Lincoln North
is the virtual home to one of the most unusual research collections housed
in the Rare Books and Special Collections Division, McGill University Libraries. In
1986, Dr. Joseph N. Nathanson (1895-1989) donated to his alma mater, the
contents of his eclectic Abraham Lincoln
collection
. For almost fifty years, Dr.
Nathanson
avidly collected Lincolniana from his base in Ithaca, New York where
he taught Obstetrics and Gynecology at Cornell University for five
decades. The story of his collection can be found elsewhere on this site,
but it is worth noting that the collection comprises of approximately,
four thousand items
including books, pamphlets, prints, manuscripts, ephemera and
realia
.
This site is
comprised of two sections: the collection and a virtual exhibit. In the
case of the collection, students and researchers can now search the bibliographic records of
Nathanson Lincoln pamphlet
collection and selected
images
of title pages. (At the present time the monographs, the prints and the other items in the collection are being catalogued and the catalogue and selected images will be made available in May 2002.)
On February 12, 2002
, McGill University Libraries
launched an exhibition based on the holdings of the Nathanson Collection.
The exhibition was curated by Dr. Kathleen Toomey
at the time, History Bibliography, Humanities and Social Sciences
Library, McGill University Libraries. Dr. Toomey was intimately acquainted
with the Nathanson Collection and in large part this site, including the
preparation of the pamphlet catalogue, and the content of this site is a
tribute to her passionate interest in both Dr.
Joseph Nathanson and his Lincoln
collection
. The creation of the virtual exhibit is a testament to the vision of the donor and the scholarship of the curator.
This site ultimately serves a single
purpose: providing
access to an important research collection based
on the life and times of the 16th President of the United States, Abraham
Lincoln
.
Such an opportunity is rare in Canada and McGill University Libraries is fortunate and proud to provide access to this unique historical collection located north of the 49th parallel.
This digital project has been created with support
from the Richard H. Tomlinson Digital Initiatives
Fund, McGill University Libraries