Author: HOKANSON, Nels
Title: Swedish Immigrants in Lincoln's Time
Description: New York, Harper & Brothers, 1942. Hardcover. Foreword by Carl Sandburg. 8vo. Blue cloth with gilt spine lettering. xviii, 259pp. Map frontispiece, illustrations. Very good. Text block tight and handsome, with faint edgewear to otherwise-sharp binding. Attractive third edition -- with intriguing provenance: Illinois governor and twice Democratic presidential candidate Adlai E. Stevenson II (1900-65) was gifted this copy in the last days of his governorship, as his pencilled note on front flyleaf ("A.E.S. / From / Vilos Johnson / Dec. '52") records. Before the end of that same month, the then-presidential candidate gifted the book to the gubernatorial residence, as indicated by his inscription and signature in blue ballpoint on the same page: "Presented to the Library of / the Executive Mansion by / Adlai E. Stevenson / 1952." Apparently this was overlooked in the move from the governor's mansion to the famed Libertyville farm, for it next appears that Stevenson's namesake son, Adlai E. Stevenson III (1930-2021, U.S. Senator from Illinois 1969-81), read the book, possibly in the 1980s, for still present at three spots are laid-in paper slips (a sheet of his "United States Senate Memorandum" sheets torn up). The identity of original gift-giver Johnson is not known -- nor, for that matter, any claim of the Stevensons to Swedish ancestry, since their lineage was largely Scottish. An interesting copy with unusual background, in any case. From the library of Adlai E. Stevenson III and before him of Adlai E. Stevenson II. .

Keywords: Abraham Lincoln Illinois & Midwest


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