Signed copy of the Emancipation Proclamation on loan to Penn State for a year

Signed copy of the Emancipation Proclamation on loan to Penn State for a year

University Park, Pa. -- For the next year, Penn State University will make available to scholars and students a rare copy of a signed war-time printing of Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

Penn State alumnus Albert L. Lord, a 1967 business graduate and chairman of the Board of the Sallie Mae Corporation, worked with Penn State, its George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center, the University Libraries and Special Collections, and the document’s owner to make the necessary arrangements for the yearlong loan. The copy at Penn State is on loan from collector William Chaney, a friend and associate of Lord's.

Known as the Leland-Boker Authorized Edition of the Emancipation Proclamation, the document contains the entire text of the historic proclamation. Printed in June 1864 in a run of only 48 copies, the folio broadsides were signed by President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State William Seward and intended for sale at the Philadelphia Great Central Sanitary Fair of 1864, to raise money for sick and wounded soldiers.

Only half of the original 48 copies are thought to exist, with known copies currently in the collections of the Library of Congress, the National Archives, the British Museum, libraries at the University of Chicago and the University of Pennsylvania, a few historical societies, and those of four or five private collectors, including H. Ross Perot.

"Bill Chaney is a collector of artifacts, and he was anxious that this particular document be put to good use," Lord says. "The Civil War happens to be an interest of mine, and I like what I see being done at Penn State in this area, through the Richards Center. So we talked and Bill agreed to make the document available to the University for a year."

The document will be at the center of several Richards Center events over its year at Penn State, including two notable gatherings:

-- In June 2006, the Richards Center's annual teacher's institute will focus on emancipation from the Revolutionary War to the Civil War. Sponsoring teacher's institutes is a central mission of the Richards Center, working to disseminate the latest scholarship to teachers and to assist them with teaching subjects like slavery and the African American freedom struggle. The summer institute will use the Proclamation as one of its key documents and will let participants visit the Paterno Library's Special Collections area.

-- In the spring of 2007, the Richards Center's annual Steven and Janice Brose Lectures will be expanded to a symposium of scholars on the topic of emancipation, resulting in the likely publication of a volume of original work by participants. The public will be invited.

Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, with its effects taking the force of law on January 1, 1863. In frank and legalistic language. Lincoln spelled out that slaves held in any state in open rebellion against the United States would be considered free, welcomed into the Union, and enlisted in the Army. The Emancipation Proclamation was a decisive step in eradicating slavery in the United States and an important change in the overall purpose of the Civil War.

"This is one of the more fitting gifts that could have come our way," says William Blair, associate professor of history and director of the Richards Center. "It perfectly symbolizes the heart of the Richards Center's mission to interpret the struggle for freedom, a goal recognized most recently by the National Endowment for the Humanities."

In 2005, the National Endowment for the Humanities named the Richards Center as one of the recipients of its We the People Challenge Grants for 2005. The initiative supports targeted institutions that can help fulfill the goal of the We the People Initiative to further the study, teaching, and understanding of American history.

An avid reader of history, Lord lives in Virginia, minutes away from the site of Ball's Bluff, a Civil War battle location along the Potomac River "The Civil War was essentially the country's second start," he says. "Slavery was left delicately unaddressed in the Constitution, and the country's aspirations for freedom were left unfilled. The Civil War righted that wrong."

Lord and his wife, Suzanne, are among Penn State’s most generous benefactors, having endowed a Chancellor's Chair at Penn State Abington, where Lord began his Penn State career. The Lords have also supported the Bryce Jordan Center, Penn State Athletics, the Smeal College of Business, and the Four Diamonds Fund.

Information about the Richards Civil War Era Center is at:
http://www.richardscenter.psu.edu/