Abraham Lincoln's Birthday: A 1944 Remembrance

Today, February 12th, is Abraham Lincoln's birthday. Here's a 1944 press photo from the Abraham Lincoln Book Shop in Chicago, Illinois, which I wrote about on this blog three years ago today. Enough time has gone by now and this seemed a good time to repost it, given all the attention Lincoln has gotten recently in books and film.


The back of the photo has a typed sheet of paper that appears to be dated 2-8-44. Other notation, for the record: A-37690 and Wide World. The title of the release is "Lincoln's Words Live On."


Here's the press release transcribed from the typed sheet (typos and errant punctuation intact):
CHICAGO, ILL.-To the Abraham Lincoln Book Shop, started on Abraham Lincoln's Birthday 11 years ago by Ralph Newman come writers, ans (SIC) scholars bent on research, and everyday people of all sorts to who the great statesman is still an inspiration. Carl Sandburg used the shop when he was writing his "Life of Lincoln". Four years ago 25 of its patrons started an informal organization the Civil War Round Table, which meets monthly for discussions of the period. members range from a street-car conductor to a judge. There reading an old book of the Lincoln Period are: Walter S. Holden, Chicago Attorney holding the book, and (left to right)Dr. George Truman Carl, Chicago Pastor; Joseph Eisendrath, Jr., manufacturer; John Hamer, Assistant Manager of an oil company; and Newton C. Farr, a real estate man.
The old book shop is still around at 357 West Chicago Avenue in Chicago. It was established in 1938, so was a mere six years old when this photo was taken. I doubt they allow cigar smoking in the shop now (the man holding the book has a lit stogie!). Click on this link to see the Abraham Lincoln Book Shop today.

And here are a few links for Lincolniana:

Lincolniana at Brown University

The Alfred Whital Stern Collection of Lincolniana at the Library of Congress

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to open a book

Image
Cataloging books the other day, I came across an 1890s multivolume set called Messages and Papers of the Presidents . Inside one of the volumes was a slip of printed paper with a bookbinder's message: How to Open a Book . The set was published by the Government Printing Office, so they are the likely source of this piece of paper, which reprints a passage from a publication titled, Modern Bookbinding . No other bibliographical detail is included for that title, but I have found a magazine from that era, Modern Bookbinding and Their Designers . No clue, though, as to the author of this particular piece. You might wonder (I did) why there would be a need for instructions to open a book. And if you put those instructions inside the book, doesn't that defeat the purpose somewhat? Opening a book is not as easy as you might think. At least if you read these instructions and try to follow them. Here's the gist of it in the opening run-on sentence: Hold the book with its back on a ...
Read more

A Bookaholic and Bibliophile in Ukraine

Image
A favorite piece in my Bibliophemera collection is an unused postcard illustrated by Ukrainian artists Romana Romanyshyn and Andriy Lesiv. It features two interesting, whimsical creatures embracing each other while maintaining engagement with their books. Cat-like and bird-like, one in high heels and one barefoot, one with a long tail and prominent ears and one with tail feathers and no visible ears, both with beaks, and both with books. They can’t put their books down even in this intimate moment. Appropriately, they are labeled Bookaholic and Bibliophile. Might they even be an imaginative rendering of the artists themselves? Romana and Andriy were both born in Lviv, Ukraine in 1984 and continue to live and work there. The illustration on the postcard is a fitting depiction of their artistic lives where books and their illustrations comprise their passion for illustration, book design, and writing. Together, they started Art Studio Agrafka in Lviv where they have produced award-win...
Read more

F.F. Hansell & Bro., New Orleans 1900

Image
But for the winds of fate that first weekend in September of 1900, the building pictured above (and below), may have crumbled and the publishing & bookselling firm of F.F. Hansell in New Orleans would not have had produced the billhead above. What if the Great Storm of 1900 that leveled Galveston on September 8, 1900--America's worst natural disaster--had caught steering currents that took it north well before a Texas landfall? Hansell's billhead, dated September 28, 1900, owes its existence to the elements of nature, whatever they were at the time: High pressure over New Orleans pushing the storm west? A weak front approaching the Texas coast, pulling the storm toward it? Whatever, this storm could just as easily have veered north with a change in conditions and destroyed New Orleans. A lot of these storms that enter the Gulf of Mexico seem to make that right turn before striking the Texas coast. We (Houston-Galveston area) got lucky last summer with Gustav. Not so lucky w...
Read more