Catalogue Entry

MacGibeny, 2022: Around the 1909 centennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, Johnson's images of Lincoln as a boy reading were reproduced widely for moralizing purposes, to emphasize the virtue of picking oneself up by one's bootstraps and overcoming challenges through education and hard work. 

The Horace K. Turner Company sales brochure for reproductions of this pastel, 1908, promotes its appeal:

“The picture was purchased from Mrs. Johnson by Mary Billings French, who presented it to Berea College as an inspiration to the young men and women whom that institution is helping each year to overcome the same difficulties that Lincoln met and conquered.

"The picture arouses new and tender thoughts of our national hero before life's cares and sorrows had written their message in the deep lines and sadness that pervade likenesses of [Lincoln] in later years. Here is the boy, who, though born to poverty and privation, made every difficulty a stepping-stone to higher issues. He is alone in his humble home, reading by firelight a precious and coveted book which has been loaned to him, no doubt, and which he has walked many miles to obtain."

Berea College charged (and still charges) no tuition to students. The College used Johnson’s image on their official book plate, letterhead, and stationery; the frontispiece for The Berea Quarterly; and various other promotional materials. 

William Goodell Frost, president of Berea College, letter to Jesse Lowe Smith, Superintendent of Schools in Highland Park, Illinois, October 30, 1913:

“The artist, Eastman Johnson, had occasion to make some studies of pioneer life during the period of the civil war and then conceived the thought of presenting the Boy Lincoln in frontier surroundings. His picture has had successive periods of popularity. It was one of the first pictures used by Prang for a chromo which was widely distributed in its time. When chromos went out of fashion the picture was reproduced in engravings in school histories and the like. Johnson made a copy which is now at Ann Arbor [Boyhood of Lincoln, University of Michigan], but always retained the original and Mrs. Eastman Johnson had it in her home for some years. A mutual friend had made me acquainted with Mr. Johnson in his lifetime and I had seen the picture at his home. In 1908 Mrs. Mary Billings French of New York purchased the picture for Berea College, Mrs. Eastman Johnson making a large contribution toward the gift. It was exhibited at several meetings in New York City and at the St. Dennis [sic] Hotel, and then brought to our Library. The Horace K. Turner Co., Oak Hill, Newton Center, Mass., made careful reproductions and are furnishing such for school use throughout the country. 

“Such is the history of the picture from which you can make extracts to serve the purpose you have in view. I believe it is within the bounds of truth to say that no one ever thinks of Abraham Lincoln, or looks upon his picture without moral benefit.”

According to Smith’s diary, in 1913 he was giving lectures about Lincoln to schoolchildren and adults, as well as exhibiting pictures of Lincoln in Illinois schools.

• Occupations: 
  • Presidents of the United States »
• Subject matter: 
  • Children and adolescents reading »