Papers of Lincoln project receives $1.4 million grant

Descendants of an Illinois lawyer who was tutored by Abraham Lincoln in the 1850s have provided a grant of $1.4 million to the organization that collects and annotates documents related to the life of the 16th president.

Shelby Moore Cullom, who learned the law from Lincoln in Springfield and was admitted to practice in 1855, eventually became governor of Illinois and a U.S. senator.

Kathryn Wasserman Davis, the widow of Cullom’s great-nephew Shelby Cullom Davis, joined members of her family in making the large financial gift to the Papers of Abraham Lincoln project.

Shelby Davis, a former ambassador to Switzerland and New York investment banker, died in 1994 in Florida. Kathryn Davis is now 100 years old.

Daniel Stowell, director of the Lincoln papers project, said the Davis gift over five years would provide salaries for four additional researchers.

Established more than 20 years ago, the project is expected to require 10 more years to complete. It includes more than 5,600 Lincoln cases and 100,000 documents.

For more information, access http://www.papersofabrahamlincoln.org.

Shelby Cullom’s career

Born in 1829 in Kentucky, Shelby Moore Cullom moved in 1853 to Springfield, where he met Abraham Lincoln. Cullom became city attorney in 1855, soon after he was admitted to practice with Lincoln’s tutelage.

Cullom was a member of the Illinois House of Representatives in 1856 and again in 1860-61, when he was speaker. He was elected to Congress in 1864 and served until 1871. In 1873, he returned to the state legislature and again was House speaker.

Cullom was elected governor in 1876, and six years later was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he succeeded David Davis. He retired in 1913 and died in 1914 in Washington, D.C. He is buried in Springfield’s Oak Ridge Cemetery.

Cullom’s great-nephew, Shelby Cullom Davis, was born in 1909. He studied at Princeton and earned a master’s degree at Columbia and a doctorate in political science at the University of Geneva.

Davis was a CBS correspondent in Geneva and an economist before he joined the staff of New York Gov. Thomas E. Dewey as an adviser to his presidential campaigns. He was first deputy superintendent of insurance from 1944 to 1947.

He became a member of the New York Stock Exchange in 1941 and founded the insurance securities firm of Shelby Cullom Davis & Co. in 1947.

Davis was U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland from 1969 to 1975 under Presidents Nixon and Ford. He was chair and treasurer of the Shelby Cullom Davis Foundation when he died.

His many philanthropies include the Cullom-Davis Library at Bradley University.

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