Books

The book collection contains about 2,000 volumes amassed by Springer over forty some years. They cover all aspects of history related to Lincoln: there are books on Lincoln’s ancestry, parentage and childhood, boyhood and young manhood. There are Lincoln’s own writings and speeches, as well as books dealing with his political and executive life. There are also books on slavery, the Union and Confederate armies, the Civil War, as well as Michigan and Detroit history of the mid 19th century.

Springer said his favorite book was "The conspiracy trial for the murder of the president by court reporter Benjamin Perley Poore (1865-1866)" (Source: Harry Salsinger, “Local Lincoln Scholar Has 6,000 Items on Abe in His Collection,” Detroit News, Feb. 12, 1961, p. 19A). He was also fond of Albert J. Beveridge’s "Abraham Lincoln, the manuscript ed." (Houghton Mifflin, 1928) with an original leaf of Beveridge's manuscript bound in volume I, finely illustrated and complete with gravure frontispieces in each volume (32 plates total) and four additional hand-colored frontispieces of the Lincoln Memorial. In "The Life of Dr. Samuel A. Mudd," Nettie Mudd pleaded her father’s case in the Lincoln assassination conspiracy, using family letters and correspondence as well as John Wilkes Booth letters. The first edition has a frontispiece and several portraits.