Professors Announce Lincoln Manuscript Findings

Illinois State University ^ | June 7, 2013 | Nerida Ellerton and Ken Clements

[SunkenCiv]

Until recently, only 10 leaves of the oldest manuscript prepared by Abraham Lincoln were thought to have survived. However, Nerida Ellerton and Ken Clements, professors in Illinois State University’s Department of Mathematics, have determined that a fragment in the archives in Houghton Library at Harvard University is in fact an 11th leaf from the oldest surviving manuscript written by the future president...

The young Lincoln prepared his arithmetic manuscript -- known as a cyphering book in Lincoln’s time -- when attending schools in Indiana between 1820 and 1826. The Harvard University leaf was probably completed by Lincoln when he was 16 years old, late in 1825.

Guided by their knowledge of the arithmetic curriculum in U.S. schools in the early 19th century, Ellerton and Clements have been able to shed light on the ordering of the 11 leaves, and on the mathematical content of the pages...

Their research on Lincoln’s oldest manuscript will be published as a chapter, coauthored with Valeria Aguirre Holguin of New Mexico State University, in a new book on extraordinary cyphering books to be published by Springer in 2014. Ellerton, Holguin and Clements’s analyses reveal that the future president’s mathematical achievements at school were greater than previously reported, and that claims that Lincoln was wrong when making certain types of calculations are incorrect.

[SunkenCiv]

Illinois State University, Harvard University, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum Announce Details of an 11th Leaf of Lincoln’s Oldest Manuscript

[SunkenCiv]

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[Lawgvr1955]

They wont look for any of Obama’s school papers, but are still searching for Abe Lincoln’s nearly 200 year old ones. Makes one dizzy.

[kjo]

Most of Obama’s early life are national secrets. High school and college grades, birth certificate, social security numbers (he has at least two and maybe many more)Illinois state senate records...virtually all off limits.

...and, oh, BTW...not one person remembers him from Columbia University days...not a single student, not one professor.

Strange.

[Paladin2]

What possible difference, at this point, does it make?