Lincoln Exhibit and Conference at The Huntington Library

The Huntington Library, a large research library in San Marino, California, is currently hosting a special exhibit celebrating the Lincoln bicentennial.  "The Last Full Measure of Devotion: Collecting Abraham Lincoln" runs from February 7 through April 27.  It draws on Hunington's well-regarded Lincoln collection, which was begin by the namesake Henry Hunington himself in the early 1900s.  (Huntington was one of the first deep-pocketed southern California Lincolniana collectors, the beginning of a line that continues with Louise Taper today.)

The heart of Huntington's holdings lies in several turn of the century Lincolniana collections that were acquired in the 1910s and 1920s, including the personal papers of Ward Hill Lamon.  These resources were most extensively consulted by Lincoln biographers before 1947, when the Abraham Lincoln Papers became publicly accessible at the Library of Congress.  (Lincoln's son Robert stipulated when he made his bequest that the papers would not become public until 21 years after his own death.)

The Library's guide to the exhibition is available here.

In conjunction with this exhibit, Huntington is also holding a two-day conference, "A Lincoln for the Twenty-First Century" on April 3-4.  The conference boasts a well-known list of Lincoln scholars, including Harold Holzer (probably giving the same lecture he gave at the Library of Congress this month), Richard Carwardine, and James McPherson.  The topics look particularly interesting, ranging from Lincoln and the Mexican War (Daniel Walker Howe) to Lincoln and Ralph Waldo Emerson (Stephen Cushman) to Lincoln and the West (McPherson).  The full program is available here.

New Lincoln Books This Week

The spate of new Lincoln books continues with two important titles this week, both companions to bicentennial Lincoln exhibits in Washington, DC. While companion books are not always brimming with new scholarship, they usually have lots of high quality photos, and as such are to be recommended.

On January 27

Abraham Lincoln: An Extraordinary Life (Smithsonian Institution Press, 2009, paperback, 128 pages)

This is the companion volume one of several Lincoln-related exhibits sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution this year. Unlike some of the other exhibits, the Smithsonian is clear that all of the artifacts in this are from the Smithsonian collection, including one of the few authentic stovepipe hats that can be proved to have been worn by Lincoln.

Here is the website for the exhibition, "Abraham Lincoln: An Extraordinary Life." This exhibit at the National Museum of American History opened earlier in January and is tentatively scheduled to be open until January 2011.

I'm looking forward to visiting this exhibit when I'm in DC next. And I imagine I will have to pick up a copy of the book, if only for the photos, as a memento.

In Lincoln's Hand: His Original Manuscripts with Commentary by Distinguished Americans, edited by Harold Holzer and Joshua Wolf Shenk (Bantam, 2009, hardcover, 208 pages)

This book is the companion of the Library of Congress upcoming exhibit: "With Malice Toward None": The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition, which is scheduled to open on Lincoln's birthday. (Exhibit website not available; here's the Library of Congress press release.)

This is an intriguing volume, pairing photographs of actual Lincoln documents, personally written by Lincoln, with reflections from a mixture of famous Americans and Lincoln/Civil War scholars. And it is edited by Lincoln editor extraordinaire, Harold Holzer, which means that it should be good (most of his edited stuff is). And, while I haven't seen the book, I'm sure the photographs are high quality and well lit, meaning that these items will probably be easier to read than if you were looking at them directly.

Like many new books, this one has its own (admittedly modest) website.

Signed Emancipation Proclamation on Display

There's a story here about a signed copy of the Emancipation Proclamation, which has been loaned to the National Museum of American History for display in one of their two bicentennial Lincoln exhibitions.

There are several printed copies of the Emancipation Proclamation that Lincoln personally signed. These artifacts were created by Lincoln to be auctioned off at various fund-raisers that earned money for the war effort, often supporting wounded veterans.

In fact, Lincoln gave his personal copy of the final draft of the Emancipation Proclamation, which is a combination of cuttings from the preliminary proclamation and Lincoln's handwritten additions to the text (with a few lines evidently hand-written by a secretary). This copy was purchased by the Chicago Historical Society, and was destroyed in the Chicago Fire of 1871. However, a photographic copy of the draft survives and can be viewed here.