Looseleaf notebook from 1941-1942 containing a set of 18 double leaves of 129 small photographs of Abraham Lincoln, collected by Frederick Meserve, and presented to his friend, Ralph A. Gregory, who was also a collector of Lincolniana.

New York City businessman, and one of America's premier Lincoln collectors. Frederick Hill Meserve began collecting in 1880, when he set out to find photographs to illustrate the Civil War diary his father was writing. When he bought a packet of photographs at auction for $1.10 that included 100 Mathew Brady salted paper prints, he was hooked. By 1911, he had tracked down and catalogued 100 Lincoln photographs. The photographs document the changes in Lincoln's face over the years, as he struggled with the tragedy of the Civil War and the death of his son. Meserve's Lincolniana is now part of the Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation at SUNY Purchase, directed by Peter W. Kunhardt, Jr., Meserve's great-great grandson.

1 albums (130 photographic prints) : silver gelatin, platinum ; 30 x 25 cm (album)

Date from t.p. handwritten in pencil, presentation inscription of June 20, 1942 on t.p. verso, and first letter, dated Jan. 19, 1942, to Ralph A. Gregory in St. Louis from F.H. Meserve in New York City.

Added title-page, in typescript, dated 1941: "Photographs of Abraham Lincoln from the Frederick Hill Meserve Collection presented to Ralph Gregory by Frederick Meserve 1941."

Photographs are mounted on rectos and versos of 18 double leaves of white paper, with corners of each photograph slipped into slits cut into paper; each photograph numbered in pencil.

Bound in looseleaf notebook of faux grain black paper boards with black leather spine.

Spec. Coll. copy: in beige cloth clamshell box, with box title "Meserve Abraham Llincoln."

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