A recent donation from Lincoln Land’s library will help scholars studying the life of Abraham Lincoln in a huge way. More than 100 books were donated to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum last week. These books were originally owned by Dr. Benjamin P. Thomas, a well known Lincoln biographer. 

“Benjamin Thomas was a phenomenal scholar who authored works that are still used daily by historians studying Lincoln and the early 19th century,” said Ian Hunt, the acquisitions chief for the presidential library and museum.  “Looking at his notes in these books are the closest that we can come to having a conversation with this man.”

The donation of the books was the idea of the dean of LLCC’s library Tammy Kuhn-Schnell. Lincoln Land President Charlotte Warren commended the dean and her staff for making this donation happen.

The significance of these books is a huge gain for the presidential library.

“This donation fits nicely in a couple of different ways beyond simply its relationship to President Lincoln and the American Civil War,” said Hunt. “We are already getting requests from scholars to look at these books because they have questions about what Thomas thought of other scholars of that era, research that he had considered but never followed through on, Thomas’s unvarnished assessments of what constituted good history from bad.”

The books are a collection of works that share about Lincoln’s life and presidency. These books will help scholars enormously and will be a huge addition to the library.

“We have a small collection of Ben Thomas writings already housed here and so by adding this material we are making those collections more complete.” Mr. Hunt stated about how this addition will be of value to people who study Lincoln’s life. 

These books will be of tremendous use at their new home in the presidential library, helping scholars learn, and helping the library to grow its database of sources.