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Assassin, devil together in latest ALPLM upload

Assassin, devil together in latest ALPLM upload

This early photograph now digitized by the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum depicts John Wilkes Booth and the devil. Photo: Contributed/Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum


Springfield, IL (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – This is the story about a picture of Lincoln’s killer with the devil.

That product of what you might call a 19th Century version of Photoshop is one of the latest images uploaded to Picturing Lincoln, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum’s page of digitized images. It’s the second upload since Picturing Lincoln was created.

The Booth / devil artwork is on a carte de visite, or “visiting card,” which people of the day passed around as an early form of social media.

“They took an image of John Wilkes Booth, and they double-exposed it,” explained Kelsey Wise, an audio / visual librarian at the facility. “After the assassination of Lincoln, these became very popular as a way to villainize and demonize John Wilkes Booth.”

Picturing Lincoln, Wise says, is the museum’s way of sharing Lincoln with the world.

Scores of people see Abraham Lincoln's funeral coffin in Philadelphia (Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum)
Scores of people see Abraham Lincoln’s funeral coffin in Philadelphia (Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum)

 

In mourning at the Lincoln Home.  (Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum)
In mourning at the Lincoln Home. (Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum)

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