Inaugural Ceremonies of the Freedmen's Memorial Monument to Abraham Lincoln, Washington City, April 14, 1876

 

Inaugural Ceremonies of the Freedmen's Memorial Monument to Abraham Lincoln, 

Washington City, April 14, 1876

   Levison & Blythe

   St. Louis, MO

  (c) 1876

  There are times that it just pays to follow a hunch. Today is the day after Christmas and I felt that it would be a good day to go thrifting. I believe I was right. 

  Not that this item leapt into my hands, mind you. My wife and I went looking for Christmas things that might have sold and we did find some stuff for next Christmas, but while we were there we also looking through the music and book section as well. I saw one of the employees wheel out a bin filled with books and noticed a couple "helping" this gentleman and unsurprisingly the couple had a book scanner with them (cheapers) and then they devoured the bin, finding whatever it was that their scanner said - it seemed. I checked out other areas of the store and doubled back to the book area, and the couple had by then depleted the bin of about half its contents and had started doing through a second cart. This gave me to opportunity to go through the bin myself and close to the bottom of the bin I saw this booklet. 

   I didn't need a scanner. It looked old. The cover image, the font used, the date on the cover. My only question was was it an original or a reprint? I opened the booklet and saw that it was printed in St. Louis by Levison and Blythe : Printers, Stationers, and Blank Book Manufacturers and that they were located at 219 Olive Street in St. Louis. 

   Okay, it's an original. 

   Printed the same year as the event discussed in the text of the booklet. A historically significant moment. 28 pages of history. And I was gingerly holding it in my hand. It belongs in a collection somewhere, or perhaps in the new Afro-American Museum in Washington, DC.