SAMUEL F. SMITH
His extremely rare signed cabinet photograph (4x5)
Cabinet Photograph signed: "S.F. Smith." Sepia, 4x6½ overall, image 4x5½, (two surfaces). Not mounted on customary cabinet photographic board. Glued to a 7x9½ sheet that has been affixed to a 9½x11½ page. Captioned: "The Notman Photographic Co. Limited/3 Park Street-2184 Boylston Street, Boston." Signed on image. After a visit to Germany in 1831, 23-year-old theological student Samuel Francis Smith (1808-1895), impressed that German children started their school day by singing a hymn, wrote a patriotic hymn using a simple German melody. Coincidentally, the melody was the same as that of the British national anthem, "God Save the King". Smith jotted down the complete hymn on a piece of scrap paper within half an hour, and the result, "America", was first sung at a children's celebration in Boston's Park Street Church on July 4, 1832. George Gershwin used Smith's phrase "Of Thee I Sing" as the title of his 1932 Pulitzer Prize-winning musical, and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. quoted the entire first stanza as he concluded his "I have a dream" speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963. Signed cabinet photographs of Smith are extremely desirable and rarely appear on the market. Blank upper left corner of photo has been detached and reaffixed to the sheet. Matting lightly stained, small crease at lower blank right corner. Caption under photograph lightly soiled. Tack holes at lower left and right corners. Overall, fine appearance.