Image of Lincoln's Head on Calhoun's Body

[ELCore]

Here is a new article, The Great Lengths Taken to Make Abraham Lincoln Look Good in Photos.

It includes this image, which it calls "famous", that apparently showed up shortly after Lincoln's death:



It is actually a doctored version of an 1852 engraving of Sen. John C. Calhoun. I cannot recall ever having seen this "Lincoln" image before.

[RJNorton]

Thanks for posting the image, Lane. The only place I had previously seen this image is in Stefan Lorant's Lincoln: A Picture Story of His Life. Lorant included 3 other "Lincoln's head on other bodies" images: Lincoln's head on Martin Van Buren's body, Lincoln's head on Andrew Jackson's body, and Lincoln's head on John C. Fremont's body. Lorant also mentioned that additional plates of Lincoln's head on the bodies of Henry Clay and Francis P. Blair exist. Lorant said the craze for doing this was the demand for Lincoln's image after the assassination was so great that publishers needed new plates of him in a such a hurry that engravings of Lincoln's head on other bodies appeared almost overnight. These engravings made their way into many American homes; I am not sure how many folks realized the bodies in their purchases were not always Lincoln's.

[ELCore]

I didn't know any of that. Thanks!