Miscegenation hoax

{{Short description|1863 American political hoax pamphlet}} {{italictitle|string=Miscegenation}} thumb|Title page. 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.<ref name=kaplan>{{Cite journal|last=Kaplan|first=Sidney |date=1949|title=The Miscegenation Issue in the Election of 1864|journal=The Journal of Negro History|volume=34|issue=3|pages=274–343 |doi=10.2307/2715904|jstor=2715904|s2cid=149894208 }}</ref><ref name=Gwynn>{{cite web |last1=Guilford |first1=Gwynn |title=Fake news isn't a new problem in the US—it almost destroyed Abraham Lincoln |url=https://qz.com/842816/fake-news-almost-destroyed-abraham-lincoln/ |website=Quartz |publisher=Quartz (publication) |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20200906074117/https://qz.com/842816/fake-news-almost-destroyed-abraham-lincoln/ |archivedate=September 6, 2020 |language=en |date=November 28, 2016 |url-status=live |quote=this miscegenation hoax still “damn near sank Lincoln that year”}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NDzSypIhISUC&pg=PA318 |title=Reelecting Lincoln: The Battle For The 1864 Presidency|last=Waugh|first=John |date=2009-04-30|publisher=Da Capo Press, Incorporated|isbn=9780786747115|language=en}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/02/how-a-racist-newspaper-defeated-lincoln-in-new-york-in-the-1864-election |title=How a Racist Newspaper Defeated Lincoln in New York in the 1864 Election |last=Holzer |first=Harold |author-link=Harold Holzer |date=2013-05-02 |work=The Daily Beast |access-date=2018-09-15 |lang=en}}</ref>

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links==

* Full text (djvu) on Wikimedia Commons

*[https://www.loc.gov/resource/lprbscsm.scsm1371/ Library of Congress scan] *[http://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/the_miscegenation_hoax The Miscegenation Hoax] at the Museum of Hoaxes

Category:1863 non-fiction books Category:19th-century hoaxes Category:Literary forgeries Category:Multiracial affairs in the United States Category:New York World Category:Racial hoaxes Category:American pamphlets Category:Political forgery Category:Anti-black racism in the United States Category:1864 United States presidential election Category:Conspiracy theories involving race and ethnicity Category:Presidency of Abraham Lincoln Category:1860s neologisms