February 2, 1998 Library of Congress Receives Private Sector Gift To Digitize Rare Materials of Abraham Lincoln

A generous donation to the National Digital Library Program of the Library of Congress from Donald G. Jones, Terri L. Jones and the Jones Family Foundation will make possible the digitization of the most important Lincoln materials at the Library of Congress. The gift will also help the Library forge partnerships with other major repositories of Lincolniana, creating a "virtual library" of Lincoln materials, linked via the Internet.

"Don Jones has been a friend of the Library and, since 1990, a supporter of our electronic initiatives," said Librarian of Congress James H. Billington. "He was instrumental in the establishment of our congressional database THOMAS and the National Digital Library Program, and now he is helping us again by making it possible for the Library to share with the nation its important and popular collections relating to Abraham Lincoln."

"I am pleased to be able to aid the Library of Congress in its important work in bringing the riches of its collections to all Americans," said Mr. Jones. "The National Digital Library Program is leading the way in making intellectual content freely available to students, scholars and lifelong learners anywhere, anytime."

The Library's richest manuscript collection of Lincoln materials is housed in the Robert Todd Lincoln Collection, deposited in the Library in 1919 by President Lincoln's only surviving son. This unparalleled collection, first made available to the public in 1947, contains more than 15,000 items, including such treasures as Lincoln's drafts of the Emancipation Proclamation, his first inaugural address and letters about political and domestic troubles.

Additional treasures of Lincolniana came to the Library in 1950 through the generosity of Alfred Whital Stern of Chicago. Highlights of the more than 11,000 items in this collection include copies of three speeches delivered by Lincoln during his term as a U.S. representative from Illinois, Lincoln's scrapbook documenting his debates with Stephen A. Douglas during the Illinois senatorial campaign of 1858, and materials relating to the 1860 presidential election, his assassination and funeral.

Lincoln read his first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation to his secretaries William Seward and Gideon Welles on July 13, 1862. Its text left the men nearly speechless, and Lincoln let the matter drop. He raised the subject again, during a Cabinet meeting on July 22, where the reaction was mixed. His mind was already made up, however, as the advice he sought concerned the style of the Proclamation, not its substance. This will be digitized along with such treasures as:

• Jan. 26, 1863, letter to Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker placing him in command of the Army of the Potomac.
• July 1863 letter from Lincoln to Gen. George Meade, never sent, in which the president vented his distress over the escape of the Confederate Army following the battle of Gettysburg.
• Aug. 23, 1864, note from Lincoln to his Cabinet, in which he predicts his defeat in the 1864 election and the division of the country; he orders his Cabinet to assist the incoming administration.
• Aug. 18, 1837, letter to Mary Owens in which he details his frustration over a hasty and ill-advised commitment to marry a woman he hardly knew and had not seen for several years. Lincoln reveals his verbal dexterity as he extracts a voluntary rejection of his marriage proposal.
• Campaign banner supporting the candidacy of Lincoln in the presidential election of 1860.
• Lincoln on His Deathbed, a sketch by renowned artist Alfred Waud, drawn at Lincoln's death, April 14-15, 1865.
• 1860 ambrotype portrait of Lincoln by Preston Butler.

The National Digital Library Program of the Library of Congress is making freely available on the Internet the most important of the Library's collections relating to American history. This electronic archives, called American Memory, already offers more than two dozen collections, including Civil War photographs of Mathew Brady, items relating to slavery and the civil rights movement, daguerreotypes, early motion pictures, sound recording and panoramic maps. The THOMAS database provides current and historical information on the work of the U.S. Congress. By the year 2000, in collaboration with other institutions, millions of items will be available from this public-private initiative, 75 percent of which is being funded by the private sector.