Ralph Newman, 86, an internationally recognized book dealer specializing in Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, died Thursday of internal bleeding in Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
Mr. Newman was the former owner of a famous Chicago bookstore devoted to Lincoln, which he ran in various locations for 62 years. The longtime Chicago resident also was the co-founder of the Civil War Round Tables, a discussion group of war history lovers that now has more than 300 chapters throughout the world.
He was a board president of the Chicago Public Library for more than a decade in the ’60s and ’70s and the author and editor of some 20 books, the more prominent of which are “Lincoln for the Ages” (1959) and “The American Iliad” (1947), a Civil War history.
Throughout his career, Mr. Newman provided books for every president, from Herbert Hoover to Bill Clinton, and he was a friend and confidant of Carl Sandburg, also a Lincoln admirer.
While he enjoyed his relationships with poets and heads of state, Mr. Newman was most proud of the work he did in making history come alive for ordinary readers, friends said.
“He turned people on to history . . . and to the idea that there was meaning behind it,” said Daniel Weinberg, Mr. Newman’s former partner who now runs the Abraham Lincoln Book Shop at 357 W. Chicago Ave. “Our customers were from many walks of life because it was a home to them and they could feel comfortable there.”
While Mr. Newman led a stellar career as a historian, author and book dealer for several decades, a devastating period came in 1975, when he was found guilty by a jury and fined $10,000 for his part in President Richard Nixon’s fraudulent claim of an income-tax deduction for pre-presidential papers donated to the government.
In 1969, a federal law was enacted limiting deductions for such papers after July of that year. Nixon’s tax attorney was charged with back-dating the time of the donation, and Newman was accused of signing the affidavit that supported the fraud.
Mr. Newman later defended his actions, telling the Tribune, “When the president’s attorney tells you he made a gift of these papers on a certain date, you don’t ask questions.”
The incident marred his reputation for some, colleagues said, but his career certainly wasn’t ruined, as Mr. Newman had feared.
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“I found I had a lot of friends I didn’t know I had,” he said many years later. ” . . . (Washington attorney) Edward Bennett Williams charged me only expenses for the lawyers he sent to Chicago to defend me. Afterward I told him, `I guess my career is over.’ He said, `Ralph, you’re now the best known appraiser in the world. Your business will double.’ He was wrong. It tripled.”
While the incident bothered Mr. Newman a great deal for many years afterward, he continued with his passion for history and books.
“It was a shadow on a very distinguished career,” said Scott Simon, his stepson and a host for National Public Radio. “There was not a word of self-pity. He pled not guilty and he believed in himself and he just kept on going.”
A Chicago native, Mr. Newman attended Northwestern University but left after one term to play minor league baseball, where he was known as “Sparky.” After being injured in his second season, he gave up his baseball dream and returned to Chicago.
While walking along a Near North Side street, he noticed a bookstore that was going out of business and, on a whim, decided to secure a loan and buy the store. When he reopened the shop, he cleared his stock by offering 75 percent off everything. Once his debt was paid off, Mr. Newman decided a specialty bookstore was the best option and Abraham Lincoln was the perfect choice.
“People think of Lincoln as someone on their own level, someone they could feel comfortable with,” Mr. Newman once told the Tribune. “He embodies the virtues that people most revere–his rise from poverty, his self-education, his belief in freedom.”
And he was right. Over time, Civil War and Lincoln interest rapidly grew, and Mr. Newman was in the perfect position to capitalize on it. His bookstore opened as the Home of Books on Chicago’s Near North Side in the 1930s and moved later to the Loop, where some of his regulars were Sandburg and his fellow reporters and editors from the Chicago Daily News.
In 1940, he changed the name of the business to the Abraham Lincoln Book Shop, and, after a succession of sites in the Loop, he settled at 18 E. Chestnut St., which was the shop’s site from 1967 through 1984, when he sold the business to Weinberg.
After selling the bookstore, his Ralph Newman Co. concentrated on appraisals and securing rare books and manuscripts for collectors.
Mr. Newman is survived by his wife, Patricia; two daughters, Carol Parry and Maxine Brandenburg; a stepson, Scott Simon; two grandchildren; and a great-grandchild. Funeral arrangements are pending.