Shapell Manuscript Foundation

• 1. Introduction

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  The Shapell Manuscript Foundation holds, among its private collection, letters written by George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and John F. Kennedy. These are not replicas or facsimiles. They are original documents, ink on paper, preserved and now being made available to researchers and the curious public. What draws a private organization to gather the handwritten words of presidents, generals, and scientists? And why does this particular collection keep returning, again and again, to the meeting point of American and Jewish history? Those questions sit at the heart of what the Shapell Manuscript Foundation does.

• 2. The Collection

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  The Shapell Manuscript Collection is a private holding, meaning it is not a government archive or a university library. It belongs to the Foundation itself, accumulated over time through focused research and acquisition. The materials span signed documents, photographs, and rare books, with a concentration on American, Jewish, and Holy Land history from the 19th and 20th centuries. Among the figures whose papers appear in the collection are Mark Twain and Albert Einstein, alongside the three presidents already named. The Civil War era is especially well represented. That concentration is not accidental. It reflects the Foundation's particular interest in the role Jewish Americans played during one of the country's most defining conflicts. The collection's depth in that period becomes clear when you look at how it feeds the Foundation's ongoing research projects.

• 3. The Roster Project

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  Simon Wolf published a roster of Jewish Civil War soldiers in his 1895 book, The American Jew as Soldier, Patriot and Citizen. The Shapell Roster Project set out to build on that work, using modern research tools to expand and correct a list that was nearly 120 years old by the time the Foundation began its revisions. The project goes beyond names and ranks. For each soldier on the list, the Roster provides documentation: letters, photographs, and official documents. The Union section was made public and published online in 2022. The Confederate data, covering soldiers who fought for the other side of that war, was expected to be released by 2025. The Roster was framed as the Foundation's contribution to the Civil War Sesquicentennial Celebration, and at the project's completion, all information and documents are intended to be available both online and in print.

• 4. Exhibitions and Partnerships

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  The Library of Congress received items on loan from the Shapell Manuscript Foundation for a traveling exhibition called "With Malice Toward None: The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition," which toured from February 2009 until April 2011. Lincoln letters, signed portraits, and related documents traveled with that show. Three years later, the Smithsonian National Museum of American History exhibited SMF documents at "Changing America: The Emancipation Proclamation, 1863, and the March on Washington, 1963," held from December 2012 until September 2013. In 2015, the Foundation collaborated with the New-York Historical Society and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum on "With Firmness in the Right: Lincoln and the Jews." That exhibition was produced alongside a book, Lincoln and the Jews: A History, co-authored by Professor Jonathan D. Sarna and Benjamin Shapell. The Foundation also exhibits regularly at the National Library of Israel at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, reflecting its dual administrative presence in both the United States and Israel.

• 5. The Holy Land Thread

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  From December 2010 to March 2013, the Shapell Manuscript Foundation collaborated with the National Library of Israel on "Dreamland: American Travelers to the Holy Land in the 19th Century." That exhibition drew on the Foundation's holdings related to American encounters with Jerusalem and the wider region during the 1800s. A sequel followed almost immediately: "Dreams and Diplomacy in the Holy Land: American Consuls in Jerusalem in the 19th Century" opened in March 2013 and ran until March 2016. The Foundation's publications reinforce this strand of its work. Among the books connected to the Foundation are studies of 19th-century Jerusalem hotels and travelers, accounts of American consuls in the city, and research on British Mandate-era experiences. A film titled Mark Twain and other American Travelers to the Holy Land in the 19th Century extends the theme into video form.

• 6. Digital Access and Film

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  The Foundation's website offers a digitized selection of its collection for public viewing and research, and that online holding continues to grow as the digitization process moves forward. The goal is to make primary source documents accessible beyond the physical exhibition circuit. The film Jewish Soldiers in Blue and Gray, presented by the Foundation and produced by Indigo Films, was released in 2011. Two other films, Lincoln's Last Days and The Mortal Presidents, are also connected to the Foundation's output. Together, the website, the books, and the films suggest an organization working to move its archival material into formats that reach audiences who will never visit a museum reading room.