Abe’s Business Card

Alex Funny, History Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

Abraham Lincoln’s “Business Card”

 

Abraham Lincoln’s “Business Card”

Text reads:

“A. Lincoln. Attorney and counselor at law. Springfield, Illinois … My old customers, and others, are no doubt aware of the terrible time I have had in crossing the stream, and will be glad to know that I will be back … ready to swap horses, dispense law, make jokes split rails and perform other matters in a small way [Business card of Abraham Lincoln, probably printed by the Democratic committee in 1864.] [Springfield?].” 1864. An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera, Library of Congress.

via –

http://www.americaslibrary.gov/aa/lincoln/aa_lincoln_humor_1_e.html

“I will be back” = evidence that Lincoln was perhaps not a Vampire Hunter, but rather… the Terminator?

Beautiful Lincoln Art Exhibit

Alex Art, Fake Tags: , , , Leave a comment

Photo Nineteen Lincolns artist Greta Pratt’s webpage: http://www.gretapratt.com/index_liabout.html

I happened upon this piece by pure chance – while visiting Seattle I ended up at the Frye museum with my friends. I walked into the room which had the Nineteen Lincolns and was so blown away.

I think one line in the artist’s statement really resonates for me:

These photographs are a continuation of my quest to understand how I, and we, remember history. My intention is to comment on the way a society, composed of individuals, is held together through the creation of its history and heroic figures.

And really – to be frank, that is an excellent summation of why I am so intrigued by our sixteenth president. It is our shared history, or our mutually understood story of what has happened that makes our nation so particularly interesting.
Here is the link to the artists main page for this project: http://www.gretapratt.com/index_li_main.html

 

Words He Didn’t Say…

Alex Fake, History Tags: , , Leave a comment

I’ve been reading up about misattributed quotes recently and stumbled upon a section of misattributed quotes from WikiQuotes excerpted below:

He only has the right to criticize who has the heart to help.

  • Original quote from William Penn (1693): They have a Right to censure, that have a Heart to help: The rest is Cruelty, not Justice.

It will not do to investigate the subject of religion too closely, as it is apt to lead to Infidelity.

  • Claimed by atheist Franklin Steiner, on p. 144. of one of his books to have appeared in Manford’s Magazine but he never gives a year of publication.

I hope to have God on my side, but I must have Kentucky!

  • See, for example, Albert D. Richardson (1865), The Secret Service, the Field, the Dungeon, and the Escape. The quotation is based on a comment by Rev. Moncure D. Conwayabout the progress of the Civil War.
    • It is evident that the worthy President would like to have God on his side: he must have Kentucky.
      • Moncure D. Conway (1862), The Golden Hour