Description

This supplement sent to over 3,000 newspapers during the week of August 6-12, 1936, features the story of the three men from Bloomington, Illinois, who purportedly engineered Abraham Lincoln's nomination as the Republican Party presidential candidate in 1860. The article is based on a book titled "How Lincoln Became President" by Sherman Day Wakefield. The article chronicles the story of how the three men, Jesse W. Fell, David Davis, and Leonard Swett, all born in the east ended up living in Bloomington, Illinois, and meeting Abraham Lincoln, an attorney from Springfield traveling the Eighth Judicial Circuit. According to the article, Jesse Fell had the idea in late 1858 that Mr. Lincoln would make a good candidate for the presidency in 1860. Once he convinced Lincoln of the idea, the three men worked together to achieve the goal of Lincoln's nomination as presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention held in Chicago in early June, 1860. Included in the article are portraits of each of the men and an illustration of the Wigwam, a building constructed especially to hold the Republican National Convention. Part of the Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection, courtesy of the Indiana State Museum