Juneteenth Special Exhibition

In celebration of Juneteenth the museum will exhibit an extremely rare facsimile print of the final draft of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Abraham Lincoln
Chicago: Printed by Edward Mendel, 1863.
Lithograph; image size: 19.5” x 31”; sheet size: 23” x 34.25”.

This rare large broadside facsimile was issued to raise funds for the U.S. Sanitary Commission and the Soldiers Home in Chicago.

The background:  After composing the final draft of the Emancipation Proclamation, President Lincoln wrote to the women organizing the 1863 Northwestern Sanitary Fair notifying them that, in response to their request, he was sending them the original manuscript, so that it could be sold to raise money for the support and care of sick and disabled soldiers of the Union Army.  He enclosed the manuscript with his letter.

An auction was held by the Northwestern Fair and the manuscript was purchased for $3000 by Thomas B. Bryan, President of the Soldiers Home of Chicago. In turn, Bryan created and sold facsimiles of the draft to fund the U.S. Sanitary Commission and establish a permanent home for Union veterans. The price of each facsimile was $2. The Soldiers Home deposited the original manuscript at the Chicago Historical Society, where it was exhibited until the Chicago Fire of 1871 destroyed the document along with much of the city.

At the top of the facsimile to be displayed is Bryan’s printed certification of the authenticity and his statement of purpose for its sale, flanked by emblems of the Soldiers Home. Below and to the left is a facsimile of the letter Lincoln wrote on 26 October 1863 to the “Ladies having in charge the Northwestern Fair for the Sanitary Commission, Chicago.” The letter identifies those portions of the manuscript not in his hand and explains that the printed text pasted on the manuscript “was cut from a copy of the preliminary proclamation and pasted on merely to save writing.” Following the letter is the final manuscript draft of the Emancipation Proclamation. To the left of the letter is an oval portrait of Lincoln. A blind-stamped official seal of authenticity appears in the lower left corner, with a statement above it reading, “Every genuine copy has the Proclamation Seal attached immediately hereunder.” A printed line at the bottom has been filled in with the name of one John Deichman M.D. of Whitewater, Wisc., and his date of purchase, March 29th, 1864.

On January 7th, 1864, Bryan sent two copies of the facsimile to Lincoln accompanied by a letter reading in part: “I mail herewith for your acceptance the two first copies of the lithographer Facsimiles of your Proclamation of Freedom.—Have the kindness to inform me if the copies impress you favorably as an exact Fac-Simile which it purports to be…” To this, Lincoln replied: “I have received the two copies of the lithographed fac-simile of the original draft of the Emancipation Proclamation…I have to say that although I have not examined it in detail, yet it impresses me favorably as being a faithful and correct copy.”

Bryan published three versions of this broadside. Bryan partnered with lithographer, Edward Mendel, to print the images. Only a very few copies remain in existence.