973.7L63 A3St2g cop.l i 2 Starr, Thomas I. The Greenly Collection; cn^^i^ LINCOLN ROOM UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY presented by cop i : TI-(6 [^o/i-^^KS.. Cap 2.: James G. and Ruth Painter Randall Collection y THE GREENLY COLLECTION A Recent Qift of Lincolniana By Thomas I. Starr Reprinted from Michigan Alumnus Quarterly Review, July 26, 1941, Vol. XLVII, No. 24. THE GREENLY COLLECTION A Recent Qift of Lincolniana By Thomas I. Starr THE GREENLY COLLECTION A Recent Qift of Lincolniana By Thomas I. Starr Ihortly after the late Regent William L. Clements had given the library beaj-ing his name to the University of Michigan in 1923, he remarked one day to William W. Bishop, the University librarian, and Randolph G. Adams, direc- tor of the Clements Library, that he would like next to collect literature pertaining to Abraham Lincoln. Regent Clements' intention to include Lincolniana in his great collection of Americana was sincere, but Destiny placed in his way a detour and instead he em- barked on the collecting of historical manu- scripts having to do with a much earlier period in American history — the papers on the British side of the American Revolu- tion. His desire to collect Lincoln material was not to be fulfilled during his lifetime. In one respect it was a fortunate detour. Through the action of Mr. Clements manu- scripts of great value and of vast historical worth were to be preserved. Where origi- nals of these early British-American papers in England could not be secured, copies were made and now it is not inconceivable that these originals in England may be lost and that the English historian of the future will have to come to Ann Arbor for certain of his country's records after the invader has been repelled from the British Isles. Time bombs or incendiary flares will not threaten those records which Regent Clem- ents secured and placed in his collection in Ann Arbor. But Destiny had not forgotten that Wil- liam L. Clements desired to gather Lin- colniana and that some day he wanted his library to contain a representative collec- tion of that important branch of American biographical literature. There came one day to the Clements Library a visitor, a man from New York City, who inquired for information pertaining to Julia Moore and her poetry. No, the Clements Library had nothing on the "Sweet Singer of Michi- gan." Her outbursts of poetical feeling were not then considered collectors' "items." But, in the conversation which followed, it developed that the New Yorker's interests were not confined solely to the Poetess of the Pines, He had also the interest of the collector and of the student in the life of Abraham Lincoln, and furthermore, he was interesteci in the history and literature of Michigan, the visitor's native state. He had collected and studied extensively in all these fields. There was nothing in the Library in the way of Lincolniana, either, the attendant told the visitor. It had been an intended field in the plans of the Library's founder, but as yet those plans had not materialized. More conversation led to subsequent visits to the Clements Library, which terminated in — well, let's allow Mr. Albert H. THE GREENLY COLLECTION 319 Lincoln's Acceptance of an Invitation to Speak at Kalamazoo, 1856. Greenly, the New Yorker, to repeat the story from this point. He told it quietly and modestly to a large group in the Library last February 12, the night the Lincoln Room, which now houses the Albert H. Greenly Collection of Lincolniana, was opened: I am a native of Michigan, My grandfather came to this state in 1848. My father and I were born here,^ I received in Michigan what school- ing my parents could give me. If it had been possible for me to have a college education, I should no doubt have gone to this University, but I had to go to work after finishing high school. My interests have always centered in Michigan, although I have lived in New York City since completing my service in the World War. There was, as far as I knew, no working col- lection of Lincoln source material in Michigan. That was an added incentive to place my col- lection somewhere in this state, Ann Arbor is quite the logical place, and after a few talks with Dr. Adams, his enthusiasm fired within me the idea that the Clements Library was the spe- cific place. Then, too. Dr. Adams had told me in one of our talks of Mr. Clements' purpose some time to add Lincoln material to his col- lection. I feel highly honored in having my col- lection housed in the beautiful building Mr. Clements provided for his books. . . . This, in brief, is the story of the detour Destiny made in bringing about the reali- zation of the Clements Library's founder to secure what Mr. Greenly so appropri- ately called a "working collection of Lin- coln source material." But the Greenly Collection is something more — it is the cornerstone of what can some day be one of the great Lincoln collections compar- able to any already formed, or that now are taking form, in public and private ^ Mr. Greenly was born in Grand Rapids, March 11, 1881, the son of Albert H. and May J. Greenly. He attended the Grand Rapids public schools and gradu- ated from the Grand Rapids High School in 1899. In January 1901, he entered the railroad service as a clerk for the Pere Marquette Railway Company, ad- vancing through various positions until he became the head of its Traffic Bureau. During the World War he served in France as a First Lieutenant with the United States Engineers. In 1920, he became a member of the Official Classification Committee, with offices in New York City, and since 1931 has been chairman of that Committee. "^20 THE QUARTERLY REVIEW institutions in several sections of the United States. It should be mentioned, however, that when he made the above statement Mr. Greenly was unaware of the fine col- lection of Lincolniana gathered for the Western Michigan College of Education at Kalamazoo by the late President Dwight B. Waldo. Many others even yet are not informed of its existence. One incident in the life of the sixteenth President definitely places Michigan in the Lincoln "country." That was, until re- cently, his little known but now vastly important antislavery address in Kalama- zoo on August 27, 1856. Mr. Greenly knew of the incident and of its importance, for in his collection he held the original letter which Lincoln wrote to the chairman of the Kalamazoo committee of the Young Men's Republican Rally accepting the in- vitation to a place on the speaking program of the day. When another discovered the hiding place of the speech itself (the only speech yet found of the "more than fifty" which Mr. Lincoln delivered during the Republican Party's first national campaign) Mr. Greenly graciously permitted the let- ter's usej and speech and letter appeared earlier this year in a volume entitled Lin- coln's Kalamazoo Address Against Extend- ing Slavery^' So it is very appropriate that Michigan have within its state and available to students of Lincolniana a suit- able collection of Lincoln literature and source material. In size, the collection is as modest as its donor. For those who think of Lincolniana only in terms of the total items in a card catalogue, there remains much to be ac- quired by the Greenly Collection. Judged ^ The full title of the book, which also was issued as "Bulletin No. 34 of the William L. Clements Library of the University of Michigan," is Lincoln's Kalamazoo Address Against Extending Slavery. Also His Life by Joseph J. Lewis, both annotated by Thomas I. Starr and published by The Fine Book Circle, Detroit, 1941. Full reference to the first published life of Lincoln, by Lewis, which is contained in what is perhaps the most valuable single printed item in the Greenly Collection, will be made later in this account. from their monetary value, however, the thousand and more books which line the walls of the Lincoln Room in the Clements Library would produce the amount of a good-sized annuity if they were to pass under the auctioneer's hammer. But this is not to be interpreted to mean that it is a collection of rarities. It is not. Neverthe- less, it would be impossible for anyone to build a collection such as Mr. Greenly's and not acquire a great many choice items. "My primary purpose was to assemble a working library of source material which could be used by students of Lincoln, and not a library of rare collectors' pieces," Mr. Greenly told the audience the night his collection was exhibited for the