Even Tarbell could be fooled sometimes

[RJNorton]

Rob, here is an email I received over 10 years ago. This isn't the same as Ida Tarbell's description, but some people do think they have seen photos that are not in the history books.


Sent: Monday, July 29, 2002 11:41 PM
Subject: casket photo of Lincoln

Dear Mr. Norton,

I'm 60 years old now. When I was a teenager in high school (about 1957 or so) I read an intriguing article about Abraham Lincoln's exumation in a medical journal (JAMA ?) in my father's medical office. It contained a very clear photograph of Abraham Lincoln in a coffin - very close-up, staight-on, extremely clear full-face shot. The caption or some adjacent text remarked how little physical deterioration was evident at the exhumation. I was amazed at the clarity of the photo, which was printed in approximately 2" tall x 1.5" wide and showed Lincoln clearly lying in a coffin.

I've searched online for a copy of that photo - only to read that no such picture exists. So there is a bit of a mystery here. If you research the popular medical journals that MD's subscribed to in the late 1950's, you should be able to find the picture I'm describing. I'd recommend starting with Journal of the American Medical Association, c. 1954-60. If you cannot find it in JAMA and there were any competiting monthly magazines or journals that were similarly thick (about 3/8 inch or so) they should be checked.

I suppose the photo I saw might be the one recently published in a book. But that book photo was taken soon after the assasination - not at the 1901 exhumation. What struck me about the photo in the my dad's medical journal, was that the text made it clear it was taken at the time of exumation. I was shocked at that, not only because the photo looked so normal, but because the accompanying text was my first knowledge of his exhumation.