Document Type
Finding Aid
Collection Number
MSS-008.002
Publication Date
2-9-2016
Last Revision Date
3-16-2017
Description
Reverend Joseph Lyle McCorison Jr. was one of the original 19 charter members of the Lincoln Group of Boston who met for the first meeting in February 1938. He was a Midwesterner who completed graduate work at Harvard Divinity School and Andover Theological Seminary before becoming the President of South Dakota’s Yankton College in 1940. He returned to Boston in 1944 to become Regional Director of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, and to work with many civic, religious, and educational groups.
McCorison dedicated much of his time to Lincoln scholarship. Of particular interest to him were the famous “Sleeping” Sentinel, Lincoln’s association with Friend Delahay, and the Governors of the Dakota Territory. He wrote papers on a variety of Lincoln topics, along with publishing the only known Lincoln biography in a Native American language (Siouan). He made a critical study of a number of the painted portraits of Lincoln as well.
The presentations McCorison delivered to the Lincoln Group of Boston include: “The Portraits of Abraham Lincoln Painted by Albion Harris Bicknell,” April 1945; “Finding an Unknown Lincoln by Healy,” October 1945; “William Wallace Lincoln, 1850-1862,” February 1962; “Pleasure and Profit in Lincolniana,” April 1967; and “The Lincolns of Hingham,” April 1968.
The 7-box collection is comprised of McCorison’s in-depth research on several different topics relating to Abraham Lincoln. The layout of the collection has largely been left in the original order McCorison had filed it.