The Fathers and Saviors of Our Country: A Presidential Sale

One page, 8vo (216 x 139 mm), on letterhead with a bust portrait vignette of Lincoln. Framed with an accompanying image of Edison, overall 23 3/4 x 17 3/4 in.

LEGENDARY INVENTOR THOMAS EDISON WRITES ABOUT ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

In full: "The writer can only reiterate what has been much better said by others, that the life and character of Abraham Lincoln and his great service to the Country during the war of the rebellion will stand as a monument long after the granite monuments erected in his memory have crumbled in the dust."

At the time the first bombs fell on Fort Sumter, Thomas Edison was a fourteen-year-old boy living in Port Huron, Michigan. Though his father was a supporter of the Confederate cause, Edison became a great admirer of Abraham Lincoln, going so far as to distribute campaign flyers on Lincoln's behalf and sell photographs of him during the 1860 presidential contest. Considering himself to be a "self-made man" in the vein of the late president, Edison would return to Lincoln as an inspiration throughout the rest of his life.