CARLI Digital Collections Featured Image: “Walt Whitman on Abraham Lincoln” Program

Front of a program, "Walt Whitman on Abraham Lincoln," for a lecture presented by Whitman at the Chestnut Street Opera House, Philadelphia, April 15, 1886.

From MC 49, Walt Whitman Collection, 1860-1971.

This Walt Whitman material was collected by business executive and Whitman scholar, Charles E. Feinberg of Detroit, Michigan. It was donated in 1983 in memory of Sangamon State University Creative Arts professor Bruce Magidsohn. The bulk of the Feinberg-Whitman Collection is located at the Manuscript Reading Room of the Library of Congress.

Whitman’s lecture on the “Death of Abraham Lincoln” (as well as his poem “O Captain! My Captain!,” printed inside this program) helped to establish an association between the poet and the president. Ephemera like this program have provided evidence that Whitman delivered the lecture at least 19 times between 1879 and 1890.

Wood-engraved portraits of both Whitman and Lincoln illustrate this program. The portrait of Whitman on the front was engraved by Gustav Kruell, and on the back is Timothy Cole’s engraving of Lincoln after an ambrotype taken in Springfield, Illinois, on May 20, 1860.

Thirty-three items plus an inventory from the Walt Whitman Collection can be found in the Manuscripts and Special Collections digital collection. Also represented in the digital collection are: Geo. L. Mesker & Co. Architectural Iron Works, 1903 Catalog; Don Springer Historical Financial Documents Collection, 1758-1967; Railway Quarterly Photograph Collection, 1979-1980.

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