The Cooper Union Portrait by Mathew Brady, New York, 1860

Mathew Brady photographed Lincoln in New York on February 27, 1860, hours before the Cooper Union address that introduced him to Eastern Republicans. Brady posed him standing beside a column with a hand on a stack of books and drew up his collar to disguise his long neck, and later copies smoothed the lines in his face. The image was copied everywhere during the 1860 campaign, including a full-page woodcut in Harper's Weekly. Lincoln is reported to have said that Brady and the Cooper Institute made him president.