first time. He spent many years assembling his books, and the notes and prices he has left pen- cilled on the cards in his catalogue of the collection indicate that he was a careful buyer. Each item seems to have been chosen with care and with complete understand- ing of just how it would fit into his inter- pretation of a student's library of Lincoln. For years Lincoln students and writers have been compiling bibliographies of "es- sential" Lincoln writings and biographies. Obviously there are wide variations in what various writers consider important. Wil- liam E, Barton issued in 1929 such a list of more than 200 titles. With the exception of two or three extreme rarities, all of these are to be found in the Greenly Collection. Paul M. Angle, Illinois State Historical librarian and one of the leading authorities on the bibliography of Abraham Lincoln, published in the Bulletin of the Abraham Lincoln Association, in 1936, a list of "fun- damental" Lincolniana. It consisted of sixty- nine titles. They are all in the Greenly Collection. Louis A. Warren, director of the Lincoln National Life Foundation and editor of Lincoln Lore, made his selection of "Fifty Important Lincoln Books" in 1938. They are there, too. To his excellent article on Lincoln in the new Dictionary of Ameiican Biogra-phy, James G. Randall THE GREENLY COLLECTION 321 appended one of the best bibliographies of a collection of Lincolniana which is above the minimum, yet includes what every scholar should have. All of these and a thousand more Mr. Greenly saw fit to in- clude in his library. Every phase of the Lincoln story seems to be touched upon in the material now in the collection, yet — and we go back again to numbers — there are missing some four or five thousand titles which experts in- clude in that broad — very broad — classifi- cation of Lincolniana. In passing, it is per- tinent to mention that there is also to be found in the collection much that probably never will be listed in a published Lincoln bibliography} yet it belongs in a student's library of the subject, definitely. Never will such things as bound volumes of Harfer^s Weekly, Frank Leslie's Illustrated News- paper, or the London Punch for the Civil War years, be recognized as Lincolniana. Yet the first two are a mine of illustrative background and contemporary information, and the last with its caustic yet sometimes sympathetic cartoons and editorials con- tains many a piece found nowhere else for the jig-saw pattern of the Lincoln biog- raphy. The same can be said of scores of other volumes dealing with the contem- porary men and times. They form an es- sential part of the mosaic of the Lincoln portrait. Mr. Greenly, like many another student and collector of Lincoln material, recognized this fact and as a result the Greenly Collection is rich in contemporary material. Almost the last item which Mr. Greenly added to his library while it still remained in his possession, although negotiations had even then been completed to give it to the Clements Library, was what to this writer is one of the most important pieces in the entire collection: a single copy of a news- paper — the Chester County Times, pub- lished February 11, i860 in West Chester, Pennsylvania — which contained the first printed account of Abraham Lincoln's life. It is important because it is the "spring" from which flowed the stream of Lincoln biography which in the intervening eighty- one years has deepened and widened into the literary river that includes all Lincoln lit- erature. It is valuable in a monetary sense because it is one of the three known copies in existence. It is the only copy in a Lin- coln collection. Jesse W. Fell, a native of Pennsylvania, a citizen of Bloomington, Illinois, an astute politician and a close friend and associate of Abraham Lincoln, believed that Lin- coln could become the Republican Party's presidential nominee in i860. He had this belief as early as the Lincoln-Douglas de- bates, in 1858, but it took him a year or more to convince the doubting, yet politi- cally ambitious, Lincoln, and to secure from him a short autobiographical sketch. To the three-page, long-hand sketch. Fell made a few additions relative to Lincoln's political history and speeded it on to his friend Joseph J. Lewis in West Chester. Lewis rewrote and lengthened it into an article of more than 2,500 words, had it published in the Chester County Times, and distributed widely marked copies of the newspaper to Pennsylvania editors. Both Fell and Lewis knew that the large Pennsylvania delega- tion would be influential in the forthcoming Republican National Convention and this was the method tiiey employed to make better known their candidate and his per- sonal qualifications. Copies of the news- paper also were given a wide distribution generally to influential editors in other states. The two-column article from the Chester County Times was reprinted in the Bloomington Weekly Pantagraph, Febru- ary 22 — Fell saw to that — and in the Chi- cago Press and Tribune the following day. Came May 18, i860, and in the Wig- wam at Chicago Abraham Lincoln was nominated for the presidency, just as Fell had declared he could be. It was then that the "spring" of Lincoln biography, the Lewis article in the Chester County Times, 322 THE QUARTERLY REVIEW The Chester County Times. VDLUU VII — &a t H FSt CUbCKlt. r\.. aATtHDAV. rOBDAKV II VHUU MJMFH II Heading of the County Paper in which the First Printed Biography OF Lincoln Appeared. 9»t \t» Obnt«r Oaokly Tima*. ikWUHAM tlNCOUH. AhoM a* ^iithifaiiheil mfo wlu. hj ifieir pa- triulitn tad tloqutBc*, h»T* snAimtd (a cre«t«an(i idiUio th* iwrl; »t com«(iluliaiwl Uf»-i^ia nliich BOW prtdoaiaiiM in noM of Iba frM .Staled, tbsr* it mooM who k*§ • AroMr huU on (bo ooii fiJMM ud •S«ctia» of lh« r*opl« of th* ilr«iti Weat, or ii mor* %a objaM of their entbotiatiii' kJoili atlM, tb»a Abrahtm Moinla of SpringfiolJ. IlllDoit. No trtfdUr thil vUiU th* T*lley ul lb* MlMifilppl, aorth of Ibe Obio, ran fail to be imprawod with tba aarivallad popnlarii; of ibai •aiMM KapaUUaa ektaf thr»ugbout tbat aUola ragten ; aad it It iapoMlbU tn doobt tbat b* «ill b< vlxorooily praaaaJ upon lb* Cbirtgo Contan- lion, bj lb* npiwaaUtifaa of a larg* kod aaraed cuaatitoaary, ai a propar itanJarJ bearar uf our graat oatieaal party is tba impanJing iirasKle for tba rrtaiiaaey. la oonaaqoanoa of tba poai- tiua ba aeasplaa la tk« ragar'la ol our waatara l*ralkriv» ■ f llarllii cmnM Kanluirky. Ha wai Utro no tba iwollib Jay ol Fabiuary, ISO0. UU paraau vara botb bom in Vlrgloia, aad vara earUialy nut of tba 6rtl fami- liat. Hit patamal graadfatbar. Abrabam Lincoln, aaigratad fro* Koakiagfaam oonnly, Virginia, (u Kaatucky, aboat 1781 «t S, vhara a yair or two latar ba >aa klUad hy ladlaat, not is batila, but by ttaaltb, wbib ba vai laboriag to opaik a brm in tba foraM. HIi a a aa H ora, vbo vara rtapaeta- bU aaaiban of tba Society of Friend;, «cnt to Virginia from Sarkt coooty, Peaotjlvnnia. Det- coadanlt of tba aaaa stock itill icride io (bo oa«t- en paru «< tbi* Stata. UitatM «U oi tba !ie(lhiiaa w tiso of tbtir T abla(l«ad wt»(ii.'iii«:3,WaB k^giaciDg I to lo«o hl9 inlrrti'l in pr.liii.'. wlitn Ilia •■•hauiii.,; | aiaiaiion nnj /:'• »•'"■'< Jlu-^n■■•■ uf on un;*riiP| puluux uii'.rjnl u. 111.' ri.-iJvii.y l.touj^Ll .bout | Iba rapaal ..I Hi.' Mi -..ji. i'i.iii|.ioiui'o. Thai art . of lusi'Dcf'- iii.l I'oril.lr :ir •«'' li Ihj loKi.cng li.iu ' and ba |l f.>r iiuW cft'oil . lie lliroo kiiD | ralfat 4,11. .> iiiiu Ilia i'outui.1 ibai lolloaaJ and ' l<.U2;bt ilii> biirila <.r frcaJuio on Iba ^ruuad ot luf 1 lurmor rKiiAii ■» iii Illinois wilb ui.l. Ha full) «pprtniiil . > oibibiiion ■!! .Mr. Lini-olii'- hubiloiil magnauiiuiiy. A lloilod dialo. .Seiml..! w.< Io l.v el..l.d in |.|rtra ol lien, .