Special Collections & Rare Book Room

Waldo Library, #3016
Phone: 269-387-5221
Fax: 269-387-5077
Building map | Contact us

The Waldo-Lincoln Collection

The Waldo-Lincoln collection was assembled by the first President of Western Michigan University, Dwight B. Waldo (1864-1939). Dr. Waldo had been a history and economics professor at Albion College and was the first principal of the Northern State Normal School in Marquette. In 1904 Dr. Waldo became the president at Western State Normal School, the beginning of Western Michigan University.

The collection consists largely of printed books, pamphlets, and offprints concerning Abraham Lincoln. Noteworthy items in this collection include the first edition of his debates with Stephen A. Douglas, Photographs of Abraham Lincoln, by Frederick Meserve (1911), and a reprint copy of the New York Herald, April 15, 1865 proclaiming that Lincoln was shot.