Show us your Lincoln collectables!

[LincolnMan]

Thanks on behalf of my son Nathan. Hmmm... A ratio? Don't give me any ideas. Haven't gotten one since my Army days. It would look very cool as one, wouldn't it?

[RJNorton]

I liked Nathan's artwork so well that I asked Bill (and indirectly Nathan) if I could use it on my website. They both said yes, and I have added it here.

[LincolnMan]

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This is an interesting piece. I purchased it years ago at the now closed Lincoln Museum in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. Of course, it depicts President Lincoln with Tad at their visit to Richmond, 1865. It is a copy of the actual statue located in Richmond that caused no small controversy when it was planned-and eventually placed (near the old Iron Works). Has anyone else been to the statue in Richmond?

[Laurie Verge]

I love what appears to be the shelf that you have it displayed on! It appears to be the match for one that I have that was constructed out of the back-splash to a Victorian washstand.

[LincolnMan]

Laurie: that ornate wood you are noticing is the top part of a cabinet that belonged in the family since the 1800's. You have a very keen eye!

[wsanto]

Laurie: that ornate wood you are noticing is the top part of a cabinet that belonged in the family since the 1800's. You have a very keen eye!

quarter-sawn red oak---nice.

[LincolnMan]

Really, I had no idea! I just know it has been in the family for over a hundred years.

[wsanto]

Quarter-sawn red oak became the wood of choice for Stickley's mission era style of furniture. They still use this same wood in their current Mission Oak line of arts-and-crafts furniture. I have quite a bit of it in my house.

Obviously your piece is not from this era as it appears much more ornate and is probably from an earlier period. I just love the grain pattern of quarter-sawn oak.

[LincolnMan]

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This is a collectable postcard from 1965.

It is very curious to me that JFK would be called an "emancipator." I'm a great admirer of JFK, but I have to ask: Who did he emancipate?

This also reminds of the Dion song from 1968 Abraham, Martin, and John where the lyrics say about Kennedy:

Anybody here seen my old friend John?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
He freed a lot of people,
But it seems the good they die young.
I just looked around and he's gone.


Who did JFK free? I was alive and kicking during the JFK years, did I miss something?

[Rogerm]

People forget the almost euphoric wave of sympathy that followed President Kennedy's assassination. That is one reason why Johnson was able to clobber Goldwater in the 1964 election and pass the Civil Rights Bill and other major legislation. At the height of the martyrdom euphoria for Kennedy, some people started to say that he was one of the greatest presidents in US history. However, he really was unable to serve long enough to warrant such a judgement.

[LincolnMan]

Rogerm: Exactly right. Actually, the most important thing I think he accomplished was the successful "stand-down" with the Soviets-avoiding nuclear war (that's always a good thing!)

[Rob Wick]

I think it's ironic to call Kennedy an emancipator given that he was very reluctant to support the civil rights movement in the south, although he did make it so James Meredith could enroll at the University of Mississippi. I met Meredith when I was in college, and he talked about how President Kennedy fought for him to be able to go to school, although Kennedy was, at best, a reluctant warrior.

Best
Rob

[Laurie Verge]

I agree that Kennedy does not have the stature of Lincoln in respect to being an "emancipator." In fact, I don't think that Lyndon Johnson gets the respect he deserves in regards to pushing through the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Some have said that Kennedy could not have gotten that passed, and I agree. Personally, I don't think Johnson was a very likeable personality; but I do think that he was a master politician with a great deal of experience, cunning, and the knowledge of where Washington skeletons were hidden so that he could blackmail others into political positions. That's what it took to get that Act passed.

[LincolnMan]

Rob: Those were my thoughts too. Coupled with what you already said-Kennedy received pressure from Martin Luther King Jr. in a way that demanded his administration give Civil Rights the focus that it got.

[Mark MacKenzie]

Of course, Robert's passion for civil rights must have influenced his brother, too.