Monday
Feb092009
Lincoln making his way back
Monday, February 9, 2009 at 3:05PM
by Christina Lovato, University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service
The U.S. Library of Congress will open up its new “With Malice Toward None: The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition” for the public on February 12, 2009, in celebration of the 200th birthday of America’s 16th president. The Library of Congress holds the largest Lincoln collection in the world which is made up of 20,000 items.
The exhibit includes letters, photographs, political cartoons, period engravings, speeches, and artifacts of Lincoln. It also includes the 1861 inaugural Bible used by President Barack Obama for his swearing-in ceremony, contents of Lincoln’s pockets on the night he was assassinated, and photographs of the Lincoln family.
Dr. James Billington, the Librarian of Congress said “This exhibit is utterly unique... First and foremost, it represents the first opportunity the general public has had in 50 years to see the original versions in Lincoln’s own hand of his greatest and most transformative speeches.” The exhibition includes the reading copy of his Gettysburg Address, the first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation and his personal notebooks.
The Library of Congress Exhibition Director, Cheryl Regan, said that putting together the exhibition took a number of years. “The challenge for an exhibition is how to sort of focus what we’re doing to tell a story that’s coherent.” Regan also said that this concentration of Lincoln documents has not been shown since 1959 at the Library of Congress.
The exhibition will be open to the public this Thursday, Feb. 12th, and will be at the Library of Congress until May 2009 after which it will be at 6 other sites in the United States. The exhibition can be accessed online as well on the Library of Congress web site.
The U.S. Library of Congress will open up its new “With Malice Toward None: The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition” for the public on February 12, 2009, in celebration of the 200th birthday of America’s 16th president. The Library of Congress holds the largest Lincoln collection in the world which is made up of 20,000 items.
The exhibit includes letters, photographs, political cartoons, period engravings, speeches, and artifacts of Lincoln. It also includes the 1861 inaugural Bible used by President Barack Obama for his swearing-in ceremony, contents of Lincoln’s pockets on the night he was assassinated, and photographs of the Lincoln family.
Dr. James Billington, the Librarian of Congress said “This exhibit is utterly unique... First and foremost, it represents the first opportunity the general public has had in 50 years to see the original versions in Lincoln’s own hand of his greatest and most transformative speeches.” The exhibition includes the reading copy of his Gettysburg Address, the first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation and his personal notebooks.
The Library of Congress Exhibition Director, Cheryl Regan, said that putting together the exhibition took a number of years. “The challenge for an exhibition is how to sort of focus what we’re doing to tell a story that’s coherent.” Regan also said that this concentration of Lincoln documents has not been shown since 1959 at the Library of Congress.
The exhibition will be open to the public this Thursday, Feb. 12th, and will be at the Library of Congress until May 2009 after which it will be at 6 other sites in the United States. The exhibition can be accessed online as well on the Library of Congress web site.
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