?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000
FIRST SEPARATE PRINTING? LINCOLN, ABRAHAM. The President's Dedication Address at Gettysburg. Printed card, 5 1/2 x 3 3/4 inches, in red and blue; minimal wear. [New York]: Miller & Mathews, [1864]
When Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address on 19 November 1863, it was not instantly recognized as an important speech. We have no firm evidence of any separate printing in the four months after it was delivered. Two early printings have been identified--a broadside titled Oration of Abraham Lincoln at the Dedication of the Gettysburg National Military Cemetery, and the small card printing offered here. The larger broadside was undated, and it is unclear whether it was issued during Lincoln's lifetime. However, this card certainly was. On 23 March 1864, the publishers Miller & Mathews sent President Lincoln a note reading in part "We have had printed as part of our contribution to the Metropolitan Fair, your dedicatory address at the Gettysburg Cemetery. . . . Enclosing a few specimens." This letter, still preserved at the Library of Congress, proves that the card was printed by March 1864. Furthermore, it was produced to support one of the great charitable events of the Civil War, the Metropolitan Fair held in Manhattan on 4 April 1864. OCLC locates copies at 4 libraries: the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, the Boston Athenaeum, Harvard University, and Brown University. We are aware of only one other copy at auction (Swann, 25 November 2014, lot 151). Carbonell, Gettysburg Address 8.
Exhibition Hours
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