Sunday, March 1, 2009

Falling in Love with Lincoln

Artist Maira Kalman posted an lengthy illustrated piece about Abraham Lincoln on her blog at The New York Times. Entitled "In Love with Lincoln," the piece is a personal reflection of her relationship with the memory of Lincoln. Intercutting parts of Lincoln's biography and Lincoln artifacts with mundane things like going out to breakfast before visiting a museum.

The piece is lots of fun, well-researched and thoughtful. The invitation to Sunday social from Mrs. Maira Lincoln is particularly amusing. And it is another reminder of how palpably Lincoln's legacy surrounds us.

Although Kalman does not say, it seems that this visual essay is inspired by a new online project supported by the Rosenbach Museum and Library, called 21st Century Abe. This site is an effort to document six months of "the popular Abe" that we encounter in advertising, movies, and other things, and consider how this incarnation relates to the historical Lincoln.

Click here to read -- and see -- "In Love with Lincoln."

(A tip of the cap to other blogs where I discovered this visual essay: President Lincoln's Cottage, The Abraham Lincoln Observer, and Civil War Memory.)

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