Sign In

Password

- Or use -

Forgot Password Create Account

Checkout

Stock# 94661

Download Small Image

Map Maker

Abraham Lincoln F. S. Butler Louis Nagel

Title

[California Printing] President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation... Executed and published by F. S. Butler, 1864. Aged 14 Years

Publication Place / Date

San Francisco / 1864

Image Dimensions

18 x 23.5 inches

Color

Condition

Stock# 94661

$17,500.00

Add to Cart

Sell Us a Map

Add to Wishlist

Email a Friend

Buy Hi-Res Download

Map Maker

Authenticity Guarantee

Map Maker

Fast, Global Shipping

Description

First California Printing of the Emancipation Proclamation

Lithographed by a 14-year-old Boy

Beautiful large first California printing of the Emancipation Proclamation. The text of the Proclamation is presented in handsome italic script, with place names in bold blackletter.

The lithographer, 14-year-old F. S. Butler, may have been the son of Benjamin F. Butler, a pioneer California lithographer who left New York about 1850, when he moved to San Francisco to open that city's first lithographic press. See Peters, America on Stone, pp. 128-129.

This is a very handsome lithograph, and it seems almost incredible that it could have been executed by a fourteen-year- old boy... The essential portions of the text are arranged in a most effective manner - Eberstadt.

Significance of the Emancipation Proclamation in California

The Emancipation Proclamation, issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, in the midst of the American Civil War, had profound implications in California, a state that had entered the Union as a free state in 1850. Despite California's legal status as a "free state," ambiguity persisted regarding enslaved people brought into the state by Southerners, leading to conflicts and legal challenges. Lincoln's Proclamation clarified the federal government's stance on slavery, strengthening the resolve of abolitionists in California and reinforcing the state’s commitment to freedom.

Rarity

Quite rare in the market. Only three examples in RBH in the last 50 years. OCLC locates three examples, those at New York Historical, California State Library and the British Library. We also note examples at the Library of Congress, New York Public, and the Gilder Lehrman Institute.

The Doheny example, signed by Lincoln, sold for $71,500 in 1988.

Not in Peters, California on Stone. Not in Cowan.

Condition Description

Color lithograph, retouched by hand. Black text and hand-colored American flag. Some expert paper restoration, with repaired tear to the lower margin to the right of the imprint (no loss). A clean, beautiful example.

Reference

Rosenbach Catalogue 13:172. Eberstadt, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation 19.