November 28, 2012 | 21,873 notes

theweekmagazine: In 1860, an 11-year-old girl wrote to Abe Lincoln, suggesting he grow a beard. He not only responded, he obliged. “Hon A B Lincoln… Dear Sir My father has just home from the fair and brought home your picture and Mr. Hamlin’s. I am a little girl only 11 years old, but want you should be President of the United States very much so I hope you wont think me very bold to write to such a great man as you are. Have you any little girls about as large as I am if so give them my love and tell her to write to me if you cannot answer this letter. I have got 4 brothers and part of them will vote for you any way and if you let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you you would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President. My father is going to vote for you and if I was a man I would vote for you to but I will try to get every one to vote for you that I can I think that rail fence around your picture makes it look very pretty I have got a little baby sister she is nine weeks old and is just as cunning as can be. When you direct your letter direct to Grace Bedell Westfield Chautauqua County New York.  I must not write any more answer this letter right off Good bye Grace Bedell” Lincoln responded a few days later:  “Miss Grace Bedell My dear little Miss  Your very agreeable letter of the 15th is received — I regret the necessity of saying I have no daughters — I have three sons — one seventeen, one nine, and one seven years of age — They, with their mother, constitute my whole family — As to the whiskers, having never worn any, do you not think people would call it a piece of silly affectation if I were to begin it now?  Your very sincere well wisher, A. Lincoln” While he made no promises about the beard to Bedell, he stopped shaving and allowed the beard to grow not long after their exchange and was elected as the 16th president of the United States a few weeks later. On his inaugural train ride from Illinois to Washington, D.C., the president-elect stopped in Bedell’s hometown of Westfield, N.Y., and asked to meet her.

theweekmagazine:

In 1860, an 11-year-old girl wrote to Abe Lincoln, suggesting he grow a beard. He not only responded, he obliged.

“Hon A B Lincoln…

Dear Sir

My father has just home from the fair and brought home your picture and Mr. Hamlin’s. I am a little girl only 11 years old, but want you should be President of the United States very much so I hope you wont think me very bold to write to such a great man as you are. Have you any little girls about as large as I am if so give them my love and tell her to write to me if you cannot answer this letter. I have got 4 brothers and part of them will vote for you any way and if you let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you you would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President. My father is going to vote for you and if I was a man I would vote for you to but I will try to get every one to vote for you that I can I think that rail fence around your picture makes it look very pretty I have got a little baby sister she is nine weeks old and is just as cunning as can be. When you direct your letter direct to Grace Bedell Westfield Chautauqua County New York. 

I must not write any more answer this letter right off Good bye

Grace Bedell”

Lincoln responded a few days later: 

“Miss Grace Bedell

My dear little Miss 

Your very agreeable letter of the 15th is received — I regret the necessity of saying I have no daughters — I have three sons — one seventeen, one nine, and one seven years of age — They, with their mother, constitute my whole family — As to the whiskers, having never worn any, do you not think people would call it a piece of silly affectation if I were to begin it now? 

Your very sincere well wisher,

A. Lincoln”

While he made no promises about the beard to Bedell, he stopped shaving and allowed the beard to grow not long after their exchange and was elected as the 16th president of the United States a few weeks later. On his inaugural train ride from Illinois to Washington, D.C., the president-elect stopped in Bedell’s hometown of Westfield, N.Y., and asked to meet her.

(via coolchicksfromhistory)

October 19, 2012 | 70 notes

Newly Released Photo of Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln The movie project began with [Doris Kearns] Goodwin’s book, before she had written much of it. When she and [Steven] Spielberg met, in 1999, he asked her what she was working on, and she said Lincoln. “At that moment,” says Spielberg, “I was impulsively seized with the chutzpah to ask her to let me reserve the motion-picture rights.” To which effrontery she responded, in so many words: Cool. Her original plan had been to write about Mary and Abe Lincoln, as she had about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevel. “But I realized that he spent more time with members of his cabinet,” she says. - Continue reading at Smithsonian.com. Photo: David James, SMPSP © DreamWorks II Distribution Co., LLC and Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved Ed note: The Lincoln trailer:

Newly Released Photo of Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln

The movie project began with [Doris Kearns] Goodwin’s book, before she had written much of it. When she and [Steven] Spielberg met, in 1999, he asked her what she was working on, and she said Lincoln. “At that moment,” says Spielberg, “I was impulsively seized with the chutzpah to ask her to let me reserve the motion-picture rights.” To which effrontery she responded, in so many words: Cool. Her original plan had been to write about Mary and Abe Lincoln, as she had about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevel. “But I realized that he spent more time with members of his cabinet,” she says. - Continue reading at Smithsonian.com.

Photo: David James, SMPSP © DreamWorks II Distribution Co., LLC and Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved

Ed note: The Lincoln trailer:

April 26, 2012 | 145 notes

What Happened to the Single Autopsy Photograph of John Wilkes Booth? The administration, led by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, ordered that a single photograph be taken of Booth’s corpse, says Bob Zeller, president of the Center for Civil War Photography. On April 27, 1865, many experts agree, famed Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner and his assistant Timothy O’Sullivan took the picture. It hasn’t been seen since, and its whereabouts are unknown. Photo courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Ed note: On this day in 1865, Booth was cornered in a Virginia barn and shot. He died from his wound the next day. Was Mary Surratt a Lincoln conspirator?

What Happened to the Single Autopsy Photograph of John Wilkes Booth?

The administration, led by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, ordered that a single photograph be taken of Booth’s corpse, says Bob Zeller, president of the Center for Civil War Photography. On April 27, 1865, many experts agree, famed Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner and his assistant Timothy O’Sullivan took the picture.

It hasn’t been seen since, and its whereabouts are unknown.

Photo courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

Ed note: On this day in 1865, Booth was cornered in a Virginia barn and shot. He died from his wound the next day. Was Mary Surratt a Lincoln conspirator?