Beschreibung:

MANUSCRIPT AMERICANA. AUTOGRAPH ALBUM OF SIGNATURES OF PRESIDENTS, ABOLITIONISTS, POETS, AUTHORS AND OTHER EMINENT AMERICANS OF THE CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION ERA, COLLECTED IN 1865-67 all signed in ink, mainly two to a page including James Abram Garfield Ulysses S Grant ("Yours Truly U S Grant Covington June 19th 1866"), Frederick Douglass, Theodore Tilton ("I am in favour of the equal Civil and Political Right of all American Citizens without distinction of color or sex"), Anna Elizabeth Dickinson ("Above all things liberty!"), George Washington Julien, Wendell Philip ("Peace, if possible Justice at any rate"), Ralph Waldo Emerson, Grace Greenwood (pseud. of Sara Jane Lippincott, nee Clarke), Henry Wilson Alexander Ramsey, Edgar Cowan, Henry Smith Lane, Ira Harris, William Morris Stewart, James Alexander McDougall, Waitman Thomas Willey, Thomas Andrews Hendricks, William Saulsbury Snr, James Guthrie Richard Yates, Samuel Clark Pomeroy, Peter Godwin van Winkle, Daniel Sheldon Norton, Garretth Davis, James Warren Nye, Jacob Merritt Howard, William Sprague IV, James Willis Nesmith, Lyman Trumbull, Charles Rollin Buckalew, Reverdy Johnson (2), John Sherman, Samuel Jordan Kirkwood, John Conness, Zachariah Chandler, Henry Bowen Anthony, Lafayette Sabine Foster, George Henry Williams, William Sessenden, James William Grimes, Benjamin Gratz Brown, Daniel Clark, Benjamin Franklin Wade, Lot Myrick Morrill, John Brooks Henderson, Edwin Denison Morgan, John Andrew Jackson Creswell, James Rood Doolittle, George Read Riddle, Luke Potter Poland, George S Harris (land commissioner, Hannibal and St Joseph Railroad), Schuyler Colfax Jnr, Andrew Jackson Rogers, John Armor Bingham, Green Clay Smith, Roscoe Conkling, Nathaniel Prentice Banks, James Falconer Wilson, Samuel Shellabarger, John Wentworth Elihu Benjamin Washburne, George Sewall Boutwell, Samuel Hooper Edwin McMasters Stanton, Horace Greeley, James Edward Murdoch (quoting Shakespeare) and Alphonse de Kodolich (Colonel and c-in-c of the foreign troops in Mexico on board 'City of London' 23 August 1867) gilt title 'J P Lippincott & Co Philadelphia' tooled black leather gilt (12.5 x 19cm) J Griffith's calling card on pastedown, aeg Provenance: John Griffith (pseud. 'y Gohebydd') (1821-1877) London correspondent of the Welsh newspaper Baner ac Amerau cymru The first professional Welsh language journalist, John Griffith shared the radical libertarian views of the twice weekly newspaper's nonconformist founder the Rev'd Thomas Gee (1815-1898). Griffith embarked for America even before the American North's Victory was sealed. On arrival and armed with a hastily acquired autograph album, he seems to have lost no time in meeting as many leading American citizens worth hearing as possible, in so short a space of time. Almost without exception, these number prominent whigs and radical republicans, including political generals, philosophers and reformers. It is possible thatGriffith took with him letters of introduction, or perhaps attended meetings or larger political gatherings, such as the Southern Loyalist Convention which took place over three days in August 1866 in Philadelphia. Returning on the ship "City of London" almost exactly a year later, a fellow passenger was the Austrian Colonel Alfonso von Kodolitsch (1831-1893) who had recently distinguished himself in the unsuccessful campaign to shore up the short lived reign of Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico, After his, the only signatures in the album are those of the ship's master, and presumably obtained back in Wales, that of the by then very elderly congregational minister David Williams of Llanwrtyd