Lincoln Collection. Lincoln Portraits, 1858-1930

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Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Douglas and the Civil War

Visual Arts

This collection is open for research.

When quoting material from this collection, the preferred citation is: Lincoln Collection. Sheet Music, [Box #, Folder #], Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library

Rev. William Eleazar Barton (1861-1930) The Rev. William Eleazar Barton (1861-1930) was one of the early twentieth century's most prominent writers and lecturers on the life of Abraham Lincoln. Born in Sublette, Illinois, in the same year Lincoln assumed the presidency, Barton grew up in an environment heavily influenced by reverence for Lincoln. After pursuing undergraduate studies at Berea College in Kentucky, Barton earned his divinity degree from the Oberlin Theological Seminary in 1890. He served parishes in Tennessee, Ohio, and Massachusetts before becoming the pastor of the First Congregational Church of Oak Park, Illinois, a position he held until his retirement in 1924. Four years later, Barton accepted an appointment as lecturer at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, where he also organized and served as pastor of the Collegeside Congregational Church.

Barton's work as a writer produced a number of denominational manuals for church organization and a series of books presenting the wisdom and parables of a character he named Safed the Sage. For the last ten years of his life, however, Barton was best known to the public as a prolific author and lecturer on Abraham Lincoln. His publications about Lincoln included The Soul of Abraham Lincoln (1920), The Paternity of Abraham Lincoln (1920), The Life of Abraham Lincoln (1925), The Great and Good Man (1927), The Women Lincoln Loved (1927), and The Lincoln of the Biographers (1930).

In the course of compiling material for his writings and talks, Barton visited Lincoln sites in Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois; interviewed surviving Lincoln relatives and acquaintances; and traveled as far as California and England to collect information and conduct genealogical research on the ancestry of the Lincoln family. While acquiring a large collection of books, periodicals, pamphlets, manuscripts, and ephemera related to Lincoln and the Civil War era, Barton also purchased privately or at auction historical materials amassed by other Lincoln collectors such as John E. Burton and Osborn H. Oldroyd.

The Lincoln Portraits collection makes up the portion of the Barton Collection of Lincolniana which maintains images of Lincoln in photographs, lithographs, engravings, and sculptures. The collection is arranged into five primary series organized with particular consideration for the general theme of the images.

Series I, Lincoln Portraits, consists of portraits of Lincoln in photographic prints, engravings, and lithographs. The images contain representations of him from his adolescence to the time of his death in 1865.

Series II, the Civil War and Politics series of this collection, includes both portraits of Lincoln from during his career as a lawyer and imaged with his presidential cabinet as well as ones of soldier life in army camps of union soldiers during the Civil War. Among the materials pertaining to the Civil War are images of Lincoln with General McClellan and secret agent Allan Pinkerton at Antietam and Lincoln greeting General Grant from the car of his political train. Also in this series are lithograph images of Lincoln with secretary of state official, William H. Seward, signing the Emancipation Proclamation as well as an official facsimile copy of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Series III, Family Portraits, includes images of Lincoln at home in leisure with his family as well as individual portraits of Lincoln's wife and sons. This series is supplemented by a subseries consisting solely of images representing Mary Todd in portraiture.

Series VI, Sculptures, contains photographic images of statues and monuments dedicated to the life of Abraham Lincoln. Included in the collected materials here are images of Lincoln's tomb as well as bas-relief studies for the image of Lincoln represented on penny coinage.

Series V, Memorials, contains materials commemorating the life, death, and funeral rites of Abraham Lincoln. The series also contains reproductions of his assassination at the Ford Theater in lithographs and engravings. Several pictorial recordings of the officials present at his deathbed as well as a photographic recording of the reception of Lincoln's funeral train at Chicago, the dignitaries and officials who welcomed the car on its arrival, and the gatherings of mourners outside his house are a modicum example of the images which are housed in this series.

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• Names
  • Barton, William Eleazar, 1861-1930
  • Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865
• SubjectCollectors and collecting