jazzeum
Four Star General
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2005
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This show, which appeared on HBO, in April is not so much about Lincoln but about one family's fascination with Lincoln and how that fascination changed their life and the way we view Lincoln today, the Meserve Kunhardt family.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOxc78bb1Jo
The founder, William Neal Meserve, was a Civil War veteran, who had kept a diary during the Civil War and he asked his son Frederick Hill Meserve to help him find photos to illustrate his diary. According to Peter Kuhnhardt, Jr. "my great-grandfather was the first collector of Lincoln photography. He did it to illustrate his father's Civil War diary. His father was a Union officer, and my great-grandfather collected to bring it to life. And he stumbled on seven Lincoln negatives, which started him out on a quest to find all the pictures of Lincoln." Starting from those beginnings, the family has collected photographs that might have been lost forever, including now-iconic portraits used on the penny, the five dollar bill and the likeness used on Mount Rushmore. But for their efforts, those images would have been lost to history.
With the help of Frederick Hill's daughter, Dorothy Meserve Kunhardt , the collection contains more than 73,000 items, including 57,000 photographic prints, as well as thousands of books, pamphlets, maps and theater broadsides. The collection has been recently acquired by Yale University.
Dorothy Meserve Kunhardt was famous in her own right as a creator of children's work, notably Pat the Bunny, one of the most iconic children's books ever published.
The life long love of Lincoln was not without its costs. All the material they collected generated incredible amounts of dust and what have you and this led to the deaths of her husband Philip Kuhnhart and later his wife Dorothy Kunhardt.
If you have HBO or HBO Go, this is a program not to be missed.
The Kuhnhardts have issued several books on Lincoln and later this month are releasing The Photographs of Abraham Lincoln, 114 Lincoln portraits from the archives of their collection. I have a copy and it's superb.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOxc78bb1Jo
The founder, William Neal Meserve, was a Civil War veteran, who had kept a diary during the Civil War and he asked his son Frederick Hill Meserve to help him find photos to illustrate his diary. According to Peter Kuhnhardt, Jr. "my great-grandfather was the first collector of Lincoln photography. He did it to illustrate his father's Civil War diary. His father was a Union officer, and my great-grandfather collected to bring it to life. And he stumbled on seven Lincoln negatives, which started him out on a quest to find all the pictures of Lincoln." Starting from those beginnings, the family has collected photographs that might have been lost forever, including now-iconic portraits used on the penny, the five dollar bill and the likeness used on Mount Rushmore. But for their efforts, those images would have been lost to history.
With the help of Frederick Hill's daughter, Dorothy Meserve Kunhardt , the collection contains more than 73,000 items, including 57,000 photographic prints, as well as thousands of books, pamphlets, maps and theater broadsides. The collection has been recently acquired by Yale University.
Dorothy Meserve Kunhardt was famous in her own right as a creator of children's work, notably Pat the Bunny, one of the most iconic children's books ever published.
The life long love of Lincoln was not without its costs. All the material they collected generated incredible amounts of dust and what have you and this led to the deaths of her husband Philip Kuhnhart and later his wife Dorothy Kunhardt.
If you have HBO or HBO Go, this is a program not to be missed.
The Kuhnhardts have issued several books on Lincoln and later this month are releasing The Photographs of Abraham Lincoln, 114 Lincoln portraits from the archives of their collection. I have a copy and it's superb.