-^bielda, ah., bad y.el.loJ I. ibe ii.lluenoe tif bis leS' arrupuloii.' r.ijleaguo mhI, agaiu-l bi* o»o lielirr jodgmani, had voti J ( ir Ibe K»ni'«s Neliarki act. Mr. Linc.lii wa the admiilod taador of the o|>potiiioa nad wa; universally ro- gardcd a; Ihair i-,»iiiiidalo lor «anator. Oovernnr Miilto'on wa? iha ran liJata "f lb; Nil ratka Domocrnid .ind LTtn.in Trumbull if the handful (.f Anti Nobraika Domocralt in ibo leRi-lnluro. I Tbo alcclioD cnmo on, and n nunber n voiii ;; 1 The First Biography of Lincoln to Be Printed. commenced to flow and it has never ceased. Horace Greeley was the first to dip from it when he wrote his article for the New York Tribune the day after the nomina- tion. So did John Locke Scripps, for the Chicago Press and Tribune. Within 24 hours publishers were announcing "cam- paign" biographies of Abraham Lincoln, and the Lewis article furnished the mate- rial upon which several of the writers based their hastily prepared volumes. Thus it is that the copy of the February II, 1 860 issue of the Chester County Times assumes primal importance in the splendid group of i860 Lincoln campaign biogra- phies included in the Greenly Collection. Of the eleven known campaign "lives," Mr. Greenly collected eight as well as a great many of their several variants. Miss- ing only are the Vose, as rare as a June day in December; the Codding, almost as rare (but not strictly a Lincoln biography) ; and the Washburne, an eight-page reprint of a speech in the House of Representatives on THE GREENLY COLLECTION 323 May 29 by E. B. Washburne, Congressman from Illinois. Said to have been the first campaign biography placed on sale, and one of the rare volumes in the Collection, is the little paper-covered "Wigwam Edition" of The Life, Speeches, and Public Services of Abram \sic^ Lincoln, the author of which is unknown. It went on sale June 2, fifteen days after Lincoln had been nominated, sold for a quarter, and is notable for its errors. Apparently the author had no more biographical data at hand than the New York Tribune article of May 19, (which had been written hastily by Greeley from the Lewis article) so he resorted to his imagination. In his haste he wrote of "Abram" Lincoln on the title page and throughout the volume; and Lincoln's father, so he declared, died while the future President was a small boy. Of David V. G. Bartlett's The Life md Public Services of Hon. Abraham, Lincoln there are no less than eight different im- prints in the Collection. The first edition is a 150-page, paper-covered volume. Other campaign issues include the paper-covered Thayer & Eldridge offering of 128 pages, which later blossomed into a 320-page, cloth-bound volume, with steel engravings of Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin, and was styled the "Wide-Awake Edition." Follett, Foster & Company, Columbus, Ohio, publishers who had been so success- ful with the publication of the Lincoln- Douglas debates, commissioned no less a person than William Dean Howells, editor of the Atlantic Monthly, to write a life of Lincoln for them. Howells was busy, so he sent a young law student named James Quay Howard to Springfield to interview Lincoln and to gather the data for the writ- ing, and Howells thereby, as he wrote sor- rowfully in after years, ". . . missed the greatest chance of my life, of its kind." From Howard's report of his interview with Lincoln, Howells produced Lives and Speeches of Abraham Lincoln and Hanni- "THE WIGWAM EDITION; Priool (26 oU. TlIK UKK, SPKKCIIES, AND I'lltl.lC SERVICES or ABRAM LINCOLN. NEW YOIiK: RTTDD A OARLBTON, 130 ORAND 8TRSBT. Cover of One of the Earliest of the Lincoln Campaign Biographies — 1860. bal Hamlin (with John L. Hayes doing the portion on Hamlin). Not satisfied with the role of informa- tion-getter for another, Howard turned writer and within a month from Follett, Foster & Company's already overloaded presses there came The Life of Abraham, Lincoln: With Extracts from his Speeches, at ten cents per copy. Today Howard's biography is one of the scarcest of the cam- paign lives. Most of the copies which sur- vive (said to be less than thirty) can be traced to the alertness of the well-known New York bookseller, Charles Everitt, who in 1 901 turned them up in a bundle 324 THE QUARTERLY REVIEW of trash. In the Greenly Collection are two copies, each with a different imprint. Two other rarities among the campaign biographies in Mr. Greenly's collection are the Chicago and New York editions of the John Locke Scripps Lije of Abraham Lin- colfiy the Chicago edition being excessively rare. Most collectors feel fortunate indeed to be able to own the New York edition. TUX NEW REPUBLICM CAMPAIGN 80NOSTEB. ^w^^,atvi»*f yf.»n4ti»i'*'<*0a^4 Uimmimt i'nmtt tA^mik l,.,n4alVII'MrrX.J»aU<>.W4, LINCUN AND UIXUK tM».t *l10»l(.ToKr.'' ePRINOriBLD. ILLS. LIMOLH CLAMIOH FBIIIT 18C0. One of the Earliest and Rarest of the i860 Campaign Songsters. Not common, by any means, are the several copies of the biography by Joseph Hart- well Barrett which the Collection contains. Important also in Lincoln's first cam- paign for the presidency were the so-called "Campaign Songsters." These little paper covered booklets contained the musical "in- spirations" for political battles. Poetically crude, usually satirical, and frequently humorous, these songs were sung to the music of popular airs of the day and fur- nished the barber-shop harmony believed necessary to add impetus to the hilarity of the campaign mass meetings and torchlight parades. For instance, there was this one, to the tune of "Nelly Gray." THE OLD KENTUCKY BABE By a modest member of the Indianola Glee Club In a green and fertile valley on the old Kentucky shore, Years ago, there was born a precious babe; Now he's grown to manly stature, and he's six feet high or more. And he's called by the people, "Honest Abe." CHORUS Then hurrah for honest Abe, for the old Ken- tucky babe, For we're going to make him president this fall; He will swing our country back on its old accustomed track. Just as easy as he used to swing his maul. Once he canvassed it with Stephen in the state of Illinois, And he made the little giant very sore, For his sham squatter doctrine was decided by the boys. To be a great delusion and a bore. Chorus — Then hurrah for honest Abe, &c. Of unfriendly legislation Dug declaims at Free- port, Then at Mobile he stands for planter's rights; Behind the Dred Scott decision and the ereat fed'ral court On his belly like a coward next he fights. Chorus — Then hurrah for honest Abe, &c. Then a groan for little Steve, for his doctrine none believe. To the south for aid all vainly he will call, Ah! little he'll rejoice when hears the people's voice Calling Abe to be our president next fall. Chorus — Then hurrah for honest Abe, &c. This song is from The Clarion Melo- dist^ published in i860, in Springfield, Illinois, at the Lincoln Clarion Print. This particular songster has never been listed by a Lincoln bibliographer and the Greenly THE GREENLY COLLECTION 325 copy is believed to be the only one in ex- istence. Mention has been made previously of the Debates of Lincoln and Douglas, pub- lished in a number of editions by Follett, Foster & Company, of Columbus. Stu- dents have been quarrelling for years over the correct number of different editions. At the present writing the number is seven. There were six recognized at the time Mr. Greenly formed his collection, and he had them all. Lately, the seventh has been identified, and Mr. Greenly, still the Lincoln student, has had a hand in doing it. The Debates are important Lincolniana for the reason that it was the only book published during his lifetime of which Lincoln was part author; and the debates themselves, between Abraham Lincoln, Republican, and Stephen A. Douglas, Dem- ocrat, in 1858, played a major role in the presidential election two years later. Doug- las won the coveted seat in the United States Senate, but in so doing, because he had permitted Lincoln to maneuver him into uttering harmful political commit- ments, he lost the presidential election of i860. James G. Randall, in his article on Lincoln in the Dictionary of American Biography y says: "His (Lincoln's) party carried districts containing a larger popu- lation than those carried by the Democrats, but inequitable apportionment gave Doug- las a majority in the legislature, insuring his election" (as U. S. Senator). Many items in the Collection give evi- dence that not only was Mr. Greenly aim- ing to build a Lincoln library which would be of use to the student (as it will be most certainly for generations to come), but as a student he made use of them, and in so doing, in many instances, added much to the general bibliographical knowledge of the particular item. We have spoken of Mr. Greenly's study of the various editions of the Debates. Another example is found in a paper copy of Lincoln's speech in the House of Representatives at Springfield, in December 1 839, in which he argued against the subtreasury system and in favor of the National Bank. A copy came into the pos- session of Daniel H. Newhall, New York bookdealer, dean of the Lincoln book- sellers.