In Memoriam
date: label: Date made
content: ca. 1865
label: date made
content: ca 1865
name: label: copyright holder
content: Loomis, Pascal
label: copyright holder
content: Swift, James F.
label: depicted
content: Lincoln, Abraham
label: maker
content: Nagel, Louis
label: maker
content: Nahl, Charles
notes: label: Description
content: After Lincoln’s assassination, Northern families often displayed in their homes lithographic prints of the man they believed to be the savior of their nation. Printmakers published numerous prints commemorating the late president in order to both illustrate and capitalize upon the nation’s woe. This graphic memorial to Lincoln, circa 1865, displays his profile upon a stone monument. Below his portrait, an inscription reads, “To Abraham Lincoln, The Best Beloved of the Nation.” Atop the memorial rests an urn draped with an American flag. Three owls sit around the urn, symbolizing wisdom. A weeping Columbia leans against the monument on the left, while a freed slave weeps to its right. At the base of the shrine rest a broken shackle, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the slain corpse of a dragon, representing rebellion and secession. Above, an angel with clasped hands looks down upon the memorial. In the background, a field strewn with the bodies of men and horses and the wreckage of cannons serves as a reminder of the destruction of the war.
label: Description
content: Louis Nagel was born in Germany around 1817, and was working in New York as early as 1844. There he was involved in two partnerships, Nagel & Mayer (1846) and Nagel & Weingaertner (1849-1856). In 1857, he moved to San Francisco.
label: Description
content: Charles Nahl was born in Germany around 1818, and emigrated to America in 1849. With his half-brother, he travelled to work in the California gold fields, before settling in San Francisco, where they worked as photographers and commercial artists from 1850 to 1867.
label: Description
content: The lithograph was published for the subscribers of a West Coast magazine, the San Francisco Puck, by Pascal Loomis and James F. Swift, the periodical’s founders. Loomis was born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1826, and worked from 1848 to 1859 as a wood engraver in New York. In 1860, he migrated to San Francisco, where he went into business with Swift. The duo first started a wood engraving firm, Loomis and Swift, but, by 1866, also began publishing the San Francisco Puck.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: California, San Francisco
topic: label: Subject
content: Costume
label: Subject
content: Patriotism and Patriotic Symbols
label: Subject
content: Communication, newspapers
label: Subject
content: U.S. National Government, executive branch
label: Subject
content: Civil War
label: Subject
content: Reform Movements
label: Subject
content: Blacks
label: Subject
content: African American
label: depicted
content: Liberty
label: related event
content: Civil War
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Domestic Life
label: See more items in
content: American Civil War Prints
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content: Art
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content: Domestic Furnishings
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Harry T. Peters "America on Stone" Lithography Collection
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: DL.60.2581
label: catalog number
content: 60.2581
label: accession number
content: 228146
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Lithograph
label: Object Type
content: Lithograph
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: ink (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: image: 21 in x 16 in; 53.34 cm x 40.64 cm