USA - Illinois - Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum is a 200,000 square-foot, state-of-the-art complex in Springfield Illinois, complimented by a miraculously restored Union Station Visitor Center and park (completion scheduled 2006). The Library and Museum complex will not only preserve history - it will make history by enabling millions of visitors from around the world to experience the Lincoln story in its entirety, as nowhere else.

Sent by Nick from Chicago, USA.

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum documents the life of the 16th U.S. president, Abraham Lincoln, and the course of the American Civil War. Combining traditional scholarship with 21st-century showmanship techniques, the museum ranks as one of the most visited presidential libraries. 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, and is overseen as an agency of the state’s government; unlike the fifteen other presidential libraries and museums, it is not currently affiliated with the National Archives and Records Administration.

The museum contains life-size dioramas of Lincoln's boyhood home, areas of the White House, the presidential box at Ford's Theatre, 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, Emancipation Proclamation, his glasses and shaving mirror, Mary Todd Lincoln's music box, items from her White House china, 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 Institution. 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 (read more).