William Springer Lincoln and Civil War collection

Born in an Austrian-Croatian village near Karlstadt, Austria, in 1897 as Adam Alphich, William Springer emigrated to the United States to live with a miner uncle in Pennsylvania shortly before World War I. He enrolled in a correspondence course in electrical engineering but interrupted it to enlist in the US army for 2 years, during which time he became a naturalized citizen and changed his name to William Springer. Upon his discharge he became a door-to-door salesman for advertising items. In 1932 he came to Detroit, took up residence near Wayne State University and found a job in direct mail advertising. In January 1933 he developed his company - a small tabloid called “This Week,” which later became “Monday Morning” and then the ”New Center News.” It chronicled the life of people working in the area of the GM and Fisher Buildings. It is still published today by Springer Publishing.

For 42 years he was an avid collector of Lincolniana. His interest was aroused when Dr William Barton, a minister and Lincoln authority, presented him with a volume about Lincoln in 1927. He started amassing books, but had to sell them during the Depression. He started again in 1933, and it developed into the large collection that would eventually be sold to Oakland University.

In 1952 he founded the Abraham Lincoln Civil War Roundtable of Michigan and served two terms as its president. He was associated with major Lincoln collectors and experts in the nation, such as Carl Sandburg, Bernhardt Wall (creator of the etched book Following Abraham Lincoln), Thomas Starr, Stewart McClelland (President of Lincoln Memorial University), Edgar DeWitt Jones (a reverend and fellow Lincolnian), and Louis Warren (historian and archivist at the Lincoln National Life Foundation). Frederick Black was also a close friend.

For more information: - “The Legend of William Springer: A Brief Pictorial Autobiography of a Boy and the Man,” New Center News Dec 25, 1972. (available in William Springer biographical file) ; - The William Springer biographical file (newspaper clippings, copies of addresses and media statements that Springer collected and send to Oakland University with his collection); - James Jay Monaghan, "Lincoln Bibliography"(and many other bibliographies in the Springer collection); - Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association.