File:Abraham Lincoln's secretaries (1860) (14756766356).jpg

Identifier: abrahamlincolnssjnlinc (find matches)
Title: Abraham Lincoln's secretaries
Year: 1860 (1860s)
Authors: Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection
Subjects: Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 Nicolay, John G. (John George), 1832-1901 Nicolay, Helen, 1866-1954 Nicolay, Helen, 1866-1954
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Contributing Library: Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection
Digitizing Sponsor: Friends of The Lincoln Collection of Indiana, Inc.

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did not know what a family memberlooked like, they sometimes turned his head away from theviewer and dressed him as a typical little boy from someEnglish Victorian print. The urge to have Americas Presidents domesticatedproved to be strong in Victorian America, and an abun-dance of family prints appeared just after Lincolns death —many of them crude, some grotesque, and all the products ofprintmakers imaginations. The popularity of these picturescould not be ignored — nor could their unstated politicalmessage: could this good family man in his Victorian parlorreally be a threat to American liberties? President Ulysses S.Grant would calm any anxieties that he might prove to be adangerous man on horseback by appearing in numerousfamily portraits. The unskilled crudity of most of the family prints is as mucha comment on the demand for domestic art as on the infantstage of Americas graphic arts industry. These prints werelong on love and short on technical skill, but they are eloquent
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Fromthe Louis A. Warren Lincoln Library and Museum FIGURE 3. ... to meet George Washington. From the Louis A. Warren Lincoln Library and Museum FIGURE 4. Lincoln and Thaddeus. testimony to the reverence Americans held for Lincoln —eventually. They were also responsible for discovering anearly unquenchable market for pictures of the Presidentsfamily, a market that has not been saturated to this day. The printmakers association of Lincoln with GeorgeWashington was also prophetic. Before the twentieth century,educated opinion ranked Washington first and Lincolnsecond among American Presidents. Even John G. Nicolay,Lincolns private secretary and biographer, typified thisthinking in 1904, when he wrote, If we accord the first rank toWashington as founder, so we must unhesitatingly give toLincoln the second place as preserver and regenerator ofAmerican liberty. In polls of historians taken in 1948, 1962,and 1968, however, Lincoln ranked first and Washingtonsecond in all three. Poll of 55

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