Abraham Lincoln Filed A Patent For Facebook In 1845

I contacted the curator at the Lincoln Museum by email. His response:

This is entirely a hoax. Clever, too. We have an official stastement to that effect due within the hour. -James

James M. Cornelius, Ph.D. Curator, Lincoln Collection Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum 112 N. Sixth St. Springfield, IL 62701-1310 217.785.7954 http://www.alplm.org

A few people in the other submission have suggested that this is a hoax. The photos may have been rehashed from period publications, there is no mention of this patent application in the well documented life of Lincoln, and it is rather convenient that the means of proper documentation was left at home.

But what a yarn! It takes gumption to start off a tall tale with a circus man. And it plays into the "execution is everyhing" mentality. The OT should consider starting a gazette of his own!

hoax? http://www.antiqbook.com/boox/poor/23800.shtml

Despite it being a hoax, the page link leads to a 404.

This is displaying Hostgator 404 page now

A lot of ideas are just rehashing of old things applied to new circumstances. This is kinda surprising though!

Gotta love the way this is written. Well done.

As for the story, it appears President Lincoln understood the sensibility of decentralisation. Each town manages its own Gazette. The townsfolk have a personal relationship with the person in charge of managing the information.

From the end user's perspective this idea still seems as sensible today as it was then. And it's no more difficult to achieve.

In the meantime, send all your personal details to Facebook and their advertiser clients for analysis. You might be missing out on important products and services if you don't!