The Judge Lester L. Cecil Lincoln Collection consists of approximately 754
items, including letters, newspaper clippings,pamphlets, and photographs,
pertaining to Abraham Lincoln and his presidential administration. Of
particular interest are the autographs of Robert Todd Lincoln, the President's
oldest son, and Frederick Douglass, the famous African-American abolitionist.
The collection also includes two hundred books on Abraham Lincoln.
The Judge Lester L. Cecil Lincoln Collection consists of approximately 754
items covering the period 1861-1970. Judge Lester L. Cecil, of the United
States District Court, Southern District of Ohio, and the United States Court
of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, donated the collection to Wright State
University in 1969.
The collection contains autographs, letters,
lithographs, newspaper clippings and photographs pertaining to Abraham Lincoln
and his presidential administration, as well as issues of the periodicals,
Lincoln Herald, Lincoln Lore and Lincolnook
Memories. There are two original land patents signed by Lincoln and a
certificate signed by John Hay, Lincoln's personal secretary during the Civil
War. The collection also includes two hundred books about Abraham
Lincoln.
The collection is housed in six boxes and consists of three
linear feet of records. An online finding aid is available for the collection. There
are no restrictions on the use of this collection.
There are no restrictions of the use of the Judge Lester L. Cecil
Lincoln Collection. Access to research materials in Special Collections
and Archives is open to the public. All materials are non-circulating so
research must be done in-house, by e-mail, by mail or by telephone.
The Wright State University Special Collections and Archives has
materials related to Abraham Lincoln on the Civil War Collections web page.
Further reading
For more information about Judge Lester L. Cecil, consult the History of the Sixth Circuit. This website includes a
bibliography, a brief biographical sketch and a portrait of Judge Cecil.
For further information about famous Lincoln collectors and
collections, consult the following sources.
Books
Library of Congress. A Catalog of the Alfred Whital Stern
Collection of Lincolniana in the Library of Congress. Washington,
DC: Library of Congress, 1960.
Newman, Ralph G. Preserving Lincoln for the Ages: Collectors,
Collections, and Our Sixteenth President. Fort Wayne, IN: Louis A.
Warren Lincoln Library and Museum, 1989.
Peterson, Merrill D. Lincoln in American Memory. New York,
NY: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Sandburg, Carl. Lincoln Collector: The Story of Oliver R.
Barrett's Great Private Collection. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace
and Company, Inc., 1949.
Schneider, Stuart L. Collecting Lincoln. Atglen, PA:
Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 1997.
Articles
Bigham, Darrel E. "The Abraham Lincoln Collections at the Indiana
Historical Society." Indiana Magazine of History 101, no.1
(March 2005): 58-70.
Holzer, Harold. "The Lincoln Grail: The Great Collectors and Their
Great Collections." In The Lincoln Forum: Rediscovering
Lincoln, 211-230. New York, NY: Fordham University Press, 2002.
Larson, Sylvia B. "The Abraham Lincoln Collecton at Bridgewater
State College." Lincoln Herald 102, no.1 (Spring 2000): 19-28.
Sullivan, Dr. Edmund B. "The Collectible Mr. Lincoln." The Rail
Splitter: A Journal for the Lincoln Collector 1, no.1 (April 1995):
1, 3-5.
Williams, Frank J. and Mark E. Neely, Jr. "Lincoln Collecting:
What's Left? In Judging Lincoln, 163-177. Carbondale, IL:
Southern Illinois University Press, 2002.
Researchers seeking materials about subjects, places or names related
to the Judge Lester L. Cecil Lincoln Collection may search via the Wright State
University Libraries online catalog.
This collection is indexed
under the following headings. People are listed under Names when
they are creators or contributors and under Subjects when they
are the topic of collection contents.