Sherwood, Robert E., Abe Lincoln in Illinois, 1939-1940

This collection contains materials regarding the on-stage and film productions of Robert E. Sherwood’s Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940), which starred Raymond Massey as Abraham Lincoln.

Robert E. (Emmet) Sherwood was born in New Rochelle, New York on April 4, 1896. He attended Harvard University and later served as a volunteer member of the Canadian Black Watch in France during World War I. Upon his return to the United States in 1919, Sherwood became the dramatic editor of Vanity Fair, then the associate editor of Life tasked with writing motion picture reviews.

In the mid-1920s and 1930s, Sherwood wrote several plays exploring themes of war and morality such as The Road to Rome (1926), The Queen’s Husband (1928), Reunion in Vienna (1931), The Petrified Forest (1935), and Idiot’s Delight (1936). Having been inspired by Carl Sandburg’s biographies about Abraham Lincoln, Sherwood spent a decade researching Lincoln and wrote Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1939). The play, which covered Lincoln’s life leading up to the presidency, was an instant hit. That same year, Sherwood received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his work. In 1940, a popular film version of the play — also titled Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940) — was produced by RKO Radio Pictures. After Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940), Sherwood turned his attention to the ongoing war efforts when he wrote his play There Shall Be No Night (1940) and served as a speechwriter for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Sherwood’s book detailing this experience, Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History, earned him the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography and a Bancroft Prize. Robert E. Sherwood died in New York City, New York on November 14, 1955.

This collection includes programs for productions of the play Abe Lincoln in Illinois at the Forrest Theatre in Philadelphia and the Plymouth Theatre (now the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre) in New York City, three copies of a booklet about the play, five stills from the 1940 RKO Radio Pictures film production of the play, and a promotional letter and flyer. Playscripts for Abe Lincoln in Illinois can be found among the cataloged items in the Illinois History and Lincoln Collections (973.7 L63H3SH5A1939A).

Several materials from this collection were donated in 1951, when Harlan Hoyt Horner and his wife, Henrietta Calhoun Horner, donated their collection of materials on Abraham Lincoln to the University of Illinois, establishing the Lincoln Room. The Lincoln Room later merged with the Illinois Historical Survey, which became the Illinois History and Lincoln Collections in 2006.