From Washington to Disney, Lincoln man’s autograph collection at UNL a window into history
By RUTH BAILEY – Lincoln Journal Star, Neb. (TNS)
Mark H. Tallman dedicated his life to collecting autographs from prominent politicians, dignitaries and celebrities, accumulating signatures from nearly every American president and other historical figures, including Adolf Hitler and Walt Disney.
Now, Tallman’s impressive collection of autographs has found a new home at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Tallman, Mark
Tallman, Mark
Tallman donated dozens of items — photos, letters, books and more — with the famed signatures to the university library archives before his death earlier this year in January.
“It’s really unique materials that really don’t exist elsewhere, and may not necessarily exist in Nebraska in regard to our own history,” said Mary Ellen Ducey, a university archivist and special collections librarian.
The autograph collection wasn’t the only thing the Lincoln man left behind. Tallman’s $7 million estate was recently gifted to the Lincoln Community Foundation to be shared with seven local organizations over the next 10 years.
Ducey met Tallman through the University of Nebraska Foundation and spent time with him discussing why he collected the autographs and wanted to donate them to the university.
“You (could) just kind of sense the enthusiasm and you kind of get caught up in it,” Ducey said.
After receiving the donations in the fall of 2023, Ducey took inventory, recording what each item was, who it was signed by and for whom, and the date.
The collection contains signatures from 41 of the 45 men to serve as U.S. president, including George Washington. Other signatures include those from Martin Luther King Jr., Winston Churchill, Warren Buffett, Booker T. Washington, Neil Armstrong, Hitler, Disney and more. The collection also contains two atlases. The majority of the items are dated from 1783 to 1997.
Signatures can be found on photographs, letters, presidential pardons, books, financial papers and other documents.
“Most of the things that Mark had given us were in really nice frames, and he had taken the time to put them into UV-protected glass, which means that the glass will protect the items from sun and just make them really look beautiful in their frame,” Ducey said.
Washington’s autograph is on a ship passage addressed to Robert Stanley, a ship commander, in English, French and German, sent on March 2, 1794. Abraham Lincoln’s signature can be found on a framed piece of paper when Lincoln appointed the secretary of the territory of Dakota in 1861. Richard Nixon’s signature is on his resignation letter to Henry Kissinger from 1974.
The Tallman collection can be accessed online at archives.nebraska.edu.
Ducey is unsure of how he obtained all the autographs. She said Tallman had a friend who helped him find items and Tallman would determine whether he wanted to buy them or not.
“The fact that we can see some of the materials and the people that were influential in United States history and national experiences is pretty cool to have here,” Ducey said.
Ducey said these autographs open up new doors for understanding history.
“What’s important to me is you can go in and say, ‘OK, I’ve got this card, I’ve got this program, I’ve got this signature,’ and it’s going to tell me a story by looking at it, but then it’s also going to be a prompt for letting me see what else I can explore about this person, this event, this document and how that kind of broadens your horizons and leads to new research, new ways of thinking, or solidifies something that you may have thought when you’re doing research.”
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