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In his autobiography, President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) claimed that the aggregate of all his formal schooling did not amount to one year. His teachers in the pioneer schools of Indiana probably did not have access to an arithmetic textbook, using instead the mathematical problems found in handbooks such as Thomas Dilworth's Schoolmaster's Assistant. Paper was also scarce, and students often did their calculations (or ciphers) on boards, which they could shave clean and reuse. Lincoln, however, apparently managed to acquire a few sheets of paper that he sewed together to form a small mathematical notebook.
The self-made notebook was given to Lincoln's law partner and biographer William H. Herndon (1818-1891) by the president's stepmother Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln (1788-1869). The sheets were subsequently dispersed, and the whereabouts of some pages are unknown. The Library of Congress acquired the two pages (one leaf) exhibited here as part of its Herndon-Weik Collection of Lincolniana. They are considered the earliest extant Lincoln manuscripts and are especially noteworthy because of the signature contained in the verse in the lower left-hand corner:
Janice E. Ruth and John R. Sellers, Manuscript Division
For Additional Information
For additional information on the Herndon-Weik Collection of Lincolniana, you can leave this site and read a summary catalog record for the collection.
Reproduction Number:
A48 (color slide; front); A49 (color slide; verso); LC-MSS-25791-2 (B&W negatives; front and verso)
Related Terms:
Education | Herndon, William Henry (1818-1891) | Lincoln, Abraham (1809-1865) | Lincoln, Sarah Bush Johnston (1788-1869) | Mathematics | Presidents | Weik, Jesse William (1857-1930)
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