Collecting Lincoln

On the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, a new exhibition looks at the role of collectors in preserving his memory

In December 1848, Abraham Lincoln, then a U.S. representative from Illinois, received his first request for an autograph. He found the Philadelphia clerk’s letter asking for his “signature with a sentiment” rather amusing: “I am not a very sentimental man,” he replied, “and the best sentiment I can think of is, that if you collect the signatures of all persons who are no less distinguished than I, you will have a very undistinguishing mass of names.”

He was, of course, proven wrong. The public fascination that began during his lifetime for collecting everything related to Lincoln only intensified after his death. By the centenary of Lincoln’s birth in 1909, memorabilia associated with his life, presidency, and assassination had evolved into a distinct field of American antiquarianism known as Lincolniana.

The Huntington’s own extensive Lincoln holdings (which rank with the collections of the Library of Congress and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library as the most important in the nation) are the source of a new exhibition titled “The Last Full Measure of Devotion: Collecting Abraham Lincoln,” opening Feb. 7 and continuing through April 27 in the West Hall of the Library. While exploring the history of Lincolniana, the exhibition pays tribute to the collectors themselves —without whom, much of Lincoln’s writings, and many of the artifacts that tangibly connect us to our 16th president, might have been lost.

Timed to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth, the exhibition will include dozens of autograph letters and manuscripts, among them his famous letter to Ulysses S. Grant, dated April 14, 1864 (“And now with a brave Army, and a just cause, may God sustain you”), and an 1858 scrapbook of speeches about “Negro equality” that Lincoln prepared during his celebrated debates with Stephen A. Douglas. One of the most poignant manuscripts on view will be a pass written by Lincoln dispatching his friend and self-appointed bodyguard, Ward Hill Lamon, to Richmond on April 11, 1865. Three days later, while Lamon was still absent from Washington, the president was fatally shot. The document is often referred to as Lincoln’s “death warrant.”

Lincoln relics will also be displayed, including a piece of rail that Lincoln purportedly split, which once belonged to Theodore Roosevelt, and a bronze life mask and casts of Lincoln’s hands.