^ Newhall knew that the copy of the Springfield speech was rare and turned it THE "WIOWAM EDITION. THE Life, Speeches, and Public Services ABRAM LINCOLN, Together with i Sketch of the Life of HANNIBAL HAMLIN. Ripubluan Can/iidates for tlu Offica of PresiJenl and yici' President of the United States. '&'. KEW YORK: RuDD & Caklcton, 130 Gkand Stkiit (bkooks building, cor. op Broadway). M DCCC LX. Title Page of One of the Earliest Lincoln Cam- paign Biographies (i860), Produced in Such Haste that Lincoln's First Name Is Misspelled Throughout. over to Mr. Greenly for further study. In the upper margin, the copy bore the signa- ture of Thomas J. Henderson, a member ^ In some respects Mr. Newhall was Mr. Greenly's teacher in the school of Lincoln bibliography, and the former's vast card index, accumulated through many years of experience in the field of Lincolniana, was the latter's "text-book." If the Clements Library owes a debt of gratitude to Mr. Greenly, is is also obligated to a lesser extent to Mr. Newhall. Similarly should be mentioned another dealer in Americana, Mr. Wright Howes, of Chicago, who also aided Mr. Greenly in building up his Lincoln Collection. 326 THE QUARTERLY REVIEW of that same legislature. Investigation by Mr. Greenly turned up an identical copy, identically inscriijed, in the rare book room of the Library of Congress. The paper upon which the pair was printed indicated, however, that they were not contemporary with the time in which the speech was given by Lincoln, Further research uncovered a copy printed on old rag paper, with margins untrimmed, in the Illinois State His- torical Library J and a similar copy in the New York Public Library. Messrs. Greenly and Newhall concluded that the New York and the Illinois copies were originals and that their copy and that of the Library of Congress had been reprinted by Hender- son for political reasons some time in the 'eighties. Both the original and the reprint are rare and, thanks to Mr. Greenly, the Clements Library has the reprint and a photostat of the original. In the Collection also are first editions of both the Cooper Union Speech and the Gettysburg Address as well as several later printings of both addresses. Of general biographies of Lincoln, prac- tically every one of any importance dating from the campaign biographies of 1 860 and 1864. down to the present day are in- cluded; and there are books and mono- graphs galore pertaining to special bio- graphical studies of Lincoln. In the line of bibliographies, Mr. Green- ly's Collection begins with the rare Me- fnorial Lincoln Bibliografhy, published in Albany in 1870, by Andrew Boyd. Then come the publications of Daniel Fish, in 1906; J. B. Oakleaf, in 1925; and John W. Starr, Jr., in 1926, Also in the collec- tion are the priced catalogues of the sale of the immense W. H. Lambert collec- tion in 1 9 14, which constitute almost a bibliography in themselves. It was the larg- est Lincoln collection ever sold at public auction and belonged to Major William H. Lambert, one of the "Big Five" Lin- coln collectors. Priced catalogues and dealers' lists also are valuable source mate- rial for the bibliographical student, and the Greenly Collection has a wealth of them. Mr, Greenly gathered them not for the sake of adding items to his collection, but because with the knowledge of their con- tents he was enabled to collect intelligently. In one respect, Mr, Greenly did not see eye-to-eye with many collectors, particu- larly institutions which have acquired or built up Lincolniana libraries, in his esti- mate of the value of so-called periodic lit- erature. What they have cast aside and con- sidered of little worth, until very recent years, Mr. Greenly was quick to recognize as being of value. No attempt has ever been made to publish or to prepare a list of the literally thousands of Lincoln articles which have been published in magazines and periodicals ever since the day Lincoln rode down Pennsylvania avenue to his first in- augural. A great many of these magazine articles were reprinted in pamphlets for limited distribution at the time they were published or shortly after. Such treatment of these articles made them "items," and as "items" they "belonged." But as lowly magazine articles, they were read and for- gotten as soon as the next issue of the pub- lication in which they appeared was on the stands. It was because one great collection did not desire periodic material that Mr. Greenly was able to secure the earliest and most valuable of the more than 1,200 mag- azine items which his collection contains. Charles W. McLellan, another of the "Big Five," was favorable to the periodic litera- ture of Lincoln and collected much of it. But after his death in 191 8, when his heirs sold his Lincolniana to John D. Rocke- feller, Jr. for Brown University, the maga- zine articles were left behind. Some years later, learning of the existence of this ma- terial, Mr. Greenly was glad to purchase it from a son of the original owner. At the same time he purchased a great many of the McLellan duplicates which had re- mained in the family. The magazine articles in the Greenly THE GREENLY COLLECTION 327 Collection date back as far as i860, and the succeeding decade is represented by 144 articles of Lincoln interest from 48 dif- ferent magazines. It is interesting to clas- sify the articles by decades and observe the curve which their numbers create. In the 1870-80 decade, the number in the Col- lection drops to 36 articles, but it soars to an unprecedented high in the decade which included the centennial year of Lincoln's birth, and from that period 408 articles found their way into Mr. Greenly's pos- session. It drops to half the number in the next decade. Thumbing through the card index of these articles which Mr. Greenly prepared, a census of the author's names indicates a surprising number of writers contemporary with Lincoln. For instance, up come the names of Henry Ward Beecher, Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Russell Lowell, Carl Schurz, Gideon Welles, Elihu B. Washburne. In recent years the attitude toward Lin- coln periodic literature has been under- going a change. Individual collectors and institutions (wherein now repose the larger Lincoln libraries) have come to recognize its worth. True, much of the magazine ma- terial is unimportant j and much that sheds new light on Lincoln questions eventually finds its way into permanent book form. But still there remains much that is signifi- cant and it should be pre- served for future generations of Lincoln students. What we may at the moment re- gard as of little value a later generation may appraise differently. In the Greenly Collection of Lincolniana authorities of the Clements Library pro- pose to confine themselves to the further collecting and enlarging of the material at hand through the addition of documents^ — - books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, manuscripts, maps, photographs, prints and pictures. Lincoln relics are interesting and ofttimes important, but it is the desire to further the Collection along the lines estab- lished by its donor and make of it a "work- ing library of Lincoln source material," and not a museum. William L. Clements wanted his great collection of Americana at the University of Michigan to include representative Lin- colniana. Six years after his death his wish was fulfilled through the generosity of a man whom he never met, and whose name he had never heard. Mr. Greenly's inspira- tion to make the gift, however, came from the knowledge of what Mr. Clements had done before him in the way of gathering rare historical material, Mr. Clements' ex- pressed desire to include Lincolniana, and the fact that he had provided the facilities for the preservation and use of a great col- lection of Americana for generations of stu- dents yet to come. Destiny, with Mr. Clements and Mr. Greenly as its tools, has pro- vided the foundation-stone for a great collection of Lin- colniana for Michigan. It remains for others to com- plete the structure these men have so ably begun through their interests and their gifts. Bookplate of the Greenly Collection. THE GREENLY COLLECTION A Recent Qift of Lincolniana By Thomas I. Starr Reprinted from Michigax AnuMNus Quarterly Review. July 26, 1941, Vol. XLVII, No. 24. THE GREENLY COLLECTION A Recent Qift of Lincolniana By Thomas I. Starr THE GREENLY COLLECTION A Recent Qift of Lincolniana By Thomas 1. Starr iHORTLY after the late Regent William L. Clements had given the library bearing his name to the University of Michigan in 