Mourning Lincoln

[L Verge]

Here's the New York Times' review of Mourning Lincoln along with the review of Lincoln's Body: A Cultural History by Richard Wightman Fox.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/books/...ottom-well

When referring to the president's deathbed, the reviewer notes, "20 or 30 people stayed in that room all night and another 30 or more came and went."

Thirty people in the room?

That's the image that inspired one of Dr. Terry Alford's college students to write an essay on The Rubber Room for our Surratt Courier about 20 years ago. Harold Holzer and Frank Williams then picked up on the term and used it in one of their booklets a few years later.