ABSTRACT
Centenary celebrations are noteworthy as a rare trilateral manifestation of the centenary phenomenon: the anniversary plans extended across America, Britain and Canada. They played their own politico-diplomatic role in Anglo-American relations. The centenary celebrations represented the confluence of several different political and cultural processes. The idea of celebrating the centenary developed gradually between 1910 and 1912. The original notion came out of the 1910 meeting of the Lake Mohonk conference, a regular gathering of academics, lawyers and other worthies discussing international arbitration. The Lincoln memorial was given greater significance by wartime developments; it was a concern for Allied sensibilities at an acute juncture that prompted the next phase of cultural diplomacy. In the weeks before America joined the war on Britain's side in April 1917, a new proposal had emerged. In Cincinnati, another statue of Abraham Lincoln had been erected, sculpted by George Grey Barnard.