1923, he remarked one day to William W. Bishop, the University librarian, and Randolph G. Adams, direc- tor of the Clements Library, that he would like next to collect literature pertaining to Abraham Lincoln. Regent Clements' intention to include Lincolniana in his great collection of Americana was sincere, but Destiny placed in his way a detour and instead he em- barked on the collecting of historical manu- scripts having to do with a much earlier period in American history — the papers on the British side of the American Revolu- tion. His desire to collect Lincoln material was not to be fulfilled during his lifetime. In one respect it was a fortunate detour. Through the action of Mr. Clements manu- scripts of great value and of vast historical worth were to be preserved. Where origi- nals of these early British-American papers in England could not be secured, copies were made and now it is not inconceivable that these originals in England may be lost and that the English historian of the future will have to come to Ann Arbor for certain of his country's records after the invader has been repelled from the British Isles. Time bombs or incendiary flares will not threaten those records which Regent Clem- ents secured and placed in his collection in Ann Arbor. But Destiny had not forgotten that Wil- liam L. Clements desired to gather Lin- colniana and that some day he wanted his library to contain a representative collec- tion of that important branch of American biographical literature. There came one day to the Clements Library a visitor, a man from New York City, who inquired for information pertaining to Julia Moore and her poetry. No, the Clements Library had nothing on the "Sweet Singer of Michi- gan." Her outbursts of poetical feeling were not then considered collectors' "items." But, in the conversation which followed, it developed that the New Yorker's interests were not confined solely to the Poetess of the Pines. He had also the interest of the collector and of the student in the life of Abraham Lincoln, and furthermore, he was interested in the history and literature of Michigan, the visitor's native state. He had collected and studied extensively in all these fields. There was nothing in the Library in the way of Lincolniana, either, the attendant told the visitor. It had been an intended field in the plans of the Library's founder, but as yet those plans had not materialized. More conversation led to subsequent visits to the Clements Library, which terminated in — well, let's all ow Mr. Albert H. THE GREENLY COLLECTION 319 Lincoln's Acceptance of an Invitation to Speak at Kalamazoo, 1856. Greenly, the New Yorker, to repeat the story from this point. He told it quietly and modestly to a large group in the Library last February 12, the night the Lincoln Room, which now houses the Albert H. Greenly Collection of Lincolniana, was opened: I am a native of Michigan, My grandfather came to this state in 1848. My father and I were born here.^ I received in Michigan what school- ing my parents could give me. If it had been jx)ssible for me to have a college education, I should no doubt have gone to this University, but I had to go to work after finishing high school. My interests have always centered in Michigan, although I have lived in New York City since completing my service in the World War. There was, as far as I knew, no working col- lection of Lincoln source material in Michigan. That was an added incentive to place my col- lection somewhere in this state. Ann Arbor is quite the logical place, and after a few talks with Dr. Adams, his enthusiasm fired within me the idea that the Clements Library was the spe- cific place. Then, too. Dr. Adams had told me in one of our talks of Mr. Clements' purpose some time to add Lincoln material to his col- lection. I feel highly honored in having my col- lection housed in the beautiful building Mr. Clements provided for his books. . . . This, in brief, is the story of the detour Destiny made in bringing about the reali- zation of the Clements Library's founder to secure what Mr. Greenly so appropri- ately called a "working collection of Lin- coln source material." But the Greenly Collection is something more — it is the cornerstone of what can some day be one of the great Lincoln collections compar- able to any already formed, or that now are taking form, in public and private ^ Mr. Greenly was born in Grand Rapids, March 11, 1 881, the son of Albert H. and May J. Greenly. He attended the Grand Rapids public schools and gradu- ated from the Grand Rapids High School in 1899. In January 1901, he entered the railroad service as a clerk for the Pere Marquette Railway Company, ad- vancing through various positions until he became the head of its Traffic Bureau. During the World War he served in France as a First Lieutenant with the United States Engineers. In 1920, he became a member of the Official Classification Committee, with offices in New York City, and since 19^1 has been chairman of that Committee. 320 THE QUARTERLY REVIEW institutions in several sections of the United States. It should be mentioned, however, that when he made the above statement Mr. Greenly was unaware of the fine col- lection of Lincolniana gathered for the Western Michigan College of Education at Kalamazoo by the late President Dwight B. Waldo. Many others even yet are not informed of its existence. One incident in the life of the sixteenth President definitely places Michigan in the Lincoln "country." That was, until re- cently, his little known but now vastly important antislavery address in Kalama- zoo on August 27, 1856. Mr. Greenly knew of the incident and of its importance, for in his collection he held the original letter which Lincoln wrote to the chairman of the Kalamazoo committee of the Young Men's Republican Rally accepting the in- vitation to a place on the speaking program of the day. When another discovered the hiding place of the speech itself (the only speech yet found of the "more than fifty" which Mr. Lincoln delivered during the Republican Party's first national campaign) Mr, Greenly graciously permitted the let- ter's usej and speech and letter appeared earlier this year in a volume entitled Lin- coln's Kalamazoo Address Against Extend- ing Slavery.' So it is very appropriate that Michigan have within its state and available to students of Lincolniana a suit- able collection of Lincoln literature and source material. In size, the collection is as modest as its donor. For those who think of Lincolniana only in terms of the total items in a card catalogue, there remains much to be ac- quired by the Greenly Collection. Judged - The full title of the book, which also was issued as "Bulletin No. 34 of the William L. Clements Library of the University of Michigan," is Lincoln's Kalamazoo Address Against Extending Slavery. Also His Life by Joseph J. Leiuis, both annotated by Thomas I. Starr and published by The Fine Book Circle, Detroit, 1941. Full reference to the first published life of Lincoln, by Lewis, which is contained in what is perhaps the most valuable single printed item in the Greenly Collection, will be made later in this account. from their monetary value, however, the thousand and more books which line the walls of the Lincoln Room in the Clements Library would produce the amount of a good-sized annuity if they were to pass under the auctioneer's hammer. But this is not to be interpreted to mean that it is a collection of rarities. It is not. Neverthe- less, it would be impossible for anyone to build a collection such as Mr. Greenly's and not acquire a great many choice items. "My primary purpose was to assemble a working library of source material which could be used by students of Lincoln, and not a library of rare collectors' pieces," Mr. Greenly told the audience the night his collection was exhibited for the first time. He spent many years assembling his books, and the notes and prices he has left pen- cilled on the cards in his catalogue of the collection indicate that he was a careful buyer. Each item seems to have been chosen with care and with complete understand- ing of just how it would fit into his inter- pretation of a student's library of Lincoln. For years Lincoln students and writers have been compiling bibliographies of "es- sential" Lincoln writings and biographies. Obviously there are wide variations in what various writers consider important. Wil- liam E. Barton issued in 1929 such a list of more than 200 titles. With the exception of two or