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At the Institute’s core is the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the great archives in American history. More than 85,000 items cover five hundred years of American history, from Columbus’s 1493 letter describing the New World through the end of the twentieth century.

Abraham Lincoln, oval bust portrait [ambrotype] with ANS. [1858 ca., March 14, 1944]

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC05111.01.0630 Author/Creator: Place Written: s.l. Type: Photograph Date: 1858 ca. Pagination: 1 photograph Height: 17.8 cm, Width: 20.3 cm Order a Copy

Pre-war picture [1850's ca.] of a yound Lincoln. Accompanied by folder with Meserve's notes: "Meserve No 12. Copied from an 8 x 10 photograph (framed - through the glass) owned by Mr. Kerr Rainsford with his kind permission. His photographed appeared to be an enlargment, doubtless made from a photograph of the original ambrotype. It was not reversed. This 8 x 10 negative has been printed to show the face as in a photograph instead of an ambrotype by reversing it. This print is, I think, better & clearer than any I have seen. F. H. Meserve. N.Y. Mch 14, 1944." Inscription on recto: "reversed." Inscription on verso: "12 reversed."
See GLC 5111.01.0628, .0629, and .0631.

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