Is That Lincoln in Phil-del, as He Called It? (February/March 1998 | Volume: 49, Issue: 1)

Is That Lincoln in Phil-del, as He Called It?

AH article image

Authors: Harold Holzer

Historic Era: Era 4: Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)

Historic Theme:

Subject:

February/March 1998 | Volume 49, Issue 1

It was, up to that point, the photo opportunity of the century.

Here was the nation’s president-elect, Abraham Lincoln, visiting Independence Hall in Philadelphia en route to his inauguration—the defender of the Union seeking inspiration at the cradle of American independence. Adding resonance was the sacred day: Washington’s Birthday, February 22, 1861.

Lincoln rose to the occasion. Outside, he personally hoisted the American flag atop the hallowed building. “It flaunted gloriously to the wind,” recalled Lincoln, “an omen,” he hoped, “of what is to come.” Facing the threat of civil war, Lincoln defiantly declared, “I would rather be assassinated on this spot than to surrender it.”

Deep in the “immense” crowd a local photographer named F. D. Richards aimed his camera and exposed several pictures. They proved imperfect: blurry, distant, and partly obscured by the branches of overhanging trees into which onlookers had climbed for better views. Lincoln and his seven-year-old son, Tad, who had accompanied him, could barely be detected in the knot of dignitaries on the wooden platform fronting the building. Nevertheless, these shots have long been considered priceless records.

But now, it seems that Richards may have been busy earlier that same day. One summer afternoon in 1994, Jerrold Neidig, formerly a teacher and designer of special makeup effects for motion pictures and now a writer, was browsing through an antiques fair near his Sonoma, California, home. At one of the booths the long-time Lincoln enthusiast and collector of nineteenth-century photography casually picked up a stack of old stereographic photos—twin images mounted side by side on cardboard for viewing through a stereoscope (an early form of 3-D). One of the shots seized his attention.

“I was immediately and irresistibly drawn,” he recalls, “to this picture of a formation of Civil War-era soldiers, a large gathered crowd, Independence Hall, and, most notably, a man in a tall hat appearing at the rear.” Neidig suddenly suspected, but did not yet dare believe, that he might have found an important, unknown picture of Lincoln. He quickly purchased it … for all of five dollars. He has been exhaustively studying it—along with the events of February 22, 1861—ever since.

 

From the outset, there was one vexing problem. Lacking a date and photographer’s stamp, the picture bears only an unrevealing caption: “Rear of State House (a period name for Independence Hall), Philad’a.” Why would the creator of such a newsworthy picture fail to identify his subject or himself? The question remains unanswered. Possibly, the photographer believed he had not captured Lincoln clearly yet could still salvage a generic scene of the historic building—a forerunner of today’s picture postcard—to appeal to tourists. Or, as Neidig suspects, it might be a pirated copy, whose publisher dared not defy copyright laws by taking formal credit for it.

Whoever issued it, there is no doubt that the photo portrays a major event. Uniformed men ring the crowd (Lincoln was well guarded