three extreme rarities, all of these are to be found in the Greenly Collection. Paul M, Angle, Illinois State Historical librarian and one of the leading authorities on the bibliography of Abraham Lincoln, published in the Bulletin of the Abraham Lincoln Association^ in 1936, a list of "fun- damental" Lincolniana. It consisted of sixty- nine titles. They are all in the Greenly Collection. Louis A. Warren, director of the Lincoln National Life Foundation and editor of Lincoln Lore, made his selection of "Fifty Important Lincoln Books" in 1938. They are there, too. To his excellent article on Lincoln in the new Dictionary of American Biography, James G. Randall THE GREENLY COLLECTION 321 appended one of the best bibliographies of a collection of Lincolniana which is above the minimum, yet includes what every scholar should have. All of these and a thousand more Mr. Greenly saw fit to in- clude in his library. Every phase of the Lincoln story seems to be touched upon in the material now in the collection, yet — and we go back again to numbers — there are missing some four or five thousand titles which experts in- clude in that broad — very broad — classifi- cation of Lincolniana. In passing, it is per- tinent to mention that there is also to be found in the collection much that probably never will be listed in a published Lincoln bibliography 5 yet it belongs in a student's library of the subject, definitely. Never will such things as bound volumes of Harfer^s Weekly ^ Frank LesUe^s Illustrated News- paper, or the London Punch for the Civil War years, be recognized as Lincolniana. Yet the first two are a mine of illustrative background and contemporary information, and the last with its caustic yet sometimes sympathetic cartoons and editorials con- tains many a piece found nowhere else for the jig-saw pattern of the Lincoln biog- raphy. The same can be said of scores of other volumes dealing with the contem- porary men and times. They form an es- sential part of the mosaic of the Lincoln portrait. Mr. Greenly, like many another student and collector of Lincoln material, recognized this fact and as a result the Greenly Collection is rich in contemporary material. Almost the last item which Mr. Greenly added to his library while it still remained in his possession, although negotiations had even then been completed to give it to the Clements Library, was what to this writer is one of the most important pieces in the entire collection: a single copy of a news- paper — the Chester County Times, pub- lished February 11, i860 in West Chester, Pennsylvania — which contained the first printed account of Abraham Lincoln's life. It is important because it is the "spring" from which flowed the stream of Lincoln biography which in the intervening eighty- one years has deepened and widened into the literary river that includes all Lincoln lit- erature. It is valuable in a monetary sense because it is one of the three known copies in existence. It is the only copy in a Lin- coln collection. Jesse W. Fell, a native of Pennsylvania, a citizen of Bloomington, Illinois, an astute politician and a close friend and associate of Abraham Lincoln, believed that Lin- coln could become the Republican Party's presidential nominee in i860. He had this belief as early as the Lincoln-Douglas de- bates, in 1858, but it took him a year or more to convince the doubting, yet politi- cally ambitious, Lincoln, and to secure from him a short autobiographical sketch. To the three-page, long-hand sketch. Fell made a few additions relative to Lincoln's political history and speeded it on to his friend Joseph J. Lewis in West Chester. Lewis rewrote and lengthened it into an article of more than 2,500 words, had it published in the Chester County Times, and distributed widely marked copies of the newspaper to Pennsylvania editors. Both Fell and Lewis knew that the large Pennsylvania delega- tion would be influential in the forthcoming Republican National Convention and this was the method they employed to make better known their candidate and his per- sonal qualifications. Copies of the news- paper also were given a wide distribution generally to influential editors in other states. The two-column article from the Chester County Tim.es was reprinted in the Bloomington Weekly Pantagrafh, Febru- ary 22 — Fell saw to that^ — and in the Chi- cago Press and Tribune the following day. Came May 18, i860, and in the Wig- wam at Chicago Abraham Lincoln was nominated for the presidency, just as Fell had declared he could be. It was then that the "spring" of Lincoln biography, the Lewis article in the Chester County Times, 322 THE QUARTERLY REVIEW The Chester County Times. voiuu VII.— m } riim.ti. mtvu.1 n WHUU \UHri II Heading of the County Paper in which the First Printed Biography OF Lincoln Appeared. ▲BJUHAH IIHCOUI. AUbtm At 4i(tla|«iik«l m*D wbu. b; Ibeir pa- triulitn tad *l(Miu*BC«, h»T* inniiil*! to rrwtcanil •adaia th« vrtj »t rom«tilulion»l fi^uJ^ui Hliich oow prtdoaiailM In nxxt of Iha fraa Slulei, tbar* i« BO 0M who hM • trmtr huli od (be run fiJMf* ud aMtetioaii oClb* r (opl* of the ilrem Weit, or ii mor* an olJMt of Ihrir •nlboiimiii' hialittiM, Ihao Abrsbiu Liornia of 6priiig6(!U. IlliDoU. Ro tratalUr that vifitJ (h* Titlley uf tb« MUtiftlppi, aarth of the Ohio, ran fail lo be im|>rMi«d with th* aarivallad |>o(ialafii; of thai •aiaaM K«|>aUifMi ekM througbout that •b<>U ragioB ; aa4 II \n ia[>oMlbU to >«oabt that b* «ill b« Tlcoroail7 priaMJ upon iba Cbirigo ConTcn- lion, Ljr th* rapntaataliTca uf a larga kod aaraetl uvaalitoaary, ai a propar atanJarJ bearar uf our iraat aaliooal party la lb* impaDJiog itrasgle fur th* PrftUaaey. In eoaatqoeno* of lb* poaj- tiua h* *e«BpUt ia lb* rtgarla ol our watttra lirtlkrM, M a rbaapUa of the Hapoblieao ftltb, I bat* b**D lalar*(t*d to ianuir* Into tba in> i JcBle uf bia lif* aad tb* prou>iu«nt traits of bti rharactar. I new fanlak )roa with the rei^ult ul biy ia^ulrt**, Iboegfa lb*y h««« b««n alleodaJ wilb but laodtrau aacfaaa.aad bar* alicilaJ laueh l«u tbaa I rauoaaMy hop«J to obuio. , All iba:ii I.iircta 1» a r»'iv» ■ T llar.lni c.nn'\ Kaotui-bT' U* wt* born no tba twelfth Jay ol Fabiuary, IM9. Uli ptraala war* both bom io Virginia, aad war* earuioly nut of thu 6rat fami liai. Ui* palaraal graadfathar, Abraham Lincoln, •otlgralad froa Eo«klagbam ^-oonty, Virginia, tv Kantuckjr, aboat 1781 oc 1, wh*r* a yair or im^ lal«r ha vat bilM by ladkaai, sol ia bait)*, but by ataallb, vbila b* trw laboriag lo opao a (ana in tba forait. Hit aa eaa l ora, who v*t« rcap«eta- bl« a«aab«n of tb* Soeisty of Fricadr, went lo Virgiaia from B«rki eoaaty, FeBaaylrnnia. D«(- eondaoU of tb* atn* itock itill irride io tbo oaat- cm pari* *f tki* Stata. Aai 01 iba IJMtha(c*l«a4 irt*f" emjafrij, u'iJui/uily ill iha j.i jrli.a iif LI' | r (fe.*'ion, »ad : boio(; doaply iwuier'.il in tii:iii«.-3,wDg I tu lo«o hU inlrrt'l in p'.liii.". wlitn lli* •.-hau.ii.,; I aml/iiiim niij ^i. \y\.uyi jliibn." uf no uDicrii/^| puluu' u»|>.r.inl u. III.' |-i.'-iJviii'y l.ruu^tii .bout | tb« repeal ..I tli.< Mi -.iji. (.'i.iiii.i jiui-c That act . of lusi-ne'- iii.l porfi.ly ■irni--. d Itij leaping li.iu ' and ka pi«|.urcJ f.T i.uw ift.ul . lie lliroo bun | relfat uii. o lulu llio luuUbi ibai lulluweJ aiiJ ' ti.u^bl tiK' bitiile of fr««Ji »ii the i^couod uf liii< I lurmcT ci.iiAi. Is in IllinMi^ Hiib \a'>ti Ibao Uii ;>'' i ru'luuied ciier v iD.i «h1. He full) apprtnialed i the iuipurliinee ul the lUvery ia>u«, and felt lb* . lore* of the ni.>r»l mo'C!" thai uiust iufluao:a ibo | iiuestiiio, HiiJ lie never fallr.l to appeal to ilie | murnl iteiilituent »f tlie people in aid of the irgu- | ment ilmitn froDi political iourcaa, ami to tlluuii- | nale hii lb*mo willi llic I'lfly In/ipiratiooi uf au elo.|uen(0. pluJin- l'..r tl.e rigbu i.f bumiitiity-— A revalutiuu awapl the State. Fur tbo lirit liuiet majority of (lie legi>! p. <« i { TI..'.* 1 If. llll'*».H.Cv' i,.l . ^ .. • ' •* ■ > eabibilion uf .Mr. Linrolb'- hubilaHl magntuiiuiiy. A lloilod dialo. .