Portrait of the CEO/Politico as Collector: Chatting with Steve Forbes

SF: For me personally the answer is Abraham Lincoln’s, for a variety of reasons. And we have some extraordinary Lincoln items coming up in the Christie’s sale. We have Ford Theater tickets for the play he saw on the night he was shot. We have a piece of the actual towel used to tend to his wounds that night. We have a lock of his hair. We have an absorbing letter from Lincoln to Mary Owens, a woman whom he evidently had ambivalent feelings for. In our letter Lincoln professes a change of heart in terms of their romance. We also have a haunting poem by Lincoln, showing early on his melancholic and depressive sides. We have an inscribed copy of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. We have a letter he wrote about putting together a coalition cabinet, in which he shows an interest in making this country truly coherent and united. Historians might be especially interested in a letter from Lincoln to Secretary of War Simon Cameron telling him to send relief ships to Fort Sumter, a letter which actually sends chills down your spine when you read it. There is a copy of Lincoln’s last message to Congress, in which he calls for the passage of the 13th Amendment [that led to the dissolution of slavery as an institution]. We have one of Lincoln’s last letters to his wife, written just days before his assassination. We have his last letter as President, in which he grants pardons to a group of criminals, a letter which underscores yet again his own humanity.

The same underscoring of their humanity is true for each President represented in the collection. With each President, there is something in these documents that makes them human and unique. For instance, George Washington, pleading for shoes for his soldiers, or writing an amazing letter on his stand against slavery and against selling slaves (as opposed to Jefferson, who is represented in the collection in a letter in which he expresses ambivalence about slavery but says that it’s ultimately necessary). Washington, unlike Jefferson, did not like selling slaves.

AT: I know that some of your children have their own collections in various areas. Do any of your children collect books, manuscripts, or Americana, and/or are you trying to groom them in that direction? If so, with what rate of success?

SF: My children have their own interests but thankfully we’re not competing yet on manuscripts. Some of them like certain figures, like Churchill [SF has perhaps the largest Churchill collection in private hands]; others like the arts. I can see where their interests are leading already. I think the collecting bug or gene has definitely been passed on to the next Forbes generation.

Rare Book Monthly

Portrait of the CEO/Politico as Collector: Chatting with Steve Forbes

Rare Book Monthly

Archived Articles

Portrait of the CEO/Politico as Collector: Chatting with Steve Forbes

Rare Book Monthly

Article Search

Archived Articles