*** FOREVER FREE ***

Founded in 1791, the
Massachusetts Historical Society
1154 Boylston Street, Boston, MA
is one of the nation's preeminent
independent research libraries.
  

 

Its collections contain millions of rare manuscripts and artifacts that provide a vibrant record of the entire course of
American history. 

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 Through its resources, publications and programs, the MHS strives to enhance the understanding of our nation's past and its connection to the present.

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When news arrived in Boston on New Year's Day 1863 that Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation, long-planned celebrations, the largest anywhere in the United States, already were underway.

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MHS Librarian Peter Drummey and Curator of Art Anne Bentley explained how this epochal event in American History became an extraordinary moment in Boston history, and how the

pen Lincoln used to sign the proclamation

became one of the most treasured artifacts

 in the MHS collection.

 

Forever Free features the pen Abraham Lincoln used to sigh the Emancipation Proclamation. Visitors can learn how the MHS acquired this extraordinary pen as well as view paintings, broadsides, engravings, and manuscripts that tell the story of how Boston celebrated Emancipation.

 

 

Lincoln signed the proclamation during the Civil War, freeing all slaves in states then in rebellion.  The proclamation also provided a legal framework for the emancipation of millions of other slaves as the Union armies advanced. 

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Forty-eight copies were subsequently printed, with Lincoln signing all of them.  The president donated them to the so-called Sanitary Commission, a precursor of the modern Red Cross that sold the documents privately to provide medical care to Union soldiers.

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A century later, President Lyndon Johnson invoked the proclamation while presenting the Voting Rights Act to Congress.  He said equality was still an unfulfilled promise for black Americans.

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A total of nine proclamation copies have been sold publicly in the past 40 years.  A rare original copy of President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation sold at a New Your auction for more than $2 million.

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In 2010, Robert Kennedy's family auctioned his copy for $3.8 million at Sotheby's. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1968, had purchased if for $9,500 in 1964, when he was

U.S. attorney general.

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Only about half of the 48 proclamation copies have survived.

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On Jan. 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

 

"I never, in my life, felt more certain that I was doing the right thing I do in signing this paper." 

 

 

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