< bud yicULJ I ib>; n.dueni'e t.f bin les* arrupuloii.' ojlea^uu hhI, agoiu-l bi^ uwn belirr jaJgmant, hail ?ot( J (ir the Knn^BS Nebta^ki art. Mr. Linr..lii »a the admiiled leador uf the oppoaiiiuo imd wa' universollj re- garded ap their r.tndidalo lor >«natnr. Uotcroor Miitto'on wa< the c^n liJato »f ih? Nil ra.lcn Domocrnlii .ind LTm:in Trumbull if the lundful if Anil Nobr»jl<« Domocr»la in the IcRt'liiturc. I The elccliun cnmo on, anl n. number r.f hnllns ' wero tnkcn, the almost unite) opp' -iii'>n r.jlii g The First Biography of Lincoln to Be Printed. commenced to flow and it has never ceased. Horace Greeley was the first to dip from it when he wrote his article for the New York Tribune the day after the nomina- tion. So did John Locke Scripps, for the Chicago Press and Tribune. Within 24 hours publishers were announcing "cam- paign" biographies of Abraham Lincoln, and the Lewis article furnished the mate- rial upon which several of the writers based their hastily prepared volumes. Thus it is that the copy of the February II, 1 8 60 issue of the Chester County Times assumes primal importance in the splendid group of i860 Lincoln campaign biogra- phies included in the Greenly Collection. Of the eleven known campaign "lives," Mr. Greenly collected eight as well as a great many of their several variants. Miss- ing only are the Vose, as rare as a June day in December J the Codding, almost as rare (but not strictly a Lincoln biography) j and the Washburne, an eight-page reprint of a speech in the House of Representatives on THE GREENLY COLLECTION 323 May 29 by E. B. Washburne, Congressman from Illinois. Said to have been the first campaign biography placed on sale, and one of the rare volumes in the Collection, is the little paper-covered "Wigwam Edition" of The Life, Speeches, and Public Services of A brum {sic) Lincoln, the author of which is unknown. It went on sale June 2, fifteen days after Lincoln had been nominated, sold for a quarter, and is notable for its errors. Apparently the author had no more biographical data at hand than the New York Tribune article of May 19, (which had been written hastily by Greeley from the Lewis article) so he resorted to his imagination. In his haste he wrote of "Abram" Lincoln on the title page and throughout the volume; and Lincoln's father, so he declared, died while the future President was a small boy. Of David V. G. Bartlett's The Life and Public Services of Hon. Abraham Lincoln there are no less than eight different im- prints in the Collection. The first edition is a 150-page, paper-covered volume. Other campaign issues include the paper-covered Thayer & Eldridge offering of 128 pages, which later blossomed into a 320-page, cloth-bound volume, with steel engravings of Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin, and was styled the "Wide-Awake Edition." Follett, Foster & Company, Columbus, Ohio, publishers who had been so success- ful with the publication of the Lincoln- Douglas debates, commissioned no less a person than William Dean Howells, editor of the Atlantic Monthly, to write a life of Lincoln for them. Howells was busy, so he sent a young law student named James Quay Howard to Springfield to interview Lincoln and to gather the data for the writ- ing, and Howells thereby, as he wrote sor- rowfully in after years, ". . . missed the greatest chance of my life, of its kind." From Howard's report of his interview with Lincoln, Howells produced Lives and Speeches of Abraham Lincoln and Hanni- •' THE WIGWAM EDITION." Price) (26 ots. TUB LIKK, SPKKCIIES, AND I'Lltl.lC SERVICES or ABRAM LINCOLN, NEW YOKIC: RT7DD A OARIBTON, 130 GRAND BTRSBT. Cover of One of the Earliest of the Lincoln Campaign Biographies — 1860. bal Hamlin (with John L. Hayes doing the portion on Hamlin). Not satisfied with the role of informa- tion-getter for another, Howard turned writer and within a month from Follett, Foster & Company's already overloaded presses there came The Life of Abraham Lincoln: With Extracts from his Speeches y at ten cents per copy. Today Howard's biography is one of the scarcest of the cam- paign lives. Most of the copies which sur- vive (said to be less than thirty) can be traced to the alertness of the well-known New York bookseller, Charles Everitt, who in 1901 turned them up in a bundle 324 THE QUARTERLY REVIEW of trash. In the Greenly Collection are two copies, each with a different imprint. Two other rarities among the campaign biographies in Mr. Greenly's collection are the Chicago and New York editions of the John Locke Scripps Life of Abraham Lin- coluy the Chicago edition being excessively rare. Most collectors feel fortunate indeed to be able to own the New York edition. DM HEnBUCH CAMPAIGN 80H08TEE. • m, mtU U«i k«vlr« •«* MmmloM-mi. m- wilt If" •» CM** ARO IICTUKI '■' SPRINOPIBLD, ILLS. LIBOOLM CLARION MINT One of the Earliest and Rarest of the i860 Campaign Songsters. Not common, by any means, are the several copies of the biography by Joseph Hart- well Barrett which the Collection contains. Important also in Lincoln's first cam- paign for the presidency were the so-called "Campaign Songsters." These little paper covered booklets contained the musical "in- spirations" for political battles. Poetically crude, usually satirical, and frequently humorous, these songs were sung to the music of popular airs of the day and fur- nished the barber-shop harmony believed necessary to add impetus to the hilarity of the campaign mass meetings and torchlight parades. For instance, there was this one, to the tune of "Nelly Gray." THE OLD KENTUCKY BABE By a modest member of the IndianoLa Glee Club In a green and fertile valley on the old Kentucky shore, Years ago, there was born a precious babe ; Now he's grown to manly stature, and he's six feet high or more, And he's called by the people, "Honest Abe." CHORUS Then hurrah for honest Abe, for the old Ken- tucky babe, For we're going to make him president this fall; He will swing our country back on its old accustomed track. Just as easy as he used to swing his maul. Once he canvassed it with Stephen in the state of Illinois, And he made the little giant very sore, For his sham squatter doctrine was decided by the boys. To be a great delusion and a bore. Chorus — Then hurrah for honest Abe, &c. Of unfriendly legislation Dug declaims at Free- port, Then at Mobile he stands for planter's rights; Behind the Dred Scott decision and the great fed'ral court On his belly like a coward next he fights. Chorus — Then hurrah for honest Abe, &c. Then a groan for little Steve, for his doctrine none believe, To the south for aid all vainly he will call, Ah! little he'll rejoice when hears the people's voice Calling Abe to be our president next fall. Chorus — Then hurrah for honest Abe, &c. This song is from The Clarion Melo- dist, published in i860, in Springfield, Illinois, at the Lincoln Clarion Print. This particular songster has never been listed by a Lincoln bibliographer and the Greenly THE GREENLY COLLECTION 325 copy is believed to be the only one in ex- istence. Mention has been made previously of the Debates of Lincoln and Douglas, pub- lished in a number of editions by Follett, Foster & Company, of Columbus. Stu- dents have been quarrelling for years over the correct number of different editions. At the present writing the number is seven. There were six recognized at the time Mr. Greenly formed his collection, and he had them all. Lately, the seventh has been identified, and Mr. Greenly, still the Lincoln student, has had a hand in doing it. The Debates are important Lincolniana for the reason that it was the only book published during his lifetime of which Lincoln was part author; and the debates themselves, between Abraham Lincoln, Republican, and Stephen A. Douglas, Dem- ocrat, in 1858, played a major role in the presidential election two years later, Doug- las won the coveted seat in the United States Senate, but in so doing, because he had permitted Lincoln to maneuver him into uttering harmful political commit- ments, he lost the presidential election of i860. James G. Randall, in his article on Lincoln in the Dictionary of American Biogra-phyy says: "His (Lincoln's) party carried districts containing a larger popu- lation than those carried by the Democrats, but inequitable apportionment gave Doug- las a majority in the legislature, insuring his election" (as U. S. Senator). Many items in the Collection give evi- dence that not only was Mr. Greenly aim- ing to build a Lincoln library which would be of use to the student (as it will be most certainly for generations to come), but as a student he made use of them, and in so doing, in many instances, added much to the general bibliographical knowledge of the particular item. We have spoken of Mr. Greenly's study of the various editions of the Debates. Another example is found in a paper copy of Lincoln's speech in the House of Representatives at Springfield, in December 1 839, in which he argued against the subtreasury system and in favor of the National Bank. A copy came into the pos- session of Daniel H. Newhall, New York bookdealer, dean of the Lincoln book- sellers.