Alexander Gardner, 17 Oct 1821 - 10 Dec 1882 Search this
Sitter:
Abraham Lincoln, 12 Feb 1809 - 15 Apr 1865 Search this
Thomas Lincoln, 4 Apr 1853 - 15 Jul 1871 Search this
Medium:
Albumen silver print
Dimensions:
Image: 22.7 × 17cm (8 15/16 × 6 11/16")
Mount (Gardner): 28.1 × 20.6cm (11 1/16 × 8 1/8")
Mount (LoC): 35.6 × 27.9cm (14 × 11")
Mat: 45.7 × 35.6cm (18 × 14")
Type:
Photograph
Date:
1865
Exhibition Label:
Abraham Lincoln’s family was both a refuge and a trial for him while president. Thomas Lincoln (1853–1871)—nicknamed “Tad” by his father as a short form of “tadpole” because he was a squirmy, hyperactive child—was the youngest of three Lincoln boys. He suffered from a cleft palate, which caused him speech problems. Lincoln indulged Tad’s rambunctious behavior because of the tragedy that befell the family when Tad’s brother William (1850–1862) died of typhus. Numb with grief, his wife inconsolable, Lincoln had to persevere even as his innate melancholia worsened with Willie’s death.
On the night of Lincoln’s assassination, Tad was at another Washington theater when the manager announced to the audience that the president had been shot. Tad became hysterical with grief, shouting “They have killed Papa dead!” Sadly, Tad did not survive long himself, dying of unknown causes at age eighteen; his mother was too grief-stricken to attend his funeral.
