Possible Lincoln artifact discovered!

[RJNorton]

(07-05-2016 01:04 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Yes, at least I am, and Roger obviously, too.

True, Eva. I am skeptical at this point, but maybe the museum will supply proof. I did not think Tad knew his letters while still in Springfield, but maybe I am wrong.

I am not really concerned with the provenance of the rocker itself; my interest is in the evidence that Tad engraved his name on it. Why couldn’t Abraham, Robert or Willie (or someone else who was in possession of the rocker) have done the actual engraving?

"It has also been suggested that Tad had an aversion to formal schooling—one that was condoned by his father—and that it led to his delay in reading. However, his illiteracy was extensive for the entire period of the White House years. Elizabeth Keckley, who attended Mary Todd Lincoln in the White House, recounts the familiar story of Tad's inability to read the simple word ape, as late as age twelve. When shown a picture of an ape, Tad insisted it was a monkey and that the single-syllable, three-letter word a-p-e spelled monkey. His illiteracy is confirmed by Mary Todd Lincoln in a letter written from Chicago to Alexander Williamson, dated December 16, 1866. She wrote, "Taddie is well Can now read, quite well—as he did not know his letters when he came, here, you will agree he learns rapidly." It seems improbable that such a massive deficit characterized by simple failure to learn even the letters of the alphabet can be attributed solely to parental indulgence and childhood aversion to school. Tad did have formal schooling, not dissimilar to that of his older brother Willie, and one might assume that with even a limited attention span, he would have learned the alphabet and spelling of simple words."

SOURCE: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/2629860...w=fulltext