* Newhall knew that the copy of the Springfield speech was rare and turned it THE "WIGWAM EDITION. THE Life, Speeches, and Public Services ABRAM LINCOLN, Together with ■ Sketch of the Life of HANNIBAL HAMLIN. Rifiubluan CandidaUs for the OffUes of President and Vue- President of the UmUd States. ^. NEW YORK : R(;dd te Carleton, 130 Grand Strut (bROOICS BVaiHNC, COR. OP BROA[>WAr). M DCCC LX. Title Page of One of the Earliest Lincoln Cam- paign Biographies (i860), Produced in Such Haste that Lincoln's First Name Is Misspelled Throughout. over to Mr. Greenly for further study. In the upper margin, the copy bore the signa- ture of Thomas J. Henderson, a member ^ In some respects Mr. Newhall was Mr. Greenly's teacher in the school of Lincoln bibliography, and the former's vast card index, accumulated through many years of experience in the field of Lincolniana, was the latter's "text-book." If the Clements Library owes a debt of gratitude to Mr. Greenly, is is also obligated to a lesser extent to Mr. Newhall. Similarly should be mentioned another dealer in Americana, Mr. Wright Howes, of Chicago, who also aided Mr. Greenly in building up his Lincoln Collection. 326 THE QUARTERLY REVIEW of that same legislature. Investigation by Mr. Greenly turned up an identical copy, identically inscribed, in the rare book room of the Library of Congress. The paper upon which the pair was printed indicated, however, that they were not contemporary with the time in which the speech was given by Lincoln, Further research uncovered a copy printed on old rag paper, with margins untrimmed, in the Illinois State His- torical Library J and a similar copy in the New York Public Library. Messrs. Greenly and Newhall concluded that the New York and the Illinois copies were originals and that their copy and that of the Library of Congress had been reprinted by Hender- son for political reasons some time in the 'eighties. Both the original and the reprint are rare and, thanks to Mr. Greenly, the Clements Library has the reprint and a photostat of the original. In the Collection also are first editions of both the Cooper Union Speech and the Gettysburg Address as well as several later printings of both addresses. Of general biographies of Lincoln, prac- tically every one of any importance dating from the campaign biographies of 1 860 and 1864 down to the present day are in- cluded; and there are books and mono- graphs galore pertaining to special bio- graphical studies of Lincoln. In the line of bibliographies, Mr. Green- ly's Collection begins with the rare Me- morial Lincoln Bibliografhyy published in Albany in 1870, by Andrew Boyd. Then come the publications of Daniel Fish, in 1906; J. B. Oakleaf, in 1925; and John W. Starr, Jr., in 1926. Also in the collec- tion are the priced catalogues of the sale of the immense W. H. Lambert collec- tion in 1 9 14, which constitute almost a bibliography in themselves. It was the larg- est Lincoln collection ever sold at public auction and belonged to Major William H. Lambert, one of the "Big Five" Lin- coln collectors. Priced catalogues and dealers' lists also are valuable source mate- rial for the bibliographical student, and the Greenly Collection has a wealth of them. Mr. Greenly gathered them not for the sake of adding items to his collection, but because with the knowledge of their con- tents he was enabled to collect intelligently. In one respect, Mr. Greenly did not see eye-to-eye with many collectors, particu- larly institutions which have acquired or built up Lincolniana libraries, in his esti- mate of the value of so-called periodic lit- erature. What they have cast aside and con- sidered of little worth, until very recent years, Mr. Greenly was quick to recognize as being of value. No attempt has ever been made to publish or to prepare a list of the literally thousands of Lincoln articles which have been published in magazines and periodicals ever since the day Lincoln rode down Pennsylvania avenue to his first in- augural. A great many of these magazine articles were reprinted in pamphlets for limited distribution at the time they were published or shortly after. Such treatment of these articles made them "items," and as "items" they "belonged." But as lowly magazine articles, they were read and for- gotten as soon as the next issue of the pub- lication in which they appeared was on the stands. It was because one great collection did not desire periodic material that Mr. Greenly was able to secure the earliest and most valuable of the more than 1,200 mag- azine items which his collection contains. Charles W. McLellan, another of the "Big Five," was favorable to the periodic litera- ture of Lincoln and collected much of it. But after his death in 191 8, when his heirs sold his Lincolniana to John D. Rocke- feller, Jr. for Brown University, the maga- zine articles were left behind. Some years later, learning of the existence of this ma- terial, Mr. Greenly was glad to purchase it from a son of the original owner. At the same time he purchased a great many of the McLellan duplicates which had re- mained in the family. The magazine articles in the Greenly THE GREENLY COLLECTION 327 Collection date back as far as i860, and the succeeding decade is represented by 144 articles of Lincoln interest from 48 dif- ferent magazines. It is interesting to clas- sify the articles by decades and observe the curve which their numbers create. In the 1870—80 decade, the number in the Col- lection drops to 36 articles, but it soars to an unprecedented high in the decade which included the centennial year of Lincoln's birth, and from that period 408 articles found their way into Mr. Greenly's pos- session. It drops to half the number in the next decade. Thumbing through the card index of these articles which Mr. Greenly prepared, a census of the author's names indicates a surprising number of writers contemporary with Lincoln. For instance, up come the names of Henry Ward Beecher, Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Russell Lowell, Carl Schurz, Gideon Welles, Elihu B. Washburne. In recent years the attitude toward Lin- coln periodic literature has been under- going a change. Individual collectors and institutions (wherein now repose the larger Lincoln libraries) have come to recognize its worth. True, much of the magazine ma- terial is unimportant; and much that sheds new light on Lincoln questions eventually finds its way into permanent book form. But still there remains much that is signifi- cant and it should be pre- served for future generations of Lincoln students. What we may at the moment re- gard as of little value a later generation may appraise differently. In the Greenly Collection of Lincolniana authorities of the Clements Library pro- pose to confine themselves to the further collecting and enlarging of the material at hand through the addition of documents — books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, manuscripts, maps, photographs, prints and pictures. Lincoln relics are interesting and ofttimes important, but it is the desire to further the Collection along the lines estab- lished by its donor and make of it a "work- ing library of Lincoln source material," and not a museum. William L. Clements wanted his great collection of Americana at the University of Michigan to include representative Lin- colniana. Six years after his death his wish was fulfilled through the generosity of a man whom he never met, and whose name he had never heard. Mr. Greenly's inspira- tion to make the gift, however, came from the knowledge of what Mr. Clements had done before him in the way of gathering rare historical material, Mr. Clements' ex- pressed desire to include Lincolniana, and the fact that he had provided the facilities for the preservation and use of a great col- lection of Americana for generations of stu- dents yet to come. Destiny, with Mr. Clements and Mr. Greenly as its tools, has pro- vided the foundation-stone for a great collection of Lin- colniana for Michigan. It remains for others to com- plete the structure these men have so ably begun through their interests and their sifts. Bookplate of the Greenly Collection. univcnsiiT m JLLINUIS UHBANA 973 7L63A3ST2G C001 THE GREENLY COLLECTION, A RECENT GIET OE 3 0112 031782912 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 973 7L63A3ST2G C002 THE GREENLY COLLECTION, A RECENT GIFT OF 3 0112 031782920