The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum documents the life of the 16th

U.S. president The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal government of t ...

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War ...

, and the course of the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

. Combining traditional scholarship with 21st-century showmanship techniques, the museum ranks as one of the most visited

presidential libraries A presidential library, presidential center, or presidential museum is a facility either created in honor of a former president and containing their papers, or affiliated with a country's presidency. In the United States * The presidential lib ...

. Its library, in addition to housing an extensive collection on Lincoln, also houses the collection of the Illinois State Historical Library, founded by the state in 1889. The library and museum is located in the state capital of

Springfield, Illinois Springfield is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Illinois. Its population was 114,394 at the 2020 United States census, which makes it the state's List of cities in Illinois, seventh-most populous cit ...

, and is overseen as an agency of state government. It is not affiliated with the U.S. National Archives and its system of libraries.

Collection

Museum exhibits

2013-08-04 AbrahamLincoln PresidentialLibrary and Museum

The museum contains life-size dioramas of Lincoln's boyhood home, areas of the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest (Washington, D.C.), NW in Washington, D.C., it has served as the residence of every U.S. president ...

, the presidential box at

Ford's Theatre Ford's Theatre is a theater located in Washington, D.C., which opened in 1863. The theater is best known for being the site of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. On the night of April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth entered the theater box where ...

, and the settings of key events in Lincoln's life, as well as pictures, artifacts and other memorabilia. Original artifacts are changed from time to time, but the collection usually includes items such as the original hand written

Gettysburg Address The Gettysburg Address is a Public speaking, speech delivered by Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, U.S. president, following the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. The speech has come to be viewed as one ...

Emancipation Proclamation The Emancipation Proclamation, officially Proclamation 95, was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War. The Proclamation had the eff ...

, his glasses and shaving mirror,

Mary Todd Lincoln Mary Ann Todd Lincoln (Birth name, née Todd; December 13, 1818July 16, 1882) was First Lady of the United States from 1861 until the assassination of her husband, President Abraham Lincoln, in 1865. Mary Todd was born into a large and wealthy ...

's music box, items from her

White House china The White House china refers to the various patterns of china (porcelain) used for serving and eating food in the White House, home of the president of the United States. Different china services have been ordered and used by different presidenti ...

, her wedding dress, and more. The permanent exhibits are divided into two stages of the president's life, called "Journey One: The Pre-Presidential Years", and "Journey Two: The Presidential Years", and a third, the "Treasures Gallery". Temporary exhibits are displayed in the "Illinois Gallery." Recent "Illinois Gallery" exhibits include "The Questioneers," a traveling exhibit inspired by Andrea Beaty's children's series on loan from the DuPage Children's Museum, as well as "Solidarity Now! The 1968 Poor People's Campaign," a traveling exhibit on loan from the Smithsonian Institute. Until April 20, 2025, the "Illinois Gallery" will contain the exhibit "Freedom in Form: Richard Hunt." This exhibit, which includes works that are mostly on loan from the Richard Hunt Trust, is the first in Illinois since Hunt's passing in December of 2023. It will be re-installed at the Loyola University of Art Museum in Chicago by July of 2025. One of the museum's permanent exhibits, "Campaign of 1860", includes modern-style television updates on the campaign's progress from the late ''

Meet the Press ''Meet the Press'' is a weekly American television Sunday morning talk show broadcast on NBC. It is the List of longest-running television shows by category, longest-running program on American television, though its format has changed since th ...

'' anchor

Tim Russert Timothy John Russert (May 7, 1950 – June 13, 2008) was an American television journalist and lawyer who appeared for more than 16 years as the longest-serving moderator of NBC's '' Meet the Press''. He was a senior vice president at NBC News a ...

. Another of the permanent exhibits, "The Civil War in Four Minutes," displays a large animated map which displays the changing battle lines of the Civil War in four minutes. In addition to its exhibits, the Lincoln Museum runs two theater shows with special effects: ''Lincoln's Eyes'' and ''Ghosts of the Library''. The "Under His Hat: Discovering Lincoln's Story From Primary Sources", is the home of the Lincoln Collection Digitization Project, a thematic online resource that features a 360-degree online view of his hat (the actual hat is, , also on display at the museum).

Burbank, California Burbank is a city in the southeastern end of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Located northwest of downtown Los Angeles, Burbank had a Census-estimated population of 102,755 as of 2023. The city was ...

-based

BRC Imagination Arts Bob Rogers is an American designer, producer, and director, most known for his work in themed entertainment. Rogers is founder and chairman of BRC Imagination Arts, a strategic design and production agency. Rogers oversees the creative element ...

, led by Bob Rogers, was responsible for all of the permanent exhibits and presentations, music, theaters, lifelike figures and full-immersion historical settings.

Library collection

The Lincoln Presidential Library is a research library which houses books, papers and artifacts related to Lincoln's life and the American Civil War. In addition to the works associated with Lincoln and his era, the library houses the collection of the Illinois State Historical Library (founded by the state in 1889) and serves as a premier repository of books, pamphlets, manuscripts, and other materials of historical interest pertaining to the history of the state of Illinois. While the library is open to the public, its rare collection is non-circulating. A reading room, named the "Steve Neal Reading Room" in honor of Illinois historical journalist Steve Neal, is open to the public.

Administration

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum was administered by the

Illinois Historic Preservation Agency The Illinois Historic Preservation Division, formerly Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, is a governmental agency of the U.S. state of Illinois, and is a division of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. It is tasked with the duty of ...

, until the Library and Museum was made into an independent state agency in 2017. Historian and former director of several presidential libraries,

Richard Norton Smith Richard Norton Smith (born October 2, 1953) is an American historian and author, specializing in United States presidents and other political figures. In the past, he worked as a freelance writer for ''The Washington Post'', and worked with U. ...

, served as the museum and library's founding executive director. Smith was succeeded by Rick Beard, who was fired in 2008 after being arrested for shoplifting. Jan Grimes served as interim director following Beard's dismissal. In 2010, Eileen R. Mackevich, MBE, was appointed director by Illinois Governor Pat Quinn. Mackevich formerly served as the executive director of the national

Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission (ALBC) was the congressionally created, 14-member federal commission focused on planning and commemorating the 200th birthday of the United States' Abraham Lincoln, 16th president on February 12, 2009 ...

. She was also active as a broadcast journalist and talk show host on Chicago public radio, and was the co-founder of the

Chicago Humanities Festival The Chicago Humanities Festival is a non-profit organization which hosts an annual series of lectures, concerts, and films in Chicago, Illinois, United States. There are two seasons each year, including a spring festival from April through May, an ...

. Mackevich's objectives were to raise money, and attract more international interest. She served until she resigned in October 2015. In 2016, Governor

Bruce Rauner Bruce Vincent Rauner (; born February 18, 1956) is an American businessman, venture capitalist, and politician who served as the 42nd governor of Illinois from 2015 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he had a decades-long career in inves ...

appointed Alan Lowe as director of the museum and library. He served as director of the

George W. Bush Presidential Center The George W. Bush Presidential Center, which opened on April 25, 2013, is a complex that includes former United States President George W. Bush's presidential library and museum, the George W. Bush Policy Institute, and the offices of the Geor ...

in Dallas, Texas, before accepting his position at the ALPLM. Lowe was fired in September 2019 for improperly loaning out ALPLM's original copy of the Gettysburg Address to

Glenn Beck Glenn Lee Beck (born February 10, 1964) is an American conservative political commentator, radio host, entrepreneur, and television producer. He is the CEO, founder, and owner of Mercury Radio Arts, the parent company of his television and rad ...

's non-profit group Mercury One. In March 2021, Christina Shutt was appointed as ALPLM's fifth executive director. She is the first person of color to serve in the position. Before coming to the ALPLM, she headed the

Mosaic Templars Cultural Center The Mosaic Templars Cultural Center is a nationally-accredited, world-class Department of Arkansas Heritage museum and cultural center in Little Rock, Arkansas, United States. Its mission is to collect, preserve, interpret, and celebrate African A ...

, the

State of Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the West South Central region of the Southern United States. It borders Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, Texas to the southwest, and Oklahoma to th ...

's African-American culture and history museum. As first lady of Illinois, Lura Lynn Ryan became a major fundraiser and the library's first chairwoman. She launched the fundraising for the library by raising $250,000. Ryan also organized a program in which Illinois schoolchildren collected pennies for the construction of the presidential library, which raised $47,000. Ryan was appointed to the 14-member Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission by the speaker of the United States House of Representatives to commemorate the 200th birthday of former U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in 2009. She served on the commission from 2001 to 2010.

Architecture

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum is located in Springfield, Illinois, in the historic downtown section, near many other Lincoln cultural sites. The presidential library opened on October 14, 2004, and the museum opened on April 19, 2005. Until 1970,

in Washington, D.C. was designated as the "Lincoln Museum". The buildings which now house the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum are in three separate structures. Each structure encompasses one city block. Two of the buildings, the museum and the library, are separated by a street and connected above the street level by an enclosed walkway. The entrance of each building features a

rotunda A rotunda () is any roofed building with a circular ground plan, and sometimes covered by a dome. It may also refer to a round room within a building (an example being the one below the dome of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.). ...

, reflective of the

dome A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a m ...

on the Old State Capitol in Springfield, where Lincoln served four terms as a

legislator A legislator, or lawmaker, is a person who writes and passes laws, especially someone who is a member of a legislature. Legislators are often elected by the people, but they can be appointed, or hereditary. Legislatures may be supra-nat ...

. Both structures were designed by the architectural firm HOK. The third building, the former Springfield Union Station, had originally been adapted to serve as the museum's visitor center. However, since early 2014, the station has, instead, housed an exhibit called "Lincoln: History to Hollywood", which displays two sets, as well as several props and costumes, from the 2012 film ''

Lincoln Lincoln most commonly refers to: * Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the 16th president of the United States * Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England * Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S. * Lincoln (na ...

'', directed by

Steven Spielberg Steven Allan Spielberg ( ; born December 18, 1946) is an American filmmaker. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, Spielberg is widely regarded as one of the greatest film directors of all time and is ...

. The sets, props, and costumes are on loan to the museum directly from Spielberg himself, and will remain on display (with costumes rotating in and out) through December 2019.

Debate over exhibit design and education of history

The museum has sparked debate within the field of museum design and among historians for its use of theatrics and reproductions to tell the Lincoln story. Public response has been positive, delivering larger than expected attendance, enthusiastic visitors and a boost to the regional economy, including increased attendance at surrounding historical attractions. However, museum traditionalists have disapproved of this departure from the display and interpretation of real artifacts.

Southern Illinois University Carbondale Southern Illinois University (SIU) is a public research university in Carbondale, Illinois, United States. Chartered in 1869, SIU is the oldest and flagship campus of the Southern Illinois University system. SIU enrolls students from all 50 sta ...

historian John Y. Simon has said the museum's approach, which borrows presentation technologies from entertainment, trivializes the subject matter. Suggesting that it is more like a theme park than a museum, Simon called the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum a "Six Flags Over Lincoln" and architecture critic

Blair Kamin Blair Kamin was the architecture critic of the ''Chicago Tribune'', for 28 years from 1992 to 2021. Kamin has held other jobs at the Tribune and previously worked for ''The Des Moines Register''. He also serves as a contributing editor of ''Archit ...

referred to it as "Lincoln Land". Other academics applaud the Lincoln Museum's approach. John R. Decker wrote in the ''

Journal of American History ''The Journal of American History'' is the quarterly official academic journal of the Organization of American Historians. It covers the field of American history and was established in 1914 as the ''Mississippi Valley Historical Review'', the o ...

'':

Like any other modern collection he Lincoln Presidential Museumhas an audience base that extends far beyond specialists and academics. Rather than merely pandering to the public or dumbing down history, the ALPLM intelligently and compellingly uses visual culture to meet its mission as a public pedagogical institution. The museum addresses complex historical material and opens the historical discourse to a wider audience than would be possible through more conventional means.

The scholarship behind the content and design for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum was a collaboration between international exhibit designers, BRC Imagination Arts, the

(IHPA), and a content team assembled by State Historian Thomas H. Schwartz. This content team included the world's leading Lincoln scholars,

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...

winning historians, and Illinois school teachers representing the fourth, seventh and eleventh grades. A key goal of this collective was that exhibits promote a greater level of personal interest in Abraham Lincoln. The museum's gift shop has seen record sales of history books. Overall sales in the gift shop hit $1 million within three months of the museum's opening to the public.

Controversies

Questions have been raised over the provenance of a

stovepipe hat A top hat (also called a high hat, or, informally, a topper) is a tall, flat-crowned hat traditionally associated with formal wear in Western dress codes, meaning white tie, morning dress, or frock coat. Traditionally made of black silk or som ...

in the museum's collection said to have been worn by Lincoln and valued at $6.5 million. In 2019, the library director was fired after he sent a copy of the

written by Lincoln himself to

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

for an exhibit by political commentator

without prior clearance. In 2024, the museum's acquisition of a 21-star

US flag The national flag of the United States, often referred to as the American flag or the U.S. flag, consists of thirteen horizontal Bar (heraldry), stripes, Variation of the field, alternating red and white, with a blue rectangle in the Canton ( ...

said to date from 1818 marking Illinois's statehood was placed under scrutiny after vexillologists said the flag may have actually dated from the

. An investigation was also opened by state authorities over irregularities in funding for its purchase, which cost the museum $15,625.

Record attendance

Since its opening in April 2005, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum has ranked as America's most visited state-controlled presidential museum. In about six months the museum generated about $1 million. In less than twenty-one months, the museum received its one millionth visitor. In August 2012, the museum received its three millionth visitor, with the steady attendance continuing. Museum officials credited the

movie ''

'' for an increase in visitors in 2013, as the museum displayed artifacts from the film.

Awards

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum has been recognized with two awards: a Thea Award for Outstanding Achievement from the

Themed Entertainment Association The Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) is an international non-profit association that represents creators, developers, designers and producers of themed entertainment. It is also noted for its Thea Awards, which were founded in 1995 and a ...

, and an award from The Lincoln Group of New York, which every year honors "the individual or organization that has done the most to encourage the study and appreciation of Abraham Lincoln". In 2022, the Library and Museum was in the process of getting accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.

References

External links

Illinois Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission

ALPLM Web Camera

Illinois Historic Preservation Agency

The Lincoln Group of New York

* [http://speakingofhistory.blogspot.com/2007/06/podcast-91-interview-with-erin-bishop.html Speaking of History Podcast interview with Erin Bishop - Director of Education for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum] {{Authority control Abraham Lincoln National Heritage Area Museums established in 2005 Library buildings completed in 2004 Libraries in Illinois Museums in Springfield, Illinois Lincoln, Abraham Presidential museums in Illinois 2005 establishments in Illinois