch the bus, I passed them by quickly, saying to myself something like, “That is a big bag of Lincoln logs next to that trash can.” It was not until I got a few steps beyond them that it really sunk in. I went back. I am not sure if I’d ever seen Lincoln Logs in person before, never having any as a child, but they are an American icon, a reactionary recognition. What is the word for a nostalgia that isn’t your own memory, but a collective one? Erin Cho states in her essay Lincoln Logs: toying with the frontier myth, “The log cabin came to be identified with democracy and the frontier spirit as Americans began to marvel at their own progress and to make a virtue of their early struggles with the wilderness.”

What drew my attention most about this bag was the odd jumble of plastic cowboys, Indians and horses rolling around with the 200 or so logs. The Indians had feathers and buffalo headdresses ready for the Great Plains or just headed to a particularly good party. The cowboys had a lot of flair too, sporting an array of Skittle colors. Both groups were armed to the teeth, ready to kill each other. At first I thought this was just some other less culturally sensitive toy set thrown in with the industrious and neutral Lincoln Logs, but when I got home that day, I was able to find someone selling a log set with my same Indians on eBay so they must have come together.


Invented by John Lloyd Wright in 1919, the son of the much more famous Frank Lloyd Wright, Lincoln Logs originally contained instructions for building the cabins of both Abraham Lincoln and Uncle Tom—an interesting and unexpected comparison. I am even more surprised when I discover that there is a long history of Lincoln Log characters (originally metal and hand painted). They are anything but neutral in their portrayal of race and gender. I dump the whole lot of it onto my living room floor and attempt to start reconstructing.