Today was spent at the Lincoln Museum. It was wonderful. I knew when the theater host said, " Please verify that all electronic devices have been adjusted for light and sound," that I'd gotten my money's worth. The frosting on the cake was in each of the exhibits. The curators did an excellent job of presenting the controversy and rancor that swirled around Lincoln's election and handling of the war. An exhibit of cartoons of the day, and there were many of them, displayed them in trapazoidal frames to visually represent the manic nature of the comments. In addition to the visual, there was an audio running of things people said about Lincoln ... about Mary, too. They were super mean and super critical! A continuation of that theme was in a corridor where faces that would flash up, all of them giving their opinion of what should be done, of how Lincoln's decisions were wrong. They sounded just like contemporary Americans.
Another clever exhibit was with Tim Russet. He did a news report on the election of 1860, comparing the 4 candidates' positions ... clever! To see how it would have played in current time made it seem like today, though for the museum there was no negativity. I guess they'd taken care of that with the cartoons!
One thing that was very interesting to me is that during the 1860 election, Lincoln and the Republicans translated documents for immigrants. The Republican platform was printed in Spanish for CA voters, and an abridged campaign biography of Lincoln was printed in Welsh, German, French and Dutch. In the 1862 mid-term election, Italian documents were added.
Since the war overshadows the story of the Lincoln presidency, it was interesting to learn some of the other things he accomplished. I knew that he was very interested in science and technology, but didn't realize that his interest translated into passing legislation that helped advance it. In 1862 he signed: Legal Tender Act (paper money), Morrill Tariff Act (raised $$ for war and protected agricultural prices), Homestead Act (160 acres to folks who would farm land), Land Grant College Act, Pacific Railroad Act (transcontinental rail). In 1863 he signed the National Bank Bill to provide a national structure to banking. Also, he created the Dept. of Agriculture. All of that taken together really changed the focus from an agrarian economy to a more technological one.
Another exhibit consisted of a large wall of pictures of people during the Civil War. What made the wall amazing was that each picture was also in a computer display, and on the computer you could click on the picture to retrieve more information. The anecdotes that accompanied each picture were fascinating.
After four hours in the museum, I went outside to the plaza at the Visitor's Center. Two great statues were there; I'm including two shots of the one at the right because of the top hat. I love the fact that he kept all sorts of notes in his hat ... notes for speeches, for legal matters, receipts, etc. What a guy! And what nice detail for the sculptor to include.
Enlightening to read about the translations for immigrants for the election and the passage of those bills.
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