Lincoln, Abraham

Signature written at the foot of a carte-de-visite size albumen print portrait mounted on card (3 3/4 x 2 1/4 in.; 95 x 59 mm) with double gilt-ruled border, inscribed on verso in pencil "Fair held in Pekin, Ill to raise money for soldiers—in early part of war. probably 1862. Photographs sent by Lincoln and autographed by him. $200"; trimmed at top margin far from image of Lincoln, some light spotting.

Lincoln in Photographs O-71a; Westerman's letter to Lincoln can be found in the Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/alhtml/malhome.html)

A fine signed photograph of President Lincoln, with an intriguing history. This is one of several signed copies of this portrait that Lincoln contributed to the Tazewell County, Illinois, Sanitary Fair. The photographs were solicited by a determined Mrs. Henry P. Westerman, who on October 2, 1864, wrote to Lincoln, "A second time I importune you for a donation to our Tazewell County fair, Sanitary Fair I should say. And I cannot give up the idea of our President giving us something. If you remember I stopped you at the White House steps … and you asked me what I wanted you to do. I told you and you said that you were worn out and could not go up again for anything but said you would remember my position. Now this time if you cannot conveniently give us anything else … send a large picture of yourself which we can make a great deal on it. It is the earnest wishes of our Soldiers Aid Society that you would do something as it would inspire others to donate."

Westerman suggested that should Lincoln want to find out if she was "an imposter or not," he could inquire of John Albert Jones, a childhood friend of hers "who is in some office in the Treasury department I disremember which." She further tells the President. "What you send will have to be done immediately as our San fair commences on the 18th Oct." She also reminded him in a postscript that "by so doing you will be rewarded from above." In order to support the Tazewell Fair—and perhaps to forestall any further entreaties from Mrs. Westerman—Lincoln had at least three signed carte-de-visite size prints sent to the Pekin Soldiers Aid Society (Hamilton & Ostendorf record two others in Lincoln in Photographs, p. 252).

The endorsement on the verso of the photograph is accurate apart from the date of the Fair. Not only do we know from Mrs. Westerman's letter that the Fair was held in October 1864, but Lincoln did not sit for this portrait until August 9, 1863, when he agreed to be Alexander Gardner's first sitter at the photographer's new gallery. John Hay, one of Lincoln's private secretaries, recorded the visit in his diary: "I went down with the President to have his picture taken at Gardner's. He was in very good spirits" (quoted in Mark Katz, Witness to an Era: The Life and Photographs of Alexander Gardner, p. 112). Lincoln is depicted sitting by a small marble-topped table, holding his reading glasses in his right hand and a Sunday newspaper in his left.