Meserve-Kunhardt collection GEN MSS 1430 Over a period of sixty years as he amassed an extensive collection of photographs documenting the American Civil War as well as American history and culture over the long nineteenth century, Frederick Hill Meserve became the preeminent collector and historian of photographic images of Abraham Lincoln. He sought to identify and preserve every photograph taken of the sixteenth president. Meserve privately published many illustrated works, including his the twenty-eight-volume Historical Portraits: A Part of the Collection of Americana of Frederick Hill Meserve, New York City (New York: Privately printed, 1913-1915). Eventually Meserve's daughter, Dorothy Meserve Kunhardt (1901-1979), joined in his research and collecting eorts. Her son, Philip Bradish Kunhardt, Jr. (1928-2006) continued the project, writing extensively about Lincoln and preserving what became known as the Meserve-Kunhardt Collection at his home in Chappaqua, New York. In 1981, the National Portrait Gallery acquired its Meserve Collection from the family. That collection includes the "cracked-plate" portrait of Abraham Lincoln by Alexander Gardner and more than 5,400 original negatives from the studio of Mathew B. Brady. The descendants of Philip Bradish Kunhardt, Jr., including his sons Philip Bradish Kunhardt, III (born 1951), and Peter Whiting Kunhardt, Sr. (born 1952), as well as his grandson, Peter Whiting Kunhardt, Jr. (born 1982), continued to care for the remaining collection. In 2002, they formed the Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation, a tax-exempt nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of oral and visual history and the use of it to inform, educate, and inspire. In 2004, the National Endowment for the Humanities awarded the Meserve-Kunhardt Collection a Save America's Treasures grant, declaring that "the collection is an essential tool for Lincoln scholarship and for studying American cities and social movements." With this grant and other funding, the Meserve- Kunhardt Foundation sought to preserve the collection and make it available to the public. In 2007, the Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation established a new division, the Gordon Parks Foundation, dedicated to the preservation of creative work by photographer, author, and film director Gordon Parks (1912-2006). The foundation subsequently acquired the archive of another photographer, Ed Clark (1911-2000). In summer 2009, the collections administered by the Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation relocated to the State University of New York-Purchase. Shortly before acquisition of the Meserve-Kunhardt Collection by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation relocated its collections to Pleasantville, New York. Material related to Gordon Parks and Ed Clark is not part of the collection acquired by the Beinecke. Scope and Contents The Meserve-Kunhardt Collection chiefly consists of photographic material, as well as papers and realia that document the work of Frederick Hill Meserve. A collector and distributor of photographs from 1897 to his death in 1962, Meserve built an extensive collection of material related to Abraham Lincoln as well as other persons, sites, and events of the long nineteenth century. The collection also documents the stewardship and development of the collection from 1962 to 2015 by his descendants, especially his daughter, Dorothy Turner Meserve Kunhardt. The material in the collection provides rich visual documentation of United States history, especially persons, sites, and events during the American Civil War, and details the emergence of photography as a distinctive cultural practice into the early twentieth century. "Workbooks" represent the first portion of the collection opened for research in January 2017. They consist of copy prints that Meserve made or commissioned between 1897 and 1962 that index original portraiture within the larger collection. The photographs document more than 6,500 individuals on more than ten thousand gelatin silver prints. The images include portraits of Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant, as well as military and governmental personnel for the United States and Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. Groups of portraits also document cabinet members in presidential Page 19 of 2884