Lloyd Ostendorf's Book of Mary Lincoln Photos

[Houmes]

(06-09-2016 05:02 PM)ELCore Wrote:  

(06-09-2016 03:15 PM)Gene C Wrote:  Lincoln in Photographs
https://archive.org/stream/lincolninphot...0/mode/2up

Off subject, but anyone seen the photo on page 105 & 116 before?

I cannot find it in the "Gallery" chapter in the Kunhardts' Looking for Lincoln. Published in 2008, it's supposedly a complete collection, roughly chronological, of all 114 Abraham Lincoln photos. I don't have any reason to question that. The only photos of Lincoln posing with soldiers that I see are six Alexander Gardner photos taken at Antietam, October 3, 1862: their Ostendorf numbers are O-62 through O-67. Perhaps I'm just showing my ignorance, but I find it unlikely that a lieutenant would be in, apparently, sole possession of a Lincoln photo.

Lloyd Ostendorf occupies a unique position in the list of Lincoln photograph historians. He was persistent, even obsessive in finding and researching previously unknown images of Abraham Lincoln. He was also known to make wild assumptions and at times publish incorrect information. In his book The Photographs of Mary Todd Lincoln he included prints that he attributed to photographs which had never been previously seen, probably because they don't exist except as an engraving made by an artist, for popular consumption. He once laid claim to owning an image in his large collection which is only a cheap copy made at a local copy shop. The legendary Lincolnophile and book store owner Ralph Newman told me more than once--and he was a close friend of Lloyd--that he "wanted to believe so bad that a treasure in his collection was real, even't if it wasn't." Mr. Ostendorf, with his research and sharing images with the world, did a great service to Lincoln historians, collectors, and admirers of the president, but at times his information should be considered suspect.