Eight score years after Lincoln | Scene Through the Lens

The 16th president’s 1863 speech is on a monitor during testing of the equipment before President Joe Biden’s recent visit to Philadelphia.

A “score” is 20 years, so “four score and seven” means 87 years. In the case of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address it was 87 years, 4 months, and 16 days after the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Biden’s staff screening the speech comes 160 - “eight score” - years later.

It was the ninth time Joe Biden has traveled to Philly this year, and at least the 16th since he took office in January 2021.

And, the thing about Lincoln writing the famous “Four score and seven years ago…” words on the back of an envelope during his train ride from Washington on the day of the speech?

That’s a myth.

Lincoln had been invited to speak months earlier and had plenty of time to write the speech. There are even multiple original copies of the speech in existence — none of which look like they were written on a bumpy train.

In other political news this week, Philadelphia City Council President Darrell L. Clarke retired after four decades at City Hall, and presided over his final session on Thursday. He got his start in 1980 as a constituent services staffer for then-Councilmember John F. Street, eventually becoming Street’s chief of staff. Street later rose to Council president before becoming mayor in 2000. Clarke replaced Street as 5th District Council member and became Council president in 2012.

Every publication does it at this time of the year, so please take a look back with 2023 in Visuals, the Inquirer’s collection of the year’s most stunning images, captured by my award-winning colleagues.

And finally, a few of my own visual highlights from 2023, photographed by some of the almost 310 million current smartphone users in the U.S. today (A recent survey found 91% of them prefer to use “the camera in their pocket” rather than a “real” one.)

Since 1998, a black-and-white photo has appeared every Monday in staff photographer Tom Gralish’s “Scene Through the Lens” photo column in The Inquirer’s local news section. Here are the most recent, in color: