# Abraham Lincoln in Nepali: a log-cabin life story on USIA poster 47

A Nepali-language biographical poster of Abraham Lincoln, numbered 47 in the U.S. Information Agency file and dated about 1956. A large portrait heads six captioned drawings that run from a log hut to the Emancipation Proclamation to his death at a theatre (NAID 6948836).

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      Abraham Lincoln poster, 47: The Great Emancipator (Nepali poster distributed in Asia)

      Abraham Lincoln in Nepali: a log-cabin life story on USIA poster 47
      USIA poster 47, about 1956: Abraham Lincoln's life in six Nepali captions, from a log hut to the Emancipation Proclamation and his assassination. NAID

## Techniques named on the archive record

Glittering generalitiesTestimonial
      Date1956Made byU.S. Information Agency (predecessor: State Department IIEP), Propaganda Posters Distributed in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East seriesMediumPosterCountryUnited StatesRegimeEisenhower AdministrationNARANAID 6948836; Record Group 306SourceUnidentified Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosureSourceU.S. National Archives (NARA), RG 306, Propaganda Posters Distributed in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East , retrieved October 4, 2026SourcePublic domain (U.S. government work; NARA RG 306) U.S. Information Agency / Department of State, c. 1956 (undated). National Archives, Record Group 306 (NAID 6948836, 306-PPB-47).
      Object, image, and catalog record from the FRAME archive. Text on this page is CC BY 4.0. Image rights are as the archive records.

      Full record at propagandaarchive.org

  A Nepali-language biographical poster of Abraham Lincoln, numbered 47 in the U.S. Information Agency file and dated about 1956. A large portrait heads six captioned drawings that run from a log hut to the Emancipation Proclamation to his death at a theatre (NAID 6948836).

## A life in six pictures

A big portrait of Lincoln takes the top of the sheet, with his dates and his number among the presidents. Below, six small drawings tell the story in order, each with a short Nepali caption: the poor family, reading at night after a day in the fields, the lawyer and congressman, the 1860 election, the proclamation, and the theatre.

अब्राहम लिंकन

फेब्रुवरी १२,१८०९-अप्रिल १४,१८६५

संयुक्त राज्य अमेरिकाको सोह्रौं राष्ट्रपति

"महान मुक्तिदाता"

[...]

सन १८६३, जनवरी १ तारिखको दिन उनले 'मुक्ति घोषणा' गरेर सबै दासहरूलाई अमलेख गर्नु भयो।

[English, as given by the archive:] Abraham Lincoln / February 12, 1809 - April 14, 1865 / Sixteenth President of the United States of America / "Great Liberator" [...] On January 1, 1863, he issued the 'Emancipation Proclamation' and freed all the slaves.

Transcription and translation in the FRAME record. The archive labels the English a machine translation not verified by a fluent reader, warns that a few Devanagari conjuncts may be misread, and says one phrase near the end of the 1863 caption is rendered approximately. Full record at propagandaarchive.org. NAID 6948836, local id 306-PPB-47.

## Dating and sender

The National Archives files the poster in Record Group 306, with the agency's posters distributed in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, as item 306-PPB-47. The rights line calls it "c. 1956 (undated)," and FRAME's date field reads 1956. The English title, "The Great Emancipator," is the catalog's; the archive renders the Nepali epithet on the sheet as "Great Liberator." No sender appears in the transcription, and the source is classed as blurred.

## The proclamation caption

FRAME tags glittering generalities and testimonial, and lists race and ethnicity among the themes. Most of the sheet is the familiar self-made story: a log hut, arithmetic done with charcoal on a board for lack of paper, the law, Congress, the presidency. It is an American story worth telling, and telling it abroad was a fair use of a public information service.

The fifth caption carries the weight. As the archive translates it, the proclamation "freed all the slaves" on 1 January 1863. The site's Civil War print case study gives a longer sequence: the proclamation took effect on that date, and the 1864 Republican platform called for an amendment abolishing slavery. A one-line caption cannot hold that much, and the archive flags this line as approximate, but the version a Nepali reader got is the shorter and tidier one.

The same file sent Lincoln to Asia more than once. A 1954 Heroes Day sheet put him over one line, "All men are created equal." Both sheets are among the agency's Lincoln posters in the civil rights era gallery.

## Sources

- FRAME object record, Abraham Lincoln poster, 47: The Great Emancipator (Nepali poster distributed in Asia), c. 1956 (undated). U.S. Information Agency (predecessor: State Department IIEP), Propaganda Posters Distributed in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East series.

- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 306, NAID 6948836 (306-PPB-47), retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work).

Canonical: https://americanpropaganda.org/collection/abraham-lincoln-great-emancipator-nepali-poster-47/