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Special Collections: African American Studies Research Guide (OLD)

About the Lincoln Collection

lincoln

The University of Delaware houses the Lincoln Collection, which contains over two thousand books and pamphlets, photographs, artwork, sculpture, artifacts, historic documents, and miscellaneous material pertaining to the life and career of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), the sixteenth President of the United States. Among the most significant items in the collection are copies of the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment signed by Lincoln. Also included are official documents with Lincoln’s signature, two books from Lincoln’s personal library, newspapers and magazines of the period, and a copy of the Ford’s Theatre playbill printed shortly after the assassination. Among the artwork in the collection are photographs and lithographic portraits of Lincoln and bronze portrait busts. A group of prints by Currier and Ives depict Lincoln’s assassination and funeral. The collection also includes a large group of printed funeral orations and memorials.

The Lincoln Collection

The Lincoln Collection is available for use in the Special Collections Department of the Morris Library.

Books and journals in the Lincoln Collection can be accessed using DELCAT, the Library’s online catalog. Cataloged items in the Lincoln Collection include tracings in DELCAT for both “Lincoln Collection” and “Lincoln Club of Delaware.” A complete listing of these holdings can be obtained by either of the following DELCAT searches:

  • Use Browse Author and enter “Lincoln Collection”
  • Use Browse Author and enter “Lincoln Club of Delaware”

Manuscript and archival materials in the Lincoln Collection include the following:

Special Collections's Lincoln Page:
Lincoln Collection


Special Collections Related Exhibits:

Lincoln Collection

Sources:

The Lincoln Collection contains many resources and materials specifically dealing with 19th-century African American life and history, emancipation, Black Civil War soldiers and military service and slavery. This list is just a sampling of resources relating to African Americans and President Lincoln within the Lincoln Collection.

The Black Man
Author: William Wells Brown.
Lincoln Collection E185.96 B86x 1863.

Littell’s Living Age: Slavery and the American Civil War
Vol. 1-5

Lincoln Collection E453.L58x 1917

A Picture of Slavery, Drawn from the Decisions of Southern Courts. 
African American Pamphlet Collection
Lincoln Collection E449.P61X 1863

Abraham Lincoln, Constitutionalism, and Equal Rights in the Civil War Era
Author: Herman Belz
Lincoln Collection: E457.2. B38 1998

Lincoln at Peoria: The Turning Point: Getting Right with the Declaration of Independence
Author: Lewis E. Lehrman
Lincoln Collection: E457.4. L44 2008

The Negro: What is his Ethnological Status
Author: Ariel, pseudonym
Buckner H. Payne
Lincoln Collection: HT1589 P.3 1867 (second edition).

Slave Songs of the United States
Author: William Francis Allen; Charles Pickard Ware; Lucy McKim Garrison
Lincoln Collection: M1670 A42x 1867

The Civil War in America: an Address read at the last meeting of Manchester Union and Emancipation Society.
Author: Goldwin Smith, Union and Emancipation Society
Lincoln Collection: E459. S64

Abraham Lincoln
Author: Rose Strunsky
Lincoln Collection: E457 .S97 1914b

The Opinion of Abraham Lincoln Upon Slavery and its Issues: Indicated by his Speeches, Letters, Messages, and Proclamations
Lincoln Collection: E457.2. L75

Lincoln
Author: David Herbert Donald
Lincoln Collection: E457.D66 1995

The History of Abraham Lincoln, and the Overthrow of Slavery
Author: Isaac N. Arnold; Mary Todd Lincoln, Robert Todd Lincoln
Lincoln Collection: E457.A75x 1866