Rag Linen | Online Museum of Historic Newspapers

As a follow up to the previous post about the eyewitness account of  George Washington’s 1789 inauguration, below are excerpts from the May 6, 1789 Massachusetts Centinel, which contains descriptions of the inauguration as well as the full text of Washington’s first inaugural speech, one of America’s 100 milestone documents.

The Rag Linen 1776 collection begins with important news from Parliament in London at the end of 1775 and concludes with Washington’s victory letter from his headquarters just outside Trenton on December 26, 1776. Between, we make stops to read period reports of the Fortification of Dorchester Heights, the Siege of Quebec, the Declaration of Independence, the pulling down of the equestrian statue of King George III in New York City, the Battle of Long Island and the Articles of Confederation. According to the synopsis for David McCullough’s 1776 book, “The darkest hours of that tumultuous year were as dark as any Americans have known. Especially in our own tumultuous time, 1776 is powerful testimony to how much is owed to a rare few in that brave founding epoch, and what a miracle it was that things turned out as they did.”

New with this collection is a supplemental video to help set the tone and importance of the pieces included in the 1776 collection. Enjoy.

Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is easily one the most famous speeches in American history. For collectors of historic newspapers, the speech is one of the most difficult to find printed in an 1863 paper.

According to Wikipedia, “despite the speech’s prominent place in the history and popular culture of the United States, the exact wording of the speech is disputed. The five known manuscripts of the Gettysburg Address differ in a number of details and also differ from contemporary newspaper reprints of the speech.”

Considering the disputed wording, one would consider contemporary newspaper printings of Lincoln’s speech — similar to the manuscript versions — highly desirable. Rag Linen is fortunate to have one such printing in its collection.

Exactly one week after the dedication of the Soldier’s National Cemetery in Gettysburg, and almost five months after the great battle, the November 26, 1863 Boston Weekly Journal printed Lincoln’s famous words. The issue’s back page is almost entirely reserved for complete printings of Edward Everett’s two-hour oration and Lincoln’s two-minute address. Having the Everett speech in a Boston newspaper is special because he had served as president of Harvard University, Governor of Massachusetts, and U.S. Senator and U.S. Representative for Massachusetts.

Below are images from the back page of the Boston Weekly Journal, including the headlines, introduction and the full printing of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. As you can see, the newspaper indicates that the speech was interrupted five times by applause, including one “long continued applause” followed by “three cheers” at